The two gents involved Ralph and Zach are brothers and they're French. However, one of them and we won't tell you which one, has defected to England.
Of course, one has to ask, with the Euro and all that, does one have to defect anymore? Anyway, here's what they have to say about music...
1. The first album I ever owned was?
R: Pantera, The Great Southern Trendkill.
I picked it up on a shelf in a disc store as a teenager just because of the explicit lyrics warning. I didn’t even know the band. Dimebag’s style always impressed me so much as a kid, the end solo with the rain sound on the song Floods still gives me goose bumps.
Z: Raph got me a compilation from a big supermarket for Christmas when I was probably 10 or 11. It was the first time I had some rock songs on CD.
I can’t remember well but there might have been some Alien Ant Farm and Linkin Park on it, maybe a track by Marilyn Manson as well.
2. My favorite album of all time is....
R: This is a very hard question. I guess I’ll always rank Blackwater Park from Opeth in the top of my influence and musical tastes.
There are many huge albums from other bands, and Opeth did many masterpieces, but I regularly come back to this one.
Z: This changes often, but I’d go for From Mars to Sirius by Gojira. I’ve been obsessed with Gojira for years and this album has amazing songs, impeccable production and so much emotion.
This being said, I can think of several albums from the 70’s era I consider as all time favourites too.
3. The album with the best art is...
R: The artwork of Terria by Devin Townsend is amazing. I believe Travis Smith did it, it goes from numeric collage to arte povera and every page is a piece of art. That goes perfectly with the music.
Z: Best art is hard to define, I’m not sure what direction I prefer: beautiful, scary, socially engaged… so many choices! Lately I’ve been amazed by the ...Like Clockwork by Queens of the Stone Age.
The art on the cover and inside the vinyl as well as in the videos was stunning. Though I have to mention Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd too...
4. My favorite heavy metal album of all time is...
R: When I want to remind myself how heavy music should sound, I play Station from Russian Circles.
I remember buying the vinyl at the end of a show in Lyon, still ringing and shaking from the amount of bass and distortion I just went through.
Z: Classic heavy metal for me is Pantera. Just wow. It hardly gets heavier than this. I’d pick Cowboys From Hell but their two following albums are close by.
5. My favorite album of all time (Any genre is)
R: I’ll go with Casualties of Cool. It’s an amazing one time collaboration between Devin Townsend and Ché Aimee Dorval.
This is what happens when you give a metalhead a single-coil tele and tons of reverb. It is the prettiest and scariest music.
Z: Another torturous question! I go back to Wasting Lights by the Foo Fighters regularly. The songwriting, the lyrics, the fact it was recorded at home, and rad drums…
A classic for me.
6. My favorite live album of all time is...
R: I’ll pick And So I Watch You From Afar, they did a five track recording with Audiotree live.
What I love about this is that they use so many effects, the music is all over the place, and they still manage to stay as good as on the studio record.
No backing-track, no sample, no axeFX, I realized that you can use crazy effects and still play coherent and authentic songs live.
Z: I think Nirvana MTV Unplugged from New York is on the top of the list, it’s fragile and badass all at once.
7. My favorite album format is.....
R: I love concept albums on vinyl. It’s like owning a book, you have a story with a big and cool visual support in your hand.
You’ll still be able to play it with the same quality in ten years. Although I love to get short EPs from bands I love, I really enjoy when the story makes you want to listen the album from the first to the last song.
Z: Vinyl is my favourite too. You can hold it, it’s the right size for the art, it has dynamics… It’s an experience.
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