dEUS

Here's the worst case scenario. dEUS, the band whose name reads as if you've got your CapsLock key stuck on your keyboard, are in Ireland for three dates, but if vocalist Tom Barman's bad back gets any worse they might not be able to get through them. When I meet him in Belfast he tells me that it has been going on for eight months and he hasn't been able to find a cure, having tried acupuncturists, painkillers, the lot.
I feel very fortunate that he has taken time to do his scheduled interviews before he's whisked off for a pre-gig visit to the doctor. In fact we're fortunate to have this Belgian bunch here at all. Sales wise they've gone down in England, Ireland and Germany - selling only about 1000 copies of 'In A Bar, Under the Sea' in Ireland, and although the Irish gigs have sold out the dEUS story suggests the old adage that good reviews don't translate into sales.

The press has written a lot about them and an amazing statistic is that they've been compared to 150 bands (and that number dates from '96). Everything from the Clash to Big Black in fact. What does Tom think of the comparisons and who does he think they're like?
"I would definitely say that we have the same kind of auto-destructive qualities that the Velvet Underground had - like writing pretty nice tunes then fucking them up. It's definitely something inside me - when I write something like that I think 'this is too normal!', so... We have surprising influences though, like techno, and the Mo'wax thing was a revelation for me, people like DJ Krush, DJ Shadow, Money Mark.

So what has changed for dEUS since their first album?
"What's changed? Well, there has been a line-up change for a start. Personally, we get on better now. Rudi Trouve always wanted to go on and do his own stuff, and he is really happy now because he's making three albums a year and releasing them on the labels he chooses. So I'm really happy for him, I see him regularly. Stef was a difficult departure obviously but he went to do Moondog Jr - they're now called Zita Swoon because they got sued - and they'll probably have a new record out around the time of our next one. But there's no grudge anymore. We've changed in that we're tighter now, and for me personally I've taken distance of the nonchalance of the early days. That was good at the time but....! I don't want to be a really professional 'rock machine' but I do want us to put on a good show. I want to go out and go 'bangbangbangbang!' like the last Pixies shows - tons of great songs non-stop. We still improvise though, and there are middle eights and endings which we change every night, but inbetween I like to keep it tight."

Some people have said that 'In A Bar' had more studio trickery and samples - is this a possible road you will go down to a greater extent in the future?
"Well, there may be more of that, but always within the confines of a good song, although what I'm doing at home now is the opposite of that. I take my record collection and steal things from it, basically! The interesting thing is then to bring that to the band and start working on it. It's something that we've taken out of context - it don't see it as 'stealing'. People like Beck and to an extent U2, do a great job in combining new technology and great songs."

What about the lyrical lifts -I've spotted some by Bruce Springsteen and the Blue Nile for instance.
"The reason for that is very simple. I always have the music first and the lyrics come after, so what I do sometimes to get a melody line for my music I just take sleeves from my record collection and read them, and 95% of the time I just put them back, but in the Springsteen case it just sounded so good I just kept it."

You are still based very much in Belgium. Is it a good place to make music?
"Definitely. The more I am out of Belgium the mor I like to come back there, that you get to see the charming side and the good things about it."

So was it difficult for you to get noticed initially, as a a result of your Antwerp base?
"We were so lucky. We played our first gig outside Belgium and we got signed as a result. We came over to London to play with Girls Against Boys, who incidentally are now good friends of ours, and all the record companies came to see them, and the guy who signed us never actually saw us that night but he heard from so many people who were saying 'check out that German band/ that Swiss band/ whatever!' and he got real interested and then we ended up being courted by all the big labels, but we went with him in the end."

And you're known for having people collaborate with you - like on the last album you had Scott from GVSB and Dana from Morphine.
"Yeah, they're just friends of ours. It's proof of our absolute freedom of working. It's not something we do deliberately, it's not like we're saying 'look at the great friends we have!' I mean we passed someone in Dublin yesterday playing a saw in the street and we reckoned that would sound good on one of our songs. As long as we all agree - or even if one can argue really well and convinve the rest of us! Scott from GVSB's monolgue just happened by accident really - he wanted to play the violin, but we said 'we already have a violin player', so we just recorded him talking about this great book he'd read, so that's where all the stuff about being your own dog comes from!"

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