Meet Montevideo,
a 4 piece band from Brussels, Belgium — fronted by Jean Waterlot (vocals, keys), Manu Simonis (guitar, strings), Gabriel Reding (bass), and Pierre Waterlot (drums).
The band, named after the capital of Uruguay, formed sometime in 2001 and has been active in the Belgian and European Indie music scenes since. They say that they adopted the moniker because it “was by far the most enchanting suggestion;” though because of it they have nurtured a certain interest for the South American city.
Montevideo released its debut self-titled album in 2006 and after some touring and chillin’ hard, the group is now currently working on its sophomore release.
These chillbros took some time from their album making campaign to take part in this Q&A sesh with Sweetest Drip
….oh, yeah, here are some sweet jams to go with your leisurely reading:
Montevideo – Horses (Radio Edit)
Roddy: How would you describe your sound?
Montevideo: Our sound is hard to define on its own, due to our way of exploring many genres without real barriers. In a sense we digest things we like and spread them into musical patchworks. From there, it becomes chemistry till I write lyrics and explore with the four of us the birth of a song.
If you listen to our music I guess you could imagine a random project where Bowie and Robert Smith meet Pink Floyd, who decides to make some dance music together in the Krautrock era with a 2012 producer (laugh).
Roddy: The four of you have varied and distinct musical tastes, how has this influenced Montevideo’s sound?
Montevideo: As we compose the tracks together, you can find all those different musical tastes in our sound. I have my roots in Jazz and 90’s Pop and House Music, my brother Pierre in 80’s grooving rock and new wave, Gabriel is more into 90’s funk but is a big fan of U2 (early period) and Manu is a 70’s progressive rock music and 90’s alternative rock.
But we also have common ones, as we were teenagers in the 90’s, we all listened to bands like Pixies, Nirvana, Cypress Hill, EMF, the 90’s dance music and techno. Those are just examples, the list is too long. All those artist influenced our actual sound in their way, which make it difficult to classify, a cross between several styles and decades.
Montevideo – Fate & Glory
Roddy: Please, guide us through your creative process. What is Montevideo’s dynamic like when making new music?
Montevideo: Typically, we first find some gimmick playing together, or pieces of songs that we start on our own, then we record each in our old crappy computer.
In the second phase, we make some arrangements, we put all the ideas we can have on the emerging track in a brainstorming way. Then I try to find a strong singing melody, then I write the text. In the last phase, we put everything together, make a structure, keep some ideas and throw away many of them.
Usually, it takes a long time ’cause we really dig the track in a lot of directions, and we don’t want to sound obviously like another band.
Monte Video – Tribal Dance
Roddy: You guys have opened for Muse and worked with the likes of Joakim,; what other musicians would you like to work with in the future?
Montevideo: A lot of musicians and producers!! I’ll probably forget some names, but names like James Murphy, Erol Alkan, Philippe Zdar and living legends like Brian Eno are the first one that come in my head!
Roddy: In your bio it says this is not the first version of Montevideo, how have changes in the line-up affected the band?
Montevideo: Julien our former bass player left the band to launch himself in band management, his departure pushed our music in another direction, in something more melodic, more written, less post punk 80’s music.
Roddy: What’s the music scene like in Belgium?
Montevideo: A bunch of good artists, there s something going on around Belgium these days (that’s what our manager keeps on saying), Brussels is pretty much in the center of Europe (1h30 away from Paris, London not far from Berlin neither), bands are emerging with no complex and are crossing and mixing all these cultures into their very own interpretation of “the Music.”
And as we are a small country, we get different influences more easily from other countries at our borders… bands are making their own music without a strong stamp. Everybody knows everybody, it’s a very small country, we have to export ourselves quickly or die, which make the Belgian artists sound difficult to recognize and special at the same time…
Montevideo – Sluggish Lovers (Compuphonic & Cosy Mozzy Rmx)
Roddy: You guys have been working on an upcoming album. Is there a set release date? What is the album’s title?
Montevideo: No release date until now, we hope to make it around September. We are actually working on our album’s title, it’s very important for us.
Roddy: Any upcoming shows? Any plans to come play to the US?
Montevideo: We have a lot of interest from bookers all around Europe, nothing planned for the US until now but we’d gladly come play in your country, especially after our stay in DFA studios in NY, we really enjoyed the city and the people living there!! Your country is huge, we have to plan a month touring at least 🙂
