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Paramount Styles

Scott McLoud: It's our first concert for the new album

Dimitris Antonopoulos spoke with Scott McLoud for the second album of Paramount Styles, their concert in Athens, Girls against Boys, Iggy Pop and Rock n Roll.
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Paramount Styles

Paramount Styles are Scott McCloud and Alexis Fleisig - the singer and drummer of the legendary Girls Against Boys, one of the best bands of the 90’s. Paramount Styles will perform at An Club on this Friday 26 November 2010.

Dimitris Antonopoulos spoke with Scott McLoud for the second album of Paramount Styles, their concert in Athens, Girls against Boys, Iggy Pop and Rock n Roll.


1. 'Heaven's Allright' sounds like a great title for an album. Any details about it?

Whenever making a record I spend a lot of time thinking about the title because of course a title is going to add context to the music. For this new album I was considering other titles but one night ‘Heaven’s Alright’ just came to me and seemed perfect for this record, for this band and for me as a musician having been around for perhaps far too long. The title is purposely ambiguous, hopefully works on several levels: Have I died and gone to Heaven already and if so is Heaven only all right? Shouldn’t Heaven be better than all right? The history of Heaven as an idea is pretty interesting in and of itself...

Michelangelo painted church ceilings to give the attending congregation the feeling that if they looked UP, they were looking up straight into the glory of Heaven itself (and there was perhaps some fear in the idea too). We all have different ideas about even the concept of Heaven and Hell, but underneath it all.. Heaven is perhaps simply a place we cannot get to in this life. And even if we can get there in this life, it’s probably only a visit, we can’t live there (that’s my view anyway). Maybe we feel it for a moment, but we know that moment is elusive.

To be in a heavenly state of mind for all eternity, seems imposibility... And as a concept Heaven (as well as Hell, of course, which is the part I don’t mention in the title but we can be sure it is there) continues to fascinate the human mind. For me the philosophical question is more interesting than the religious aspect... And on a more personal level at this stage in my life, and music, it often feels like my time, era, of music is past. But evidently I am still here, doing something, perhaps speaking to you from the other side of all the trappings of money, fame and what not that went down in the 90s or whatever.. So maybe I have died and gone to Heaven, and I’m saying, it’s OK, that’s all right.

2. How do you feel about ATHENS gig? Any comments for the fans here Scott?

Scott McLoudI have to say I am very happy to basically be presenting Paramount Styles for the first live full band gig for this album, our first such concert in more than a year, and to be doing that in Athens (instead of London, Brussels, New York or Amsterdam, etc...).
Why not Athens? Athens, “Heaven’s Alright”, Paramount Styles... I don’t know, it all looks pretty good to me, like it goes together somehow. Maybe it was meant to be. And it goes almost without saying, I am grateful to the people organizing the show, as well as attending, and making it possible.

3. 'I keep loosing you' really shakes the dust (laughs!) tell me about this one. Τhe story of the song, you know.

‘I Keep Losing’ you is a sort of American Highway song... The guitar riff made me think of desolate Texas highway at night and I imagined I was a character in a story... “I got a long black Cadillac says I’m coming back, and if that doesn’t work I got a gun if you wanna run”... I imagined a sort of desperate character, in a car, dreaming of some sort of revenge on the world for his apparently dark and meaningless existence, driving into Dallas, Texas, seeing the skyline at night, ranting and raving cryptic messages from the past. A character who felt the world slipping away, as if everything was only being lost... I keep losing you. And yes, I could identify with the character... (ha)

4. GIRLS AGAINST BOYS in few words. Looking back... Touching from a distance?

 Girls Against Boys was a great time, a “real cool time”.... I think we were inspired, we were lucky, we were desperate and we wanted something and to convey something both about music and life in our songs and we were very lucky, through all the people we met, to have had that opportunity to make the records we did. I still believe in the music. We were great, maybe not the greatest, but we were great. I look to those times now, often, and they add colour to the Paramount songs. Nostaglia is a part of it, but it’s also, always WAS a part of it... We knew it wouldn’t last forever, we hoped to make it last as long as it could.

Paramount Styles5. Just 5 names, just a comment by you.. So, SCOTT WALKER, IGGY POP, ROKY ERICKSON, KINGS OF LEON, ARCADE FIRE.

 Iggy Pop is the icon of independent rock. Especially in New York, and you still hear his influence everywhere. That idea of the wild rock frontman, lost and out of control. Perhaps everyone would like to be that person, for a moment at least. That’s the mythology of rock and roll and Iggy embodies that. I don’t know enough about Roky Erickson and Scott Walker to comment. Kings of Leon have some great songs and I liked what I heard from their last album. It’s nice to hear some real rock guitars in popular music these days. Arcade Fire: what I have heard from the new album is phenomenal music, of a wide variety. This seems like a band that can challenge itself and its listeners at the same time... great stuff.

6. And for the end.. Whats Rock & Roll? Miracle workers & illusions or Cheap hotel rooms & sandwiches...

Rock & Roll is a mythology based in large part on nostalgia... On the idea that we will only have these times to look back on when we were young and free. That’s the idea. And when you’re 14 years old you already have that seed of nostalgia in you: THIS WILL NOT LAST. It is an illusion, in large part. Life goes on and in most cases you are still there. The wild party ends, and you are still there. Like staying up late at night talking to friends about dreams... Maybe it never amounted to anything, but they were good dreams. I was glad to have them to keep me company.

THANK YOU SCOTT


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