INTERVIEW: Brutus

Belgium is having a lot of success with up and coming bands at the minute; the likes of STEAK NUMBER EIGHT and OATHBREAKER have shown their mettle impressively over the last decade. BRUTUS are the next to come off the country’s heavy conveyor belt, but there’s nothing formulaic about them in the slightest; new album Nest is a wonderful display of post-metal and post-punk talent. We recently caught up with all three members, drummer/vocalist Stefanie Mannaert, guitarist Stijn Vanhoegaerden and bassist Peter Mulders, to get the full lowdown on their rise through the ranks.

Guys, thank you for all joining me this evening. To start off, have you managed to catch up with the whirlwind of momentum that Burst gave you as a band?

Stijn: Yeah, I think so! The three of us never thought the first record was going to really be something so that was a surprise for us, but all the shows we’ve played over the last couple of years since Burst came out have been wonderful and now we have the second record ready to go, we’ve have a couple of months off and we’re ready to go again!

Awesome. I know that you had the wonderful endorsement from a certain Lars Ulrich when he played a couple of your tracks on his radio show. I remember reading one interview where you were discussing about actually taking up his invite to meet him and the rest of METALLICA; did you manage to?

All: Yeah, we all did.

What’s he like as a bloke?

Stijn: He was awesome, to be honest. We went to their show in Antwerp, he invited us to be VIP treated, have dinner and view their expedition with them of old METALLICA stuff. Then we saw the show with really good seats and then we were hanging in the bar afterwards and some guy came up and said ‘Are you BRUTUS?’ and when we confirmed that he said ‘Yeah, Lars wants to talk to you, follow me!’ and then we followed him through the venue to the basement, the backstage area, and Lars spoke with us for 30 minutes about how we came together, what our influences are, what bands we listen to, how we mix it up in the rehearsal and stuff like. It was great!

And was that one of those moments where you think ‘we’ve made it’ as a band or has that ever crossed your mind?

All: No! [laughs]

Stef: We have a very long way to go.

Stijn: That never crossed our minds. It was more like ‘Oh, he’s a nice guy. Why would he, after playing a show for two hours…

Stef: …consider talking to us?

Stijn: Yeah, why would he speak to us when he’s got a flight back to Copenhagen to stay there after the show? But he actually took the time to talk to a band who just had an album out that nobody or hardly anybody knew but he likes it and we thought ‘Fuck, why is he making time for us? He probably has so many other things he can do now.’ That was our general feeling.

Yeah, understandable. I know you said you all have a long way to go still, but you must have seen your profiles rise in your own country somewhat?

Stef: We have, but Belgium is so small. When you’re in Gent, like where I live, it’s still a very small city compared to Brussels and Antwerp, so I see bands walking down the street almost every day.

Fair! So, when it came to doing Nest, what was your mindset coming into recording this, because some bands fall into a horrible mentality on the second record of ‘do the same again, but better’ and I can’t imagine for one moment you’d have been as blasé as that?

Stef: No [laughs], but we wanted to do it better!

Peter: We didn’t want to do the same but we certainly wanted to make it better, because you don’t want to make something worse, that would be stupid! We certainly never wanted to do the same as we did before though, absolutely not. I think we got to know each other a lot better, because Burst was like our first date, how we met and our first songs together reflect those along with how we clashed and experienced music and now, two years later, we’ve spent a lot more time together, exchanged a lot more thoughts, talked more about the music and what we want to say with it; it’s our second date or something, or we live together now.

Stef: Yeah, it’s not complicated any more.

Peter: But we’re not married yet and we’re not even engaged, that’s for the next album!

I look forward to a title relating to weddings on the next album then! So would you therefore say it was more cohesive as a process to get together and a smoother transition writing and recording Nest as opposed to Burst?

Stef: Yeah, we put a lot of work in Burst, but there’s more in this one.

Stijn: The first record is always like a ‘best of’ of the first couple of years as a band, so you have a lot of time to write it. Now with Nest, we worked a lot harder and faster in general; we had to because we wanted to make a second album.

Stef: And the label wanted us to as well, I’m not going to pretend that it was solely our choice!

Damn labels, making you work harder and faster! So, there was no material left over from the Burst sessions that made it into Nest?

Stijn: We had some stuff left over, but we decided to start from scratch because it’s a whole new thing.

Stef: Yeah, you get the same obstacles again otherwise: you have some ideas that didn’t work for the first record but you like the riff, so you bring that riff up in the rehearsal room for the second album and then you realise after a couple of hours why you stopped working on that riff in the first place, because you always stop at the same point.

Stijn: I don’t think there’s one lick or moment on the record that came across from Burst.

One of the main things I took away from Nest is that it’s very raw and personal in terms of the abrasive nature of the music, the heaviness of the lyrics and the vocal delivery. Did you add more personal elements in this time around?

Stef: Yeah, I think Burst is, in comparison to this one, very polished and tight, and the lyrics are about nothing, or almost nothing. For this record, however, it sounds more how we experience it when we are rehearsing and the lyrics are about what we went through as a band last year, so for sure it’s more personal.

And what was the reason for choosing Nest as a title?

Stijn: It’s actually been an inside joke for a few years now. You have people you’re close with and those are in your ‘nest’. Then you have those who are outside of the nest and some want to be in the nest, but you don’t want them in the nest, and then some just grow in the nest. It’s like your group of friends or your family, and you can have different nests as well. The band, for example, is a very tight nest, but when we go home we have our respective partners and that’s another nest in its own right.

So we said it as a joke, but when we started writing the songs and Stef was coming up with the lyrics and all the songs were relating to how we experienced what happens in your nest – for example, having a fight with your spouse, or a friend doesn’t understand why you can’t come to the birthday party and makes bullshit out of it because you’re not there again, or when a family member is really sick and you get a call on tour to say they’ve passed away – that all hits you really hard and so we could all relate to some of the lyrics written. From the moment it was suggested the album should be called Nest, everyone was in agreement immediately.

Peter: I even think the record had a title before we had started writing, or at least it was very early on in the process all the same.

Interesting! You produced the album with Jesse Gander again; was it important to have him back on board?

Stijn: Yeah, when we recorded Burst, we had no plans as we weren’t on a label, and it was such a good experience for us to be in Vancouver for a month with someone who would become a friend, we met some nice people there, the weather was nice and so when we went back there we know how Jesse works and vice versa, so from day one we were comfortable that we could just work on the record, have some more time to experiment with a few ideas and it was a logical step for us.

Peter: Yeah, it was so nice to go back and come full circle after we had with the first record.

I can understand that. You’re coming out on tour in the next few weeks, starting at Groezrock at the end of the month, making your way through the UK and then various festival dates in the summer. Have you found that you have an affiliation with one particular country outside of Belgium, that’s understood you quicker than anyone else?

Stijn: For me personally, it’s actually the UK. Ever since we signed to Hassle Records, we’ve spent a lot of time there and even now if I have a free weekend with my girlfriend we might go to Brighton or somewhere like that. I really like the UK.

I’m really pleased you do, because most of us don’t at the minute!

Stijn: I can imagine [laughs] but as a country, the people are lovely, we have some friends there and it’s always nice to come back.

Stef: For me, everything is very cool. We went to Switzerland and that was super nice, same with Germany. It’s all the same for me and I don’t feel like there’s a second home in terms of country, more that it’s the van that we tour in and wherever the van takes us is our second home!

Peter: Me neither, although we played a show in Croatia and from an environment point of view, it’s a beautiful country, although maybe that’s a comment for TripAdvisor more than music!

What’s the weirdest venue you’ve ever played?

Stef: We played a show in Vancouver in a Chinese restaurant – it was a restaurant during the day but they said it was a club during the evening, but it was still a restaurant just with music. It had a very ‘Twin Peaks’ vibe to it: there was a bear hanging on the wall and fish and weird stuff that I didn’t get. It was very strange.

To be fair, I don’t think anyone’s ever truly got Twins Peaks! Bit of a fun question, this – I want you to pick your dream tour for me. You’re allowed to pick one band each, and BRUTUS are opening the bill. Who do you pick?

Stijn: I would pick ME WITHOUT YOU. That would be the band on after us.

Peter: I’ll pick the next one who would definitely be the headliners, and that’s DEFTONES.

Stef: It’s difficult. I wouldn’t choose for the music, but I would gather all our friends and get them to start a band to play. When you’re on tour with a band sometime the music doesn’t matter but when you vibe with another band that’s super nice. To be honest, I want to be the support, that’s the best slot to be in on long tours. Not that I don’t like headline shows, but when you do a support you play only your best songs, you have to be there the latest and you can start enjoying your evening first.

So, we’ve now got a bill of BRUTUS, ME WITHOUT YOU, DEFTONES and what I’ve written down as BELGIUM UNITED, which is all of your friends as one giant band?

Stijn: Yeah, 90% of our friends from Belgium are in bands that we really look up to, so if they could form one giant band and come on tour with us, that would be awesome.

I’m surprised none of you said either NOFX or REFUSED.

Stef: Oh yeah, that’s another option.

Stijn: Yeah, NOFX maybe, for sure.

Finally then, what is the big dream for BRUTUS?

Stef: Make good records.

Stijn: Yeah, when we started the band we didn’t have any expectations and to be honest I still don’t, personally. I think it’s a lot nicer that way and I don’t know if the other guys have different opinions. Everything’s going really well for us so I’m just enjoying everything I can right now. I’d love to tour the States, that’s a dream of mine, but if it doesn’t happen I still had a good time. If it does though – wow, even better. Everything since the first record has been icing on the cake for me,

Stef: Yeah, for me the dream is to make good records and it would be nice if we, in ten years, make a record where everything is right, none of the songs make people uncomfortable. Of course I enjoy touring and stuff like that but it fades away so quickly. Of course I want to tour the State and Australia, but most of all I think that when you make records that comes along anyway.

I don’t want to become boring either, I just want us to keep pushing ourselves to do better every time, both live and on record. We did another interview where we were asked the best show we played and for all the travelling we’ve done, the big festivals and the European clubs, the best was a homecoming show after three tours in Gent and it’s not that the others weren’t great but just to make your Mum and Dad proud in the audience, that’s the biggest reward.

That’s a wonderful outlook to have. Guys, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to me.

All: Thank you very much as well!

Nest is out now via Hassle Records. 

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