The French Dark metal band "Hannibal Death Machine" has been active since 2014, releasing three EPs: "Birth" (2016), "Sombres Visions" (2017) and "A Bout de Souffle" (2019).
In anticipation of the release of their new album, "Éclipse Anthropocène" scheduled for November 30th, we reached out to
Jean-Luc Loret, the band's founding member and current singer and bassist.
-We know a few information about the band. Could you please introduce the band to us and our audience? What the band’s background is and what brought the band together?
- In 2014 I created the group with guitarist Thibault Beyney, at the beginning we made industrial metal but over time our style evolved towards something more organic we now define ourselves as a Dark metal group.
- The band have already under the belt 3 Eps, 2 singles and 1 full length album. What is your main influence to create this specific genre of music? Are there any specific bands who influenced your path to create music?
- As I told you in the first question our style of early industrial metal was influenced by Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson all US industrial metal, but for 4 years now I have been listening to a lot of black metal and more particularly Rotting Christ even if it is not can't be heard in our sound I consider today to be influenced by Rotting Christ.
- We heard the Éclipse Anthropocène and we noticed some very dark elements in addition to your previous albums / EPs. Is the band in a direction to a darker path and if yes, what force you in this direction?
- Yes indeed Eclipse Anthropocene is the darkest of our albums in fact it is a concept album where all the songs deal with the sixth extinction I believe that the heaviness of this theme naturally leads us towards much darker music but since my young age I have always listened to dark music so it is normal for me to feel good in this type of expression.
- What is your creative process like? Considering the fact that the French Metal Scene has offered some great albums from bands like Alcest, Seth, Sortilège or even Antaeus. Are there any Artists that you would like to collaborate with?
- So our creative process is always the same for us. We build our songs through demos that we create on our PC. This is very practical because we can try a lot of things in terms of structures, but it always starts with keyboards that we sequence then I structure the vocals and the text, the bass I send the demo to my drummer Jacques Maupeux Wase and my guitarist who in turn pose their personal parts, the guitarist Marco Rave sometimes retouches the structures but it is not systematic!
- What is your point of view in terms of the restructure of the music industry. Do you think that all this will have an impact on you as a band in terms of tour dates or collaborations?
- It is very difficult today for a group like ours to release an album we do everything ourselves the production, the promotion the booking all this at a cost and we try to balance that, that is why we will not put not Èclipse Anthropocène for free listening on streaming platforms, the only way to listen to the album will be to order it because it seems to us that putting it for free listening interferes with any potential sales, it seems to me that our strategy gives us reason because for the first time we are able to sell the album in Pre-Order on our official shop!
Of course we are going to defend this album on stage during a future tour, we hope to perform at big festivals.
- Do you have any tour dates or upcoming shows scheduled for 2025 in France or in Europe? What is the main plan for the band from now own? Do you have anything in mind in order to promote better the band?
- We are just starting the booking work so we are waiting for answers in order to be able to build a tour which is exclusively oriented towards French soil but we are canvassing all kinds of big European festivals.
- Where have you performed so far? What is your favourite and least favourite place to perform live?
- We played in 2019 on the Hellfest program, it was a wonderful memory, we had the chance to perform in the legendary Bikini venue in Toulouse opening for the group Sidilarsen, there too we have excellent memories; we also had the chance to go to Russia for a 15-day tour as well as to Spain for two tours.
-Do you follow the Hellenic scene in general? and if so, does any band stand out from the present or the past?
-I follow some of them and more particularly Rotting Christ.
- If you have to give one message to your fans or to anyone who does not actually knows your music yet. What would that be?
- Be curious do not hesitate to discover our sound our music speaks to you directly the themes that we raise are always developed from a humanist angle and always sincere join us through our crusade today is the time to get involved for a better world!
And thank s Ozzy66radio for this interview, keep on rocking!!!
by Angelo Zach
Order the album by : https://hdmstore.bigcartel.com/products
Bandcamb : https://hanibaldeathmachine.bandcamp.com/music
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/hanibaldeathmachine
