New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Roadrunner Records) Gojira's in the middle of a European tour right now, and frontman Joe Duplantier was recently interviewed by Metal Shrine when the band hit Sweden. In the interview, he talks about maintaining his health on the road, the DIY nature of touring, and more.
Says Joe, "I'm supposed to sleep a lot and drink a lot of water, but instead I don't drink water and I don't sleep, so of course it doesn't help. I'm hyperactive or a special kind of hyperactive. I'm not all over the place, but I can't sleep. Especially after a full day of work. I sneak out to the stage all the time to check and the guys go 'Dude, relax! Go to the dressing room!' and then we play the show and I can't go to bed right after that. We film the show and I watch the show with the light guy and then I need one or two hours to do other stuff, so I never sleep and that's a problem."
The band occasionally makes custom art pieces to sell on the road; Joe explains, "Mario's selling drum skins. We don't wanna throw them away and we like to give them to a drummer like 'Hey, use that!' He's painting on them and selling them to kids but very cheap. We started together at one show. We didn't receive the merchandise and we were like 'Fuck, we're fucked!' It was in Seattle and we were coming back from Canada. We went to Wal-Mart and bought a bunch of black shirts and we did stencils with spray paint and then it was like 'It's not enough.' We only had like 30 shirts and then to sell them for 20 bucks… we have to make a certain amount and it's a struggle. We took pieces of wood and plastic, anything we could find and made paintings to sell and for five or six shows we did that together. It was kinda cool and we made the exact amount we needed to fill the gap, you know. It was incredibly entertaining and relaxing and then Mario kept doing this with his drum skins and I stopped because I'm always on stage checking things out or doing interviews."
Read the whole thing: https://bit.ly/U69oM8
Gojira's US tour begins January 14; if you pre-order tickets before December 1, you'll get a free download of a full live show from the current European tour, plus two songs - "Love" and "Toxic Garbage Island" - recorded in August at New York's Studio at Webster Hall! Get yours now!
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