Page 22 - Black Velvet Rock Magazine Issue 112

BV112 pg 20-23 Storm Orchestra Interview.qxp_BV112 pg 22 10/05/2025 14:52 Page 3

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because we wrote the lyrics together with Loic, the drummer, and it was the first time for this he whole m
album. I think we worked deeper together than the first one.”
One of the songs, funnily enough, is called ‘Drummer’. It explores the cliches of rock drum- “Tbetter perso
mers, portrayed as savage, party-going, unstoppable beings – and it is partly inspired by Loic
himself. dividuals… and every
We ask Max which well-known drummers were savage, party-going, unstoppable beings. make a better socie
Max replies, “I can think of the drummer of Motorhead, the drummer of Motley Crue, even
AC/DC’s drummer is known for being a party guy. They’re like bad boys. It’s quite funny be- Maxime Goudard
cause I spotted that it’s quite a pattern in the groups. There is the singer and there is also the
drummer, who is the known person... The drummer of Blink-182… There are a lot of drummers
that are really known people for being funny or party guys, and our drummer is kinda like that,
so this song came really naturally. It first was a joke to make fun of him and it became a real
song with kind of a deep meaning. It’s funny to start with a joke and finish with a deep meaning.
To say, finally, when someone is partying too much, or a lot, it is because he has wounds, be-
cause he wants to forget something. That’s the meaning behind the song. You have to take
care of the people who are partying too much around you. You have to be aware of that.”
In the song, Max sings, ‘Drink till the coma’ and, later, ‘Have you ever felt so much in pain?’
– in relation to how a lot of people drink to block out any pain and troubles they have.
Max says that even he has done that. “I would not say I drink too much. I think it’s
OK. I could drink less, but I think it’s OK. But, yeah, a lot of people drink to forget their
problems and it’s not a good thing. You have to keep a party drinking, but, even in the
party drinking, you can use that to forget your problems. But it’s not always a good
thing to forget your problems. Sometimes yes, but sometimes no. You have to face
your problems.”
When we ask if there is anything he thinks people should do rather than drinking
if they’re going through a tough time, he says, “Speak to each other. I think this is
the problem in the whole world. People are not speaking to each other, and not
speaking what they really have in mind. It’s always confrontations. Always ‘I’m
stronger than you’, and this is so sad to have a relationship like that. I think, in
most relationships, people speak to each other, but when they don’t know each
other, people don’t really speak and there is a lot of conflict. If you don’t say what
you have on your mind and in your heart, there is a conflict because of that.
Yeah, the first thing I would say is, speak to each other. Say what you have on
your mind and what you have in your heart. What are your emotions? Express
that. If someone says something that makes you sad, don’t beat him, just say ‘You
make me sad when you say that,’ and, most of the time, the person in front of you
will calm down and just say sorry. I think it’s a better way to do things.”

n ‘Bright Soul’ Max sings, ‘anxious in the city’. We ask what makes him anxious.
I“What makes me anxious?” he asks. “Actually, I think global warming is the
thing that makes me most anxious. More anxious than war, because, I think, global
warming is the first problem, and the first problem we put under the carpet. I feel like
I can’t do anything about it, that’s the thing that worries me the most.”
We ask if he’s vegan, since meat production is one of the leading causes of
global warming.
“No, I’m not vegan,” he replies. “But I try to eat less meat and not the red meat.
I try to avoid beef, because I know there are different… some produce more CO2
than others, so I try to eat less meat. But, it’s really in our culture to always eat
meat, so… I’m going step by step for this part.”
The band has written songs in relation to global warming. We wonder if,
living in Paris, there is more awareness when it comes to global warming.
The Paris Agreement, which came into force in 2016, is an international
treaty on climate change, which aimed to address climate change by limit-
ing global temperature rise. Max thinks. “There are a lot of other countries
that do much more than France, for sure – like Costa Rica, or even Spain,
I think.”
He says that watching the news inspired him to write about subjects
like global warming.
“I’ve always watched the news, always, since I was in school. I
need to know what is happening in the world. I’m not good when I don’t
listen to the news. So, I think it’s normal, when you’re informed, to
have the stress and think, ‘we should do something’, so I think it was
a natural way of doing things.
But, there’s always this paradox of when you are doing music
and you have to tour, you have to use a bus, you have to use a lot
of things that produce a lot of CO2, so it’s a paradox and always a
balance in mind to feel bad about doing this, and, at the same time,
you are singing songs about this and making people aware, but it’s
always a paradox. It’s always about losing something, ‘but I wanna
have fun’, you see what I mean? The whole society pushes you to
do things to produce a lot of CO2 and a lot of pollution and there is al-
ways that paradox, but we all deal with it.”

n ‘Get Back In Time’ Max sings about changing our mistakes one by
Ione. We ask what mistakes he thinks need to be changed in the world.
“There’s a lot of mistakes,” says Max. “What we see is, when you leave nature
alone, the nature becomes whole very fast. So, we have to leave nature alone in a
lot of places in the world. And, maybe, the other thing that really worries me, and, even in
France, is poverty, when you see people in the street. This is an easier problem to solve than
global warming, there’s a simple way to do that. All the things that we see every day, it’s be-
STORM ORCHESTA