Luxembourg-Based Band Postindustrial Poets Sit Down for a Chat
Having been avid fans for quite some time, we recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Pete from the Postindustrial Poets, an indie rock band hailing from Luxembourg. Although they introduced themselves to the music scene in 2020, it’s their 2022 release, ‘It Didn’t Feel Like The End Of The World,’ that has truly propelled them to success. This poignant song delves into themes of truth and lies, climate change, and shifting relationships. Impressively, the track has already garnered nearly 220k streams, marking a significant milestone for the band.
The Postindustrial Poets is a cool name. What does it mean and how did it occur to you?
Postindustrial Poets is in a way a tribute to the country where I live (I was born in the UK – I’m not a native Luxembourger). Luxembourg used to be a big centre for iron and steel, and a lot of the music venues are based in old industrial sites. And one day I did a 10k run in the industrial south west of Luxembourg, and the name occurred to me together with the concept of the band. And, I can get a bit pretentious and claim that rock music is the poetry of the postindustrial era if you’d like, up to you… If you see Postindustrial Poets live it will be me (Pete) on vocals and guitar, Rod on backing vocals and guitar, Alex on bass, and Aenders on drums. Recorded, it depends who is available – and everyone except me has at least one other musical project.
What’s your favourite release so far and why?
That’s difficult. Really if we don’t love it we don’t release it (okay, we had a couple of lapses early on…). Maybe ‘Living In Space’, which is a bit spacey and weird over the top of a solid bass and drums groove. It started with the weirdest first line and it was a challenge to get from that to a finished track. And I like the fact that the bass bosses the song. You could mute the guitar and the song would still work.
‘A Girl Called Winter’ and ‘It Didn’t Feel Like the End of the World’ would run that close. ‘I Gave You My Disease’ (from 2020) still works for me! And there are two songs in the pipeline that are a blast: one of them is ‘Still a Stranger Here’ which you can already pre-save. (Head to this link >> https://show.co/cFsnqSO)
You produce only singles. Is that a choice or will there be an album in the future?
Our track ‘Record of the Week’ is much older than the band – I wrote it for a band I played in back in the UK. And it is about the idea of music capturing snapshots of your life: I hope this doesn’t sound pretentious! And while we listen to a lot of stuff, punk and Motown are really important to us. So, the idea of short songs that pack a punch is where I would like to be.
But, the idea has been around to produce a physical album. It seems there are a lot of administrative hassles I need to sort out before this happens. We’ve set out a track listing a few times. But when we hit an obstacle, we turn out a new single.
Are there any particular musicians or bands that have influenced your style?
Yes. I think bands who bring a blues and soul influence to rock mean a lot to us – and probably feed into the way we try to use bass, and the groove we like to hit. I’m thinking of White Stripes and The Black Keys – two bands who don’t actually have bassists, but I’m sure you know what I mean! And a lot of people hear some Tom Waits and Nick Cave influences here and there.
And then ‘Living in Space’ is about Syd Barrett, and the guitar part is explicitly influenced by him. But, the challenge is always to tap into a vibe without copying. Like I love Arctic Monkeys, but I am not a fan of any band that sounds too much like them…
Oh, and there are a lot of bands who quote the Beatles as an influence, but not us. We’d prefer the Stones…
Besides releasing your own music, you collaborate with other bands and artists as well. Any dream collaboration you’d love to pursue in the future?
Never really know whether the right answer is Animal Revolt or The Perics. I really loved the collaborations we have done so far (Atrip, TimetoAct, Lewca) and expect to repeat the experience with all of them. But the absolute dream would be to work with a horn section.
‘Thousand Dollar Shoes’ started as a project to write new (English) lyrics for a track of Atrip, and mysteriously turned into a completely new song. I would be very interested in writing lyrics for one of the infinite number of artists who sing better than I do!
I also have a long song hanging around that I might do as a solo record – because it doesn’t really fit with the Postindustrial Poets concept. For that it has crossed my mind to ask a few indie guitar heroes to contribute a guitar solo each. That would be a blast!
Keep up with Postindustrial happenings via their social media channels:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/postindustrialpoets/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepostindustrialpoets
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PostIndustria12
