Last week Jonas Parson caught up with Nyon rock band "The Deadline Experience" . He began by chatting to Antoine, one of the founders and bass player in the band who will be playing at the Détour (i.e. the stage dedicated to promoting Swiss bands on the Paléo grounds) with their melancholic, yet feisty rock on Wednesday night.
Photo above - "The Deadline Experience"- (courtesy Paléo Festival)
Inspired by bands such as Jefferson Airplane and The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Antoine (bass, guitar and backing vocals) and Romain (guitar and lead vocals) started The Deadline Experience two years ago, after a long time of playing music together. Antoine also plays bass for Anna Aaron (who will also be playing at the Paléo on Sunday), but as he says; “I've been and am part of other things, but The Deadline Experience is “my” project”.
After their last band "The Thomas More Project" ended, they decided to do something different. “ The problem with the Thomas More Project was that there were seven of us, and it's really hard to keep so many people together around the same concept. So a few months after that ended, which was not long after we played at the Paléo in 2009, we decided to do something that would be the opposite of what we'd done previously”.
A deadline became the band's name
Antoine told me. “We wanted to do something on a smaller scale- just two of us to start with and most of all, we didn't want to depend on anybody, so we decided to do everything ourselves.” Antoine took up the guitar, they both started singing, and gave themselves six months to build a repertoire and play their first gig , a deadline which gave the band its name.
“We then did a few more concerts, finding out how the audience reacted to our music, before recording a five track demo. All in quite a laid back way really.” A year ago, they decided to bring out an album, and after rearranging their songs, they recorded them in November 2011. Distributed by the Lausanne based label Irascible, it will be available this September, but festival-goers will be able to listen to the songs featured on the album at their concert at Paléo.
While recording their album, the band took drummer Tom Guex on board; with a third member and an album ready to be released, The Deadline Experience is now ready to leave the borders of Switzerland to go and play elsewhere.
Playing at Paléo - a good way to reach another audience
"We've played in most of Suisse-Romande, and we've just had a gig in neighbouring France, but you really need an album if you want to find other venues elsewhere.” Playing at a festival like Paléo is also a very good way to reach out and touch another audience, while creating contacts with other bands. “Having your name up on the line-up alongside big bands is a good way to get known. People come without knowing you and discover something they hadn't planned on seeing.”
The Deadline Experience also have quite a strong link with the Parenthèse (Nyon's permanent music venue), as they used the place to rehearse when they started the band. They also enjoy just hanging out there!
Jonas Parson will be writing for Living in Nyon during the Paléo festival. You can read more about him in a previous post here. Jonas is also going to be one of the artists performing at the festival too! More on this coming up.