Fuck The Facts | Interview with Mathieu Vilandre

Following a long period of silence, five years to be precise, Canadian grind giants Fuck the Facts are back with a new album titled Pleine Noirceur ("total darkness" in French), which is perhaps their most accomplished and balanced effort to date that sees the Ottawa-based trio incorporanting some unexpected twists and turns into their maniacal grindcore sound. Drummer Mathieu Vilandre was kind enough to take some time to answer some questions for us.  

Pleine Noirceur arrives five long years after your previous album Desire Will Rot and knowing that you'd normally release a new effort every two years, what took you so long to return with this new album? 

 We did a bunch of touring in support of Desire Will Rot and we kind of knew we were going to take a break afterward, we just didn’t know for how long. We got back from Europe and just went our separate ways. I didn’t see any of them for a full year, except Mel once - out of the blue. I guess we needed to do a full reset, you know. Anyways, Topon wrote me asking if I wanted to start playing again and I said yes. Essentially, we had to figure out if we still wanted to do this music thing and I guess we did. So we jammed for a while and we ended up with a few songs and that’s how it started again. We don’t feel as pressured to tour or to release new music, we just want to have fun. That’s essentially why it took so long, there’s also a global pandemic going on.

I've read in a recent interview that you considered ending the band after the touring cycle for Desire Will Rot. The fact that you were constantly recording and touring somehow took its toll on you, both mentally and physically? 

 At some point, you want a bit of normalcy in your life, but it’s pretty hard to accomplish that while being on the road all the time. Too much touring isn’t necessarily good for your band anyways. We just didn’t know what was next, we only knew we needed time for ourselves. Pleine Noirceur could've never happened, that’s for sure. Ultimately, it’s a pretty unforgiving lifestyle, my body reminds me every fucking day. As long as we’re having fun and our music isn’t complete dog shit, we’ll keep going.  

Pleine Noirceur translates to "total darkness", does the album title reflect your state of mind at the time or all the crazy things happening in the world right now? 

 I think so, but, just to be clear, the whole creative process behind Pleine Noirceur started way before the pandemic. It kind of helped us finish the record actually, since we were all stuck at home. I’d like to think our state of mind isn't as bleak as our album(s). Mel is at her best when she writes about difficult subjects, it is meant to be uncomfortable, and It forces us to not only take a good look at ourselves but also at everything that happens around us.       

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Let’s just say we are more “bastardized’ than we are “grindcore”, if that makes any sense.

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Can you talk a bit about Pleine Noirceur and how it fits in the whole of Fuck the Facts' evolution?

 It brings back memories from the Disgorge Mexico era which was the last time we were a three-piece. Admittedly, I’m never sure how to answer this question as it is not something I ever really think about, maybe I should. I’ll say this, I think it’s a great transitional record for us. We didn’t know if we were going to do anything again and Pleine Noirceur proved to us that there was still some gas in the tank. 

Can we say that Pleine Noirceur sees you incorporating more shoegaze and post-metal elements into your grindcore sound? Songs Aube, Everything I Love is Ending and A Dying Light clearly shows that shift in direction.

 I think we’ve managed to integrate those shorter almost interlude-like songs much more fluently on Pleine Noirceur. We are slowing down a touch, at least on this record. I listen to some of our old stuff sometimes and I’m like: “There’s no way I can play this now”. It also depends on what we’re into at that time, it really reflects on whatever it is we are doing. It’s a great thing to be influenced by other artists. Maybe we’ll go another way on the next one, who knows.  

 
 

With that in mind, do you feel that grindcore is still a genre that best describes Fuck The Facts sound, or do you feel it's already a limited term for you as a band? 

 Those are our roots and they’ve stuck to us since day one. At the end of the day, it’s just fucking semantics. Whenever someone asks, I usually just say that I play in a metal band, that seems to be sufficient enough. I don’t see how a term could limit us in any way. Maybe it could influence the potential listener, but if it does, maybe he shouldn’t be listening to us anyways. Let’s just say we are more “bastardized’ than we are “grindcore”, if that makes any sense. 

Things are complicated for artists due to Covid-19 right now, but once everything gets better, are you planning to do an extensive tour to promote this album live?

 Not sure if we’ll ever go back to what we used to do, we’ll see. Mel and Topon have kids now so it’s obviously hard for them to just fuck off for four weeks, you know. No doubt, we’ll be playing some shows, but I don’t know to which extent. We still want to play, it’s an integral part of who we are as a band. Anyways, we can’t really control anything right now so we’re just waiting. We had some shows lined up before the pandemic broke out and we’ll hopefully get to reschedule those for 2021 or 2022. Time will tell.

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