Jerry Lucky: The eighties was a great time for The Box…five albums and many hit singles…tell us briefly how The Box came together.
Jean-Marc
Pisapia: We were a trio of college friends who pretended to be in a band rather than actually being a band! Eventually, things began
to look a bit more serious and my short stint in Men Without Hats as keyboard player precipitated things in that I made crucial connections
in a short period of time. We then added the missing members and played by ear (so to speak) from there. Contrary to most cases, our
success was instantaneous and never really let go until 1992.
JL: At that time, how would you have described the band’s musical
style and approach?
JMP: We were definitely a pop band with progressive influences. Radio being what it was at the time, there
was no way we could have survived in the prog genre, considered passé and derelict in the early eighties. Even the mega prog bands
such as Genesis and Yes were all turning into pop bands one after the other.
JL: I thought I detected some hints of prog in the
music. Were there any specific progressive rock influences in the music of The Box?
JMP: Songs such as “The Great Summer Fair”,
“Checkmate” and “Friends” were all heavily influenced by progressive music from the '70s. Others such as “Walk Away” weren't at all.
JL:
You went through some personnel changes and ultimately The Box ceased to exist…a difficult time...how did that all happen?
JMP:
There's been a tremendous number of people who have transited through the band although things quieted down from '85 to '89 when the
line-up stayed the same 'til we lost Luc, a founding member, for personal reasons. When the band split in '92, we were exhausted and
we felt we had said what we needed to say and that it was time to take a break and regroup. I ended up being the only one who wanted
to continue in the music business, all others having diverged in different fields of occupation.
JL: Then you released a solo
record, correct?
JMP: It wasn't a solo record as much as the band's fifth album which had been written by me and two surviving
members between '92 and '93. Problem is by the time it was ready to go to press, there was nobody left in the band. Our
JL: Did you keep trying
to revive The Box?
JMP: There was a relentless pressure from the industry for us to play live, especially with the '80s
music revival that took place a few years ago and never quite let go. But I wasn't interested in hitting the stage twenty years later
with nothing new to offer. However, I had the idea of getting around the problem by simply writing a new album, something totally
different than what we had done before... A prog record, which I had always fantasized doing!
JL: I’m guessing not all
of the former band members were interested?
JMP: You're guessing right! They thought I was barking mad to go back to the record
industry. In any case, they wouldn't hear of it. But a parallel project I was doing live with François and other people (who are now
the actual Box) meant I could set the whole operation up rather quickly and that's exactly what we did. That was back in 2004. The
album came out in '05 and here we are the same line-up bar our early keyboard player.
JL: This brings us to Black Dog There first
time I heard it I was quite amazed. The vocals obviously had a familiar ring but the music was so much more adventurous. What prompted
you to write in that direction?
JMP: Precisely that: the possibility of being adventurous with the music. Keep in mind the new
album was just a tool to get back on stage and I couldn't care less if it was played on the radio or not. I knew the record business
was in a state of transition no one knew how to handle the changes except by cranking out production of flavorless young blonds with
big boobs and sexually implicit lyrics and videos. I knew we would get no support from traditional media and that no record company
would ever spend any marketing money on us so I had no illusions about the commercial success of the release and thought it better
to target a precise niche rather than getting lost in an ocean of pop acts, especially on the internet.
JL: That CD is also a
concept work, correct?
JMP: Correct. It was inspired by my interest in modern physics, quantum mechanics and relativity, string
theory and all. It tells about an astronaut who finds himself stuck in a parallel universe after an explosion of the space shuttle
he was crewing. Sounds a little pot headed but it's not, really. Billions are being invested in the CERN particle accelerator in
JL: What kind of response
did you get to Black Dog There? Did it sell very well?
JMP: As predicted, it sold very little. But also as predicted, the label
put close to no resources at all behind it so... We have switched labels since, needless to say!
JL: I remember emailing you
after listening to it and you indicated that in your mind it was only 50 or 60% prog but that the new material you were working on
was much more in the progressive rock vein. Did you find yourself holding back? Or what did you mean by that?
JMP: We wrote Black
Dog There the way we thought it should be. But we loved the artistic experience so much we decided to go flat out on Le Horla.
In the eighties if you lived in Canada
and listened to the radio it's a safe bet that
you heard The Box. At the time they were big.
Lots of hit singles with lots of radio play. At the same time you, like me, may have heard something deeper in the music...something almost...proggy. Here then is an eye opening chat with leader Jean-Marc Pisapia.
JL: In fact Le Horla, is another concept work. Perhaps you can give us the story summary.
JMP: This album is a direct adaptation
from a short story by French author Guy De Maupassant, a pillar of French literature of the 19th century. I don't feel comfortable
telling you what the story is about from fear of ruining the multiple levels of comprehension one would get from it. Suffice it to
say that Le Horla is actually part of the curriculum in French schools. That's how I came to know about the author and his work. It's
a fifty page thing that reads in an hour and the story is as avant-garde as it gets, being as real today as it was the day it came
out more than a hundred years ago. But don't take my word for it. It's easily found on the net. Read it and you'll see.
The album is
also all French by the way (a first for The Box) and we haven't looked to modernize the language in any way which produces an eerie
combination of "classical" language style over modern music... Imagine Metallica doing Shakespeare.
JL: There’s no question thatLe Horla is very much in keeping with a symphonic prog sound…very orchestrated with longer songs and so forth. How did you approach
the writing of the music this time around?
JMP: The book actually dictated 90% of where the music would go. At first I thought
the album would be essentially something like four 20 minute songs and that's it. But no... The thing began to have a life of it's
own as it progressed. It soon became clear that scene "a" (for example) couldn't be put to music if scene "b" was to be omitted. Then
we would realize the album was way too dark and needed something lighter to give it a break. So scene "c" had to be inserted etc.
But
generally speaking, I knew this album shouldn't be too much thought out and that we should do whatever sounded like a good idea. After
all, I always thought that that was what prog is all about, right?
JL: And as you’ve already mentioned the lyrics are in French.
What prompted that decision?
JMP: Simply the fact that Maupassant is French and that at the very least, there had to be a French
version of it. As it turns out, we started with the French version and frankly, we don't much see the need for an English version
as we all know that the typical prog audience is more than sophisticated enough to appreciate it as it is. I think our efforts and
energy would be better put to use in writing the next project instead.
JL: I see that initial response to the recording has been
very positive.
JMP: I spent an entire month on the road with the promo man from the label doing nothing but press and radio and
I can assure you that Le Horla is by far the album that got the most praise of any I've promoted before and the level of enthusiasm
the most genuine so far. And the same is true for the web so far. There's even a trend I see on our blog and elsewhere by which people
complain that we don't play enough of it live, a situation we will correct very soon I should say...
JL: I have to ask…the
CD ends with a track called “Super 61”…it’s a very catchy piece of music, I like it a lot but almost seems out of context.
JMP:
Actually it is and it isn't. True, “Super 61” has nothing to do with the story itself. But it recounts the circumstances surrounding
my first contact with Maupassant and Le Horla at age thirteen as I had taken the book to read while on a plane trip to
JL:
That’s a great story! So what’s in the future for The Box? Will we be seeing any live performances?
JMP: For sure. Although my
greatest desire would be to tour the prog festivals around the globe... And as I hinted earlier, I don't think it will take three
years for us to release the next album so stay tuned. www.theboxband.com All info about the band, tour dates and blog are
there.
JL: Lastly then Jean-Marc, if you were stuck on a desert island and could only have 5 CDs with you, which ones would they
be?
JMP: The five CDs on a desert island question is a pain in the butt question because it's absolutely impossible to isolate
only five albums as the top best. Plus, some of the best music I ever heard is actually part of some of the worst albums ever. A case
in point is "Pathway to Glory" from Loggins and
