Despite non-stopping offers for stage appearance in concerts, tours and festivals, à;GRUMH… is still decided NOT to come back on stage. But the band members do not agree on it.
J3 would like to do it, partially because he misses the stage action, having left the band in 1989 on the eve of their largest tour. He is also still extremely connected with the music world and willing to record and perform as it remains his main passion.
S3 on the other hand thinks differently. “There is a time for everything”, he says, “Monty Python were on TV the other day and people were asking them if they were going to work together again. Terry Jones was explaining that it would be awful. He said that when they were young, they came up with 20 ideas per minute and had so much energy to create the sketches and the comic effects, and that now they’re all too old to be “as good as back then”. He said that they had reunited for a sketck for BBC a few years ago and it wasn’t very good. So hear me out : youth is the time for creation, maturity the time for reflexion. And that is so true with music too. All the best bands in the history of music were created by teenagers or students in their young age. And most of the best ones either died or stopped music at an early age. Apart from the 60’s and 70’s “dinosaur bands” who still tour after 30 or 40 years, very few artists really propose something new and revolutionnary in their older age. There are exceptions of course, such as Peter Gabriel or Bowie, but mostly I am right. “Perfect carreers” in rock are bands like Young Marble Giants, Joy Division, Original Mirrors, Executive Slacks, Bronski Beat, Jimi Hendrix, and even big bands like The Beatles, The Clash, etc, who appeared, threw everything they had to say and disappeared. And I do hope I can say à;GRUMH… was like that. I pity these old bands who get back together, whatever the reason is, to make money, to have fun, to be a star again… I don’t want to go see them on stage in 2005, old, just a prody of what they once were, without that energy of youth and the urgency of what they had to say, when they had deciced to say it ! I’d rather keep my memories of their concerts at the time they were “the present” of rock’n’roll. Look at TG. They were a total legend. They were the most respected band in the history of industrial music. And now with that TG-2 fiasco and the hundred thousand pounds fee they have got for the reunion performance, and Genesis dressing up like Samantha in Bewitched, they are now seen as a big joke. I do not want à;GRUMH… to look like that. I do not want to come back on stage at 42 years of age (i’m actually 57), weighing 875 kilos, not having touched my guitar for so many years, and with nothing really interesting to do up there, just because some german (or else) concert promoter wants to make some money ! It would be simply awful and totally pathetic. I don’t want to ruin the great memories people have of our concerts. And to the many fans who write to me and say “but I wasn’t even born when you guys played on stage”, I must say, well that’s life. I too wasn’t “born” when Janis Joplin played on stage, I too would have loved to see Jim Morrison or Jacques Brel performing. Tough luck !! In life, you can’t get everything you want !! Being à;GRUMH… on stage was a great experience. I have wonderful memories of our concerts and tours. And I don’t want to ruin MY memories either !”.
