xavier:  Well, Overmars started in spring 2001 as a 6 members band. Excepted the bass player, the line-up didn’t change since the beginning. It just grows because since spring 2002, we’re 7 on stage, the last one dealing with visual media and 8mm projections. And there’re some close peoples involved with Overmars as (hell)drivers, sound tech and last but not least our almighty and beloved webmaster. Now, I think (and hope) we’ve found a stable line-up.
About our realisations, we released 1 split 3.5” floppy disk on Purepainsugar records, 1 split CD with Donefor, 1 split CD with Fugüe on Waiting For An Angel / Cetacean and we’re working on our 1st full-length album who should be out in February 2005 on Appease Me (CD) / Alchimia (2xLP).
We toured everywhere in France and in Southern and Eastern Europe. This is all for our small biography. I don’t know what to tell more excepted we’re nice boys and girl who try to do music that please to us without limits of musical style.

hARTboiled:  Well there are many bands around at the moment who hop on the heavy/noise/doom/whatever train, how do you manage it to keep your own sound and sound different from the others?

xavier:  I don’t know. In fact I don’t know the other bands who hop in this heavy/noise/doom/whatever train, hahaha.
About our sound, we’re always working on it, trying new FX or sonorities but I think the fact we’re 6 dudes and dudette involved in creation of our music makes us avoid to copy / paste other bands evolving in the same musical sphere. And we’re quite old too (understand we’re closer to be 30 than 20) and are listening to a lot of music, different styles, from dub to black metal, from pop to funeral doom, and we’re influenced by all this and try to mix all these sounds in our own songs, in the most coherent way possible.
marion:  Not listening to those bands is the easiest way to sound differently from them… in fact I didn’t had the chance to hear a lot from them.
ben:  When we started Overmars, there was not that much bands that play this kind of music, at least in France. So, even if we like the bands you’re talking of, we didn’t had even the time to put their influence in our own music.
Our influences come from older bands. For the sound, we’re not trying to make it different, or original, or something… it’s just the result of all those influences I was talking before. As we are different souls we have different tastes, and we just put them into the music we do.

hARTboiled:  How did your collaboration with fugue from Japan start?
xavier:  Fafa, from Waiting For Angel, started a collection of split CD uniting Japanese bands with French (or French speaking) bands.
He likes us a little bit (he even played bass with us during one year) and proposed us to be part of this collection. He knew Fugüe and asked them to participate. This is as simple as that.

hARTboiled:  Are there any plans for a tour?

xavier:  If everything goes alright, we should tour in Europe in April 2005. There is nothing planned for the moment but we’d like to tour Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, why not Sweden, Poland and if we’ve got enough time, go back in Austria, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
ben: The ideal would be a 3 weeks tour, but the problem is that the half of us are involved in other stuffs… we also have families, jobs, and most of all, we are 7, what means a huge organisation to take in consideration everybody’s desires. Xavier (who books the tours) told me one day that organising our tours was a second job for him. I can easily understand him.
xavier:  Dealing with everything who’s belong to Overmars is an everyday job !!!

hARTboiled:  Your first album is being planned, what can we expect? Will it be a lot different from the stuff we know?

xavier:  You can expect a wall of noise !!! Sincerely, we’ve got head plunged into our amps and composition’s work and it’s quite difficult to have a clear vision of what will be the album.
We’re close to have finish to write all the tracks who will be on this record. For sure there will be 3 long tracks (more than 10 min long) with progressive structures, big riffs and atmospheric passages.
There will be shorter “real” songs too, and many interludes, not necessary instrumental, to give air in all this mass of noise. It will be different of what we did previously but it’s just simply because we’re growing older and I hope better, and try to experiment a little more.
But we tried to keep our “Overmars’s touch” still present. You will tell us when you’ll listen to this record.
ben:  Expect a first song totally blasting and different. For the rest, I just couldn’t say. I hardly can have an objective advice on the music I do… when I listen to our stuff, it’s a real weird sensation to me. well, I have absolutely no self esteem, I always find that our music sucks… sic… the others always shout at me for that, but I can’t help having a hard-criticised look on our work. But to answer your question, I think the album will not be very different from what you already know of us… we grew up, but we didn’t have changed.

hARTboiled:  Has your bandname anything to do with football player marc overmars? Well I don't think so, so please explain.

xavier:  Yes and no. Did you ask the same question to Reiziger?
ben:  definitely NO !!! whatever the others could tell you.
xavier:  There is too many explanations about this bandname but that player is not innocent about that choice. Antoine, our guitarist, have got good explanation about it but he doesn’t want to answer. His English sucks more than ours.

hARTboiled:  What kind of music are you listening too personally? Are there any young bands who deserve to get a little publicity?

xavier:  Personally, it changes every week. Right know when I’m typing my answers, I’m listening to Aspects Of Physics and Police. Theses days, I’m in a doom mood and listening to Thorr’s Hammer, Sunn O))), Graves At Sea, 5ive, Corrupted and Khanate. Here is kind of everyday playlist : Neurosis, Ulver, Blut Aus Nord, Techno Animal, Jawbreaker, Massive Attack, From Ashes Rise, Dalëk, Amanda Woodward, Funeral Diner, Darkest Hour, Anathema, Entombed, Swans and sooooooo many more. Simfela, Mihai Edrish, Daitro, The Cold Within deserve to get a more than little publicity. They’re really good live bands. Carmina with ex-Ananda is pretty good too. And if you’re curious about French bands, try Comity, Superstatic Revolution, Rroselicoeur, Tantrum and Submerge.
marion:  I like to listen to many different things, as same as Xavier, it depends of the kind of mood I am in. (Even though, I’m always enjoying to hear the early Cure’s… do they deserve to get a little publicity ?). More seriously, I do also think that the French bands like Tantrum, Iscariote, Rroselicoeur… and a few others, deserve at least to be mentioned here.
ben:  I’m quite in 80’s stuffs those times… but I’m listening to any kind of music. I liked Takaru in concert the other day. But less and less I’m listening to fast stuffs, this is music for young people, and I’m too old now to understand and appreciate it. I like stuffs that sings… against me, Amanda Woodward… ambient stuff too… well there’s so many bands, so many styles, I just can’t make a list. Same answers than Xavier for the young bands… such an obvious choice ! I would add Guns of Brixton, a very talented dub band… Fuaim Catha, cool dudes.

hARTboiled:  What is the most important thing about your band? I see you have a lot of essays on your website, so is the message the most important thing to you?

xavier: I don’t know. Maybe everything is important. We don’t want to be just a musical band, it always a will to propose something else with Overmars, to show we’re not just able to play heavy riffs and growl. Lyrics and essays are here to express our sensibilities through other medias as well as our live video projection and artwork.
There is no explicit and dogmatic message in Overmars. We just want peoples to think by themselves, to constructively criticise their environment, to create their own art with their own sensibilities and vision.
At our shows in France, we’ve got small zines we printed, including all our essays + pictures and drawings to propose to the public. We’ve got to translate them in English and why not other languages if we find someone able to do this. Music is our collective effort, essays, pictures and drawings are our personal acts. We’re not artist enough to give them a sense but we hope peoples find one for them.
marion: To me, the most important thing about Overmars is that each member has a personal feeling to share with the others. That’s why I think that the essays, drawings and pictures… can just let you know that we share a lot more than our music… (or something like that !)
ben: 2 years ago, I certainly would have answer you : yes !!!
I’m not sure anymore. Both are very important : music can also be the message. But I don’t want to talk about politics in my lyrics anymore.
I have too many doubts, how could I say to someone else what to do when i do not even know myself. Since I started Overmars, I’m writing on personal things, most of the time, it’s subversive, but not obviously politic.

hARTboiled: What is your opinion about the visuality of bands? A lot of new releases have those incredible artworks, for example isis, khanate, converge...the websites are very stylish also. You had an amazing artwork on the split with fugue. Is that an important point to you?

xavier:  Visual is really important for us. It is a window to enter the sensibility of the band you’re listening to. It’s a way to propose something more than just a piece of plastic with sound burnt on it. I can’t conceive Overmars doing a record without a well worked visual, whatever the graphic style. It can be very simple but strong. About the split with Fugüe, we didn’t choose the artwork because this record was part of a collection but it fits very well with my vision of what should be a record as an object. I’m very proud of our website too. Seb, our webmaster, does an incredible job with it, simple, efficient and really aesthetic.

hARTboiled: Anything you want to say?

xavier:  Thanks a lot Marcia for asking us these questions. I hope my bad English will be understood by all the readers. If you see us live, don’t hesitate to speak to us after the show, we’re nice and we don’t bite.
But we can have weird humour.
ben:  working thank you very much for the interview and for your interest for what we do. Check our website and let us messages, critics or whatever…
xavier:  Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. My e-mail is This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it . You can check Ben at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it and Marion at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it . And of course, you can check our website, www.overmars.fr.st. We try to update it as often as possible.



Overmars