En Tout Cas is Jimmy Cain, Dave Cameron, Skube Burnell and Marc Stubberfield, a four-piece band from Melbourne, Australia – who create noisy guitar pop inspired by quiet walks along the beach and hemorrhagic fever.
They just finished wrapping up their new EP, ‘Dengue Fever’ – which will be out next month, and had some time to kill for a Fresh from the Post Q and A. Their drummer Skube takes a shot at our questions and gives a sampling of what’s in store for us on their upcoming EP release –
This is for the non-French speaking readers of our site here. What does En Tout Cas mean and how did you choose it as your band’s name?
En Tout Cas is french for "In Any Case" if you directly translate it I guess. The name change occurred when we started writing proper songs. We wanted to change it before we went out and introduce ourselves as a band. It’s an odd name to call your band, especially if you aren’t French but it’s original, you won’t find another by that name. There is also a tennis surface named En Tout Cas incidentally, so luckily most people can already pronounce it.
How did En Tout Cas get started?
It started in late 2005 as just a garage band, just me and Dave. We invited Jim to come over and jam and he added alot to the table. We began writing songs after Jim was in and needed a bassist. We actually went out specifically looking for a bassist at this "indie" club in the city one night and found Marc. It was a good find.
Your new EP, is called Dengue Fever, which has a cool and upbeat title track of the same name. I grew up in a tropical country most of my life where dengue fever was quite common and I still remember getting hospitalized for a couple of days where they give you those tourniquet tests to see if you still have it. Luckily, I didn’t need blood transfusion – but it was a nice few days off from school. My question is, have you guys ever had dengue fever before? If so, I don’t suppose the experience inspired you to do the song or it would be about delirious fevers and bouts of nausea.
I don’t think any of us have had Dengue Fever ever. We wrote it in the middle of Summer and the name was thought up as a working title by Dave and it stuck, I was loving it cause I hate songs that are named by the vocal hook of the song, you’ll play this song thinking it’s about Dengue Fever but you don’t know what you will be getting yourself into..
Can you tell us more about the two tracks that we have up here off your upcoming EP?
Dengue Fever – Unofficially our first single, was written right in the middle of Summer at Dave’s holiday house, and at that point with just the guitar, before vocal ideas had been put down, the song already had a "Summer" feel to it so the vocals a week or two later followed in that direction. From my point of view it’s upbeat instrumentally with negative lyrics if you do read into it.
Wait Along Time – This was the last song we wrote before heading into the studio, over two weeks all parts were changed around and it was noticeably taking form. I think we spent the most time on that particular song when we were in the studio and it really shows. The vibe of the song brings to mind images of a ‘Clint Eastwood’ Western movie, with the desolate sounding guitar, whistles and echoed shakers. I think it’s the most different song we’ve written so far, so from the start we really wanted to include this song on the EP. The name of this track will be renamed prior to release of the EP, March 6th 2010 so consider it a working title temporarily.
Last but not the least, I always ask this question to all bands we feature. What is your definition of ‘indie music’?
I can’t really give a definition but the label ‘indie’ always brings to mind lo-fi bands with a stripped down sound in general. It seems to have become a bit of a fad label among new bands as it’s really become popular. I think everybody has a different idea of what is indie music. As with any other genre it’s broad so you can’t really narrow it to one band as an example. We’ve been labelled as indie rock and alternative pop by reviewers and listeners, I guess that sounds about right.
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En Tout Cas is a band that always aims to be different . They’ve got a knack for picking out unique sounding names – from their own French moniker, to the title of their EP carrier single. They’ve also got a talent for creating instantly likeable songs. Whether it’s indie rock or alternatve pop, they create music and make it their own.
Dengue Fever will be available on iTunes, March 6th. If you’re in the area, the band is also doing an EP launch on the same day at the East Brunswick Club in Melbourne. You can check out the band’s Myspace page for more information – https://www.myspace.com/entoutcasmusic
