Interview withZeN Smith (vocals) from Waiting for Words
As the “French Kings of Synthpop” just celebrated 35 years, WAITING FOR WORDS, far from being turned toward its past, is active like never before. Exploring more in depths their stunning new album, ‘Dignity’, a completely reworked / reconstructed / rearranged version by some other talented French musicians, ‘Fatherless Child’ is now available while five EPs complete the journey with non-album B-Sides, splendid covers and a bunch of remixes and old school 12” Extended Versions.
The band is one gig away from the end of their tour that took them on a 14 gigs trip in Mexico last spring, share the stage with AND ONE (with ZeN Smith also performing keyboards for Steve Naghavi & Joke Jay), THE ESSENCE or UNDERGODS and performing some marathon-esque 3-hours gigs. It was just about to catch up with ZeN Smith and discuss all of this… and more.
Reflections of Darkness [RoD]: It’s been six years since our last interview… but it feels an eternity since the world has been through so many changes. How did you cope with it and how did it influence your work?
ZeN: Gosh… what a question! Like millions in the world, the effects of everything, from COVID to War’s impact, not to mention our French constant mess, were quite dramatic. The last leg of the “Egocracy Tour” that was supposed to see us back in Germany (we must be doomed with this country LOL) and other places was cancelled.
You know, our tours are generally split in three parts… the first one is a big loss of money, the second leads us to break even, and the third one is supposed to bring some funds for the next album. You can see the consequences of cancelling the last bit. On top of that, it was also the start of a dark period for most of us. We’ve been through it all you know: health and psychological issues, huge financial problems with our day jobs (most of us are independent entrepreneurs), my father was diagnosed a leukaemia and started a long and painful 4-years battle before passing away… we were really in a dark place to be fair and as per impact, I guess our latest album speaks by itself
RoD: You’ve presented ‘Dignity’ as the dignity of a father, a husband, a worker, a musician, a citizen…
ZeN: Yep. It says it all. On a more global scale, this all COVID crisis was so unbelievable. The all world confined, the QR codes, the mass vaccination… and all those stupid leaders lying to us days after days. When you look back, you can’t help laughing at it. And we’ll pay the price for it for decades.
This thing about the virus being the consequence of an accident in a Chinese Lab… Come on. It was so obvious! Telling us for years, “No No, you’re a conspiracionist, you’re stupid, it’s not that”… And what do they say today? “Yeah it was an accident in a Chinese Lab”. Well done guys. Now all the real conspiracionists have a boulevard ahead of us. And on many other aspects your dignity can be hurt. In your job, in your personal relationships. And even the ones who love you can be hard on you sometimes.
RoD: ‘Take It As My Pride’ is probably one of your most political statement and clearly an anti-woke anthem.
ZeN: It’s not as simple as that. To be fair, it was about time to change some mentalities and not all this evolution is to be thrown away. But the thing that I find really hard to cope with is this “Cancel Culture” and most of all, looking at the past with 2020’s lenses. That’s bullshit. You can’t judge what happened in the 17th or 19th century like that. That’s what I mean when I write “History was left for us to act for a better future in the light”. Use history to create a better future mate, don’t waste time create conflicts between people, blame some others for what happened then. I’m responsible for MY actions, for what I do in my everyday life, not for the sins of my ancestors. Look ahead and stop blaming the past for your problems. There are enough problems today don’t you think? We have 10 million people living in poverty in France, more than 4 million people will never find a job. Because there’s no job for them… and AI is used to destroy more and more jobs every day.
RoD: You also have the most optimistic and uplifting song WAITING FOR WORDS has ever released, ‘Hedonism’.
ZeN: This one came at the early stage of the album recording. We were really at the start of the COVID crisis and I was like “What do I want to say to my kids?”. I didn’t really want to sing them tragedies. And life is a succession of cycles. Of course, after the dark, there will be light. There must be light! And the light must come from the kids and new generations. That’s why I’m also that pissed with all this Woke thing now. Come on Kid, stop crying and yelling on TikTok. Go out, run, dance, meet up with your friends, create… You’re not happy with the past? What’s new? Do you think Gen X was happy with Boomers? We did our thing and created our own little world. Have we succeeded? Obviously not. The road is still long but you have tools in your hand we didn’t have. Use all this tech to elevate yourself and create.
RoD: A message you can feel in the awesome video once again directed by Raphael Duvernay…
ZeN: Yeah! That was the message too. A bunch of 50+ (apart from our youngling Samantha ha ha) having fun like teenagers.
RoD: In terms of music and sound, there’s a more organic feel, despite being still very electronic. How did you find that balance?
ZeN: I really wanted to go back to old methods. Sampling some sounds, pass synths through speakers and amps. We’ve always been doing that, but we’re probably getting better at it. Of course, having a “real” drummer helps it for the rhythms and using electronic drums gives you this freedom. We were recording his Midi parts, with a great human feeling and Fred is really one of the best drummers I ever came across. He really has this Coppeland touch. His drum parts really evolve through the song. There’s not a lot of repetition in his Hi-Hat parts for example. So, once you have all the Midi recorded, you can assign whatever drum sound you want to it. We’ve sampled a lot of snares and kicks from 80/90s extended versions. And then we merged some different sources to create a new one. Let’s say, we sampled a BOWIE snare, then a EURYTHMICS one and a CURE one… and merged them, pitch them and do a lot of work on it to create one new unique Snare. It was really fun.
RoD: And of course, bass and guitar!
ZeN: Hell yeah! I’m a lucky guy you know? I genuinely believe I have probably one of the best line-up ever. Peter, Fred, Samantha and Sophie. How could I have ever dreamed having so talented people with me and incredible human beings. Since early talks with Peter for this album, I really wanted to have those INXS / DURAN DURAN / SIMPLE MINDS influences appraised in our sound. Enough of DEPECHE MODE and OMD. Of course there are still important, but I’ve been equally influenced by John Taylor, the Farriss brothers, Mel Gaynor and Charlie Burchill that I’ve been by Wilder and McCluskey. But this was not obvious in the past.
Before even meeting Samantha, we left a lot of space in our tracks because we knew we would have bass and guitar. I was playing bass guitar on almost all demoes. We even kept some of my lines on ‘Interieur Nuit’ and ‘Shine’. A friend of us recorded the first ‘Hedonism’ bass line. So when we came across Samantha, everything was ready for her. The cherry on the cake being that she also plays guitars and keyboards and sings with a great voice. ‘Shine’ and ‘See The Lights’ were tracks we were really struggling to complete. Something was missing and she cracked them with her guitar lines.
RoD: Was it long to record this album?
ZeN: I think it’s the fasted album we’ve recorded. It really reminded me of our first album, ‘Tranquility’, in that sense. I think it took us two sessions with Peter and Soe to compose and demo most of the album. One session gave birth to something like six or seven tracks in three days… literally starting from scratch. Sometimes Peter already had one or two minutes sketches, but tracks like ‘Dignity’ or ‘See The Lights’ were really jams. And when I came back home, I took my notebook and wrote something like 5 lyrics in a couple of hours. Never did that before.
There are only three tracks we really struggled with. ‘To Avoid The Void’, but it was mainly because of the lyrics that were quite painful. It’s a song about our fathers for Peter and me. It’s really a pure PET SHOP BOYS spirit that one: incredibly sad lyrics on a really smooth and catchy melody.
‘A Kiss Like This’ was hard to crack too. The Alternative Remix we’ve just released was the original demo. But it didn’t fit with the album sound. And I really felt we needed another uplifting and Pop songs to “release the pressure” and the darkness of some other songs. I was struggling for months till the day I’ve decided to erase everything and just kept the piano line and build something totally new.
And finally, ‘Take It As My Pride’. We had the music but no lyrics, no vocal line. And I don’t know what stuff happened in the world that day, certainly another Cancel Culture bullshit episode about a book or a movie. I was so pissed off, I went down to the studio, took the mike and the all thing literally came in almost one take. I was creating the lyrics while singing. I don’t think I’ve ever did that in the past.
Fun fact: ‘A Kiss Like This’ vocals were also written and recorded the same night. The darkest song and the poppiest song in one go, the same night. I remember being totally drowned and empty after that. It was a real emotional roller-coaster
RoD: Would you say that, finally, this COVID crisis helped you in this creative process?
ZeN: Definitely! For the first time in decades, we were not stretched between touring and recording or absorbed with our day jobs. We had really nothing else to do than focusing on the album. Even though we were struggling, as I said before, with a lot of emotional and financial issues, it gave us the opportunity to really think the album, live it, breath it.
RoD: There are some songs sounding more 90s than 80s in their influences such as ‘Interieur Nuit’, ‘See The Lights’ or ‘Shine’…
ZeN: Glad you notice! Especially ‘See The Lights’. We really wanted the kind of 90s baggy Manchester thing like EMF, early JAMES or CHARLATANS. As per ‘Interieur Nuit’, there’s obviously this Rave culture sound, but Soe’s vocal and lyrics bring more a 70/80s French music influence into it. Every time I listen to it, it reminds me of French artists such as Gainsbourg, Lavilliers or a French cult hit titled ‘Chacun Fait’ by a one hit wonder band named ‘Chagrin d’Amour’. And with a Film Noir of the 30s atmosphere because of the lyrics in itself.
RoD: A new version of the album, entirely reworked by FATHERLESS CHILD is now available.
ZeN: Another crazy idea. FATHERLESS CHILD did some great remixes for ‘a MIX through the night’ back in 2006. It made a long time we haven’t done remixes with other artists. We wanted to have some for this album and started with the great Italian DJ, BodyAlive and ‘Hedonism’. We were talking with Nicolas of FATHERLESS CHILD about remixes, and I can’t remember which of us brought the idea on the table. They were so inspired they came up with the full album, an alternative version (not the same running order and some changes here and there) in the form of a continuous mix tape and some more for the EPs. We are very honoured that such talented artists were so inspired by our work.
I really love listening to it. It’s a real album on its own. It’s interesting to hear your songs reshaped by somebody else. We use some of their versions for concert intro and brought some elements of their ‘Hedonism’ remix to our live version.
RoD: Talking about live, this tour seems to be quite a journey! Performing with AND ONE or THE ESSENCE, touring Mexico and some marathon-3-hours gigs here and there!
ZeN: Sure it is! But it comes with a price in terms of work load and health concerns. We hate repeating a gig and couldn’t see ourselves touring with one set. Especially since there are places where we performed quite often with people knowing our music well, some new places we never played or places we haven’t toured in a while. I refuse to play the same thing for all those places because they have different expectations. Some want to focus on the new album, some never heard ‘Travelling Man’ or ‘Out Of Control’, some - like Mexico - never saw us. We played ‘By Your Side’ just for ONE of our fans in Mexico who loved this song while we hadn’t played it on this tour. Each date is specific, depending also if we have the screenings, if we have Fred with us (sometimes we play tiny places) … so we adapt.
On top of that, I can be a real psychopath when it comes to the mix of our live sets. Fred upgraded his drums, Peter leaving the stage meaning Soe and I have to take some of his duties, Sam is still working on her sound, both for bass AND guitar… all that implied a huge amount of work on all the backing tapes and live sounds we use for drums and synths, especially since we’ve upgraded a lot of our live and studio settings, we really improved the sound both for the audience and for us. I hate to go to a gig and hear the same thing as the album… What’s the point? So, not only we change our Setlists, we change the version and sound of the songs you already know. A friend nicknamed us “NTSC”…. “Never The Same Concert”!
As per “marathons”, in our hometown’s region, we play a lot of pubs or clubs where they hire a band for the whole evening… and we love that! What’s the point in working our arse for a 60mn set when we can perform more. And that’s also why we do a lot of covers. We can’t play for three hours with just WFW repertoire in those places. However, we manage to keep 70-80 minutes of WFW songs and complete with covers. And the choice of the covers is never innocent. It’s really songs from our DNA, with a real meaning to us and also some covers from our ‘Best Years Our Lives’ or ‘Lovesongs’ albums.
Most of the others often ends up as B-sides for our EPs such as SIMPLE MINDS’ ‘See The Lights’ or Axel Bauer’s ‘Cargo’. We turn those into WAITING FOR WORDS songs. Covers (and remixes we do for others) have always served as a laboratory for us. We test things, go into some musical structures and harmonies we wouldn’t go naturally. I’m not sure a song like ‘My Dignity’ would have sound like that if we hadn’t done THE CURE’s cover of ‘Want’ or the remix for Johanne Gabriel’s ‘Les Heroines Du Quotidien’.
But it’s really thrilling to see our songs like ‘Hedonism’, ‘Intérieur Nuit’, ‘A Kiss Like This’, ‘Egocracy’ or ‘Cause I Do Believe’ having sometimes more success than a well-known cover of a big hit.
RoD: And the Mexico Tour? 14 gigs! How did this come up?
ZeN: Amazing story. As you probably know, the initial plan was to tour in California with a gig at the Whisky A Go Go and plans for San Francisco and other places. But the whole thing turned into a disaster with our management there. No support, no promotion and other stuffs. Fred came up with the idea of turning a crisis into an opportunity. He was already in contact with people in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and other places. Someone connected us to someone who connected us to someone and so on up to the point we met with Carpe Diem Booking on one side and Javier, the front man of the band FLOE, organizing a lot of Synthpop events. Javier booked us three gigs, Carpe Diem booked us ten others and a 14th one came up last minute when we were there. The excitement and demand were stunning. Gigs kept coming almost every day.
I knew we had an audience there, as well as in South America, as we charted in the past on some radios and by looking at stats on our digital streams and sales, but not to that point. And of course, there was a big part of audiences not knowing us from before. But people there are so welcoming, curious, opened to new bands. They are so excited by Synthpop, New Wave, EBM but also Ska or Metal. You realize how sometimes bored and sometimes jaded the European audiences can be. Really. But it’s logical in a way. Europe is in the Rock and Pop music since the 50s! Modern Pop Rock music is up there since what? Late 90s, early 00s? There’s a whole new generation (and even older) who never saw DEPECHE MODE, U2, INXS or the STONES. I really felt the vibe we were in in the 80s.
The first gig we did back in France after that really felt like an ice cold shower. “Oh God, we’re home again”. But once again, I get it you know. People have seen hundreds of bands like us before in Europe. We really have to fight to catch them into our universe and go grab them one by one, literally.
RoD: You mentioned health concerns. It’s been announced Peter Rainman stops being a touring member of the band after the Mexico Tour…
ZeN: This is certainly the first time we had to prepare physically before touring. I said to everyone before Mexico, “Guys, this will be intense, we’re going to perform sometimes two gigs the same day, we’ll also travel between cities, and we only have two or three days off…”. Each of us did prepare for it. Soe and I were doing gym every day for two months, we paid attention to what we ate, drink, to our sleep, etc.
But yes, for Peter it was harder than for anyone. As he genuinely said, he’s a studio guy before everything. He always committed to our gigs for 13 years… but 14 gigs in one go was too much. He even had to miss one of them to have some rest. That and everything he explained in his announcement made clear he had to step out of the touring life and gigs. But he’s not the only one suffering. We all have our little issues, but we manage it quite well in the end.
RoD: So tell me… how did you end up performing synths with AND ONE in Paris?
ZeN: Ah ah! I still don’t realize what happened. The week before the gig, Xavier Darasse, the promoter of the event, called me out of the blue telling me: “ZeN, we have a situation. Their keyboard player can’t do it for the Paris gig… can you do it?”… Good thing for them I’m a fan since 1993 and know most of their songs by heart. I practiced hours and hours every day for that week, and here I was. It was an incredible experience. Joke told me just before going on stage, “Don’t be nervous, just be yourself” and Steve pushing me ahead of us to be the first entering the stage… Waooo. And we had some real fun! Steve coming to me to make me sing with him, Joke having some laughs with me during all the set. Maybe it will happen in the future again… who knows?
RoD: What are the next plans?
ZeN: We end the “Dignity Tour” in Paris on November 14th, have just released a new EP from the album (‘Interieur Nuit’) and a Super Deluxe Edition of ‘Dignity’ that regroups every EP, the album, the remixed album and bonuses. And the more the tour runs on, the more we believe we should release ‘To Avoid The Void’ as the last single. There’s not one audience in the world that has not reacted to this particular song… Peter is also composing a lot at the moment, both for the next album and for the Singles compilation to be released in 2026.
RoD: Some details about this compilation?
ZeN: It will focus on the 2006-2026 era. The 25 singles and two or three new ones collected. And of course, a tour to support it. It will be fun to tour without the “album thing” around. We’ll have a great choice of songs for the setlists. That’s all I can tell for the moment.
RoD: So more decades ahead of WAITING FOR WORDS?
ZeN: If we’re still up to it both in terms of inspiration, motivation and most of all, physical condition, I guess there might be at least ten other years. I’m pretty sure we will compose and record up to our last breath you know, but going on stage and tour? I don’t want to turn into this old man running after the flame of his past and ruining both the image and the energy of the band. WAITING FOR WORDS is built upon live energy. The day this energy is gone will be the end of it. Time will tell…
AVAILABLE NOW on: https://waitingforwords.bandcamp.com/
Interieur Nuit Ep, 7 Tracks EP
Dignity - Super Deluxe Edition includes:
- Vol. 1: DIGNITY, the album
- Vol. 2: DIGNITY, the album reconstructed by Fatherless Child
- Vol. 3: HEDONISM Ep, 9 tracks Ep
- Vol. 4: MY DIGNITY Ep, 6 Tracks Ep
- Vol. 5: WITHOUT A SOUND Ep, 5 Tracks Ep
- Vol. 6: A KISS LIKE THIS Ep 7 Tracks Ep
- Vol. 7: INTERIEUR NUIT Ep, 7 Tracks Ep
+ DIGITAL ONLY BONUS:
- Vol.8: DIGNITY Continuous & Alternative Mix Tape part 1 & 2 (72 minutes)
Pictures by Marie-Laure Duarte
