Finally we can share with us the wonderful, really funny and exclusive interview for our website partner ShannonLetoWeb, taking place last 31° October 2011 in Kiev and hosted by Olga Vasyukova. Enjoy!
-I heard it’s your first time in Kiev, right?
Antoine: Yes
-How do you feel about it?
Antoine: Super excited! I just had some very tasty borsch and now I’m ready to party!
-Do you like it?
Antoine: Yes
Shannon: Antoine is a borsch-lover!
Antoine: I’m a borsch-addict!
Shannon: Borsch, non-stop borsch.
-Anything else, some national food?
Shannon: I had some great cake. Medovik. Yeah, with honey. It was good, it was like a breakfast cake. Had a piece of it. It was tasty
-Anyway, are you friends, beside music, projects and parties?
Shannon: We are always working, so we are kind of working friends.
-Can you describe each other in 5 words?
Shannon: Yeah. Dedicated. Persevere. Boiled. Wildebeest. Stamina from my yak. That’s it. Antoine Becks.
Antoine: In 5 words: artist…mmm…
Shannon: Careful buddy! C-a-r-e-f-u-l!
Antoine: Artist. Inspirational. Humble. Visionary. And funny. You are funny guy!
Shannon: I’m funny, yeah!
-How did you come up with the idea of playing DJsets together?
Shannon: When we met, few years back, in Miami through mutual friend and we were about the same taste in music, like you know, we like the same artists, and I liked what Antoine was doing with the Second Sun, his former electronic project. It’s kind of natural progression start to performing and he’s a leader of CB7 I’m helping him with, but we really like dance music so he started doing his Dj thing and we were in Mexico?
Antoine: Yeah. On the beach. It was a beach-party.
Shannon: And he was DJing out there on this huge festival, I was like “Why don’t we do smth ?” So we decided to play some percussion with different types of house music and it’s been working very well and that actually help us lunch our production of songs what we currently working on and we might play a brand new song that we did. We made it together and you know, it’s exciting, it’s fun, and it’s been really inspirational as well. He is always come up with the ideas and it’s an amazing working relationship…
Antoine: Great creative partnership.
-Don’t you plan to release an album with you tracks?
Shannon: Yes. We are planning of doing something for sure.
-CB7. What does it mean?
Antoine: What does it mean? Mmm…It’s a…I will reveal that … shortly. But not now. There is a meaning and idea behind the name CB7.
-Okay. Soon the tour of 30STM will be over. Do you plan to continue playing together after it?
Shannon: Making lots of music and playing and touring the world with Antoine. And just having fun.
-any other projects?
Shannon: I’m pretty busy…and he is busy with CB7 and DJing and me with 30STM. It’s full…. It’s great to be here, in Ukraine, to play in Russia
Antoine: Completely insane!
Shannon: In Saint-Petersburg was unbelievable, the energy was sick, and we are really looking forward to play in Kiev…
-Moscow?
Shannon: Moscow we are working on. We are planning on it.
Antoine: We’ve just played in Saint-Petersburg
Shannon: Well, Moscow and anywhere else in the world will have us. We love to perform, we love to show the experience.
-You are very busy, but I’m sure you have free time, at least a little bit. So how do you spend it?
Shannon: I like to go hiking, when I turn back in LA, I like to dinner with friends, but there is no much free time, you know. Because there always is something to do with music, there is not enough time in a day, really.
-I heard smth about you and motorcycles…
Shannon: About me..oh, I love motorcycles. We are in very valuable relationship, but since 30STM go on big tours I just cant let myself break smth to make all these people hating me…
Antoine: Really? I didn’t know.
Shannon: So yeah I love motorcycles, cause I like fast, you know and I also like to chill out, get out on a boat, drink some virgin pine colada ….but right now it’s time to work, it’s time to expression, it’s a really exciting time in my life and in Antoine’s life too. Just can’t wait to keep writing music.
Antoine: So there is always smth to do, there is not much free time.
-Do you have any hobbies?
Antoine: Everything pretty much revolves around music and so whether I’m playing guitar or keyboard or working it the studios, installing music software….. making it so that we can work and produce us to …on the road and produce on the road right now with the technology due today it’s possible to do that almost like having fully functional studio while you on the road soothe time between shows, when you waiting for airplanes, so it’s not just chilling in a hotel room it’s not just watching TV, we can ….that time like for making music, so that’s it, everything revolves around music.
-So can we expect new album from CB7 soon?
Antoine: Yes, definitely . Don’t know how soon it will be, but…
Shannon: we are writing song and demos and all these travelling, all these inspiration , that Antoine is getting ….is gonna be very helpful for CB7.
Antoine: Yes, absolutely
Shannon: There is the reason why things happen in the way they are happening ….
-Since you spend lots of time on the road, can you remember any funny or clumsy stories?
Shannon: It was last night, you know. We were in Saint-Petersburg, performing , but before we were performing we were on the stage and underneath the stage there were subs, you know buh-buh-buh, and it was so powerful, that everything started to fall of the tables, and then even his mixer start to falling. So we had to look for things to make them steady, so by the time we were done finding different pieces of material to stop it, you could see thing were taped all over it. It looked like garage make stereophone. It was pretty funny.
-What was you brightest childhood memory?
Shannon: There is a couple i remember. How I was learning to fly for the first time…of the roof and i was cold though it was a bright day.
Antoine: I had no Idea you can fly…could you teach me?
Shannon: Yeah, I could teach you…
-But after they release new album, okay.
Shannon: Yeah, maybe it’s a good time …..and well i.flow into the air. If was fun, yeah, really fun. Still can’t forget that moment.
-How long have spent in hospital after that?
Shannon: You know my recovery is very fast, I have super human recovery process.
-Superman
Shannon: Yeah, yeah, smth like that but I mean bullet can hurt me.
Antoine: I remember before I started playing guitar (It happened when I was 7) and before that I was obsessed with The Beatles and we would cut out guitars as if they were real guitars and we were drawing the strings and the volume knobs and then we would set our friends and family down and we would lip sing to The Beatles music.
Shannon: That was fun, wasn’t it?
Antoine: I’s amazing!
Shannon: I thing my flying thing is better than your story.
Antoine: Yeah, I’d like to be able to fly.
Shannon: But he has secret vision! He can see through clothes.
Antoine: These glasses actually, they just look like glasses but they are x-ray, they are amazing.
-Everyone knows how Shannon got into music, so what was your way into music world?
Antoine: Like I said I’ve started playing guitar very young, played in a batch bands when I was a teenager, and when I was also young teenager I discovered electronic dance music, got really into that and start to learn how to make it and then still was in my teens got first record deal in dance music, so I was very active in a dance music world for a long time and tour the world doing that and then I wanna to go back to guitar playing and proper song writing and met Shannon at that time and CB7 sort of thing cooperating. Everything electronic. All my music tastes into one. Yeah, that’s how I got into music, I was doing it all my life pretty much.
-And what are your fave bands for now?
Shannon: Now…you know, I like M83 album, it’s really-really nice, that’s it now, I’m just stick on it. And of course some electronic music, some different artist, DJs out there, but now I fall asleep with M83 and on the plane, for many hours, M83 repeating, so I’m a part of them I love them where are they now.
Antoine: INXS. That sort of energy of them, but nowadays M83 is really good. I also love that group called Hurts from England, I love some of their songs.
Shannon: Yeah, couples of their songs.
Antoine: I really need to think about it, but I always listen to old music, new music, rock music, dance music, underground, crazy, weird stuff like that, Jamie Jones that I like produces slow electronic music that’s like funky but very trippy at the same time. I also remember Japanese band Cibo Matto, from long time ago, they barely could speak English. Song about food, yeah, two girls.
Shannon: Really?
Antoine: Yeah, “sugar, water…” And it was really cool, Cibo Matto, they only sing about food but their music was awesome
Shannon: Did you get hungry after that
Antoine: I got very hungry and I ate their CD and went to the hospital
Shannon: Oh, that’s where you get your scars?
-This story beat your roof story!
Shannon: I flow out of the window and so, yeah, I still win!
-You always say about changing experience with your fans. I can understand what you can share, but what do you get from them?
Shannon: I get a consistent level of energy and inspiration of community of we all in it together, we all in this experience together, it’s very active relationship we have ant that’s how it’s always been since very beginning and 30STM just guys up there, in t-shirts and jeans.
-What do you want to share, to give fans with your music.
Shannon: We want to give them our experience we wanna give them a place to loose themselves and find themselves at the end of our performance to people let go all their worries and concerns the daily grail they go through and we just want to have good time, dance and sweat.
Antoine: Dancing is good for the soul
-I’ve seen some videos from your after parties and noticed lots of girls there. So to make them happy, can you imagine and describe you perfect date?
Shannon: Yes, I can.
-Do it please ;D
Shannon: Oh…oh-oh-oh-oh-oh ;D I don’t know if I can. I think the perfect date is with someone the day would be, this is a perfect day. The time when everything just disappears and there’s just you two, only you and that person, everything disappears. You could be eating out or could be busy …it’s doesn’t matter there you are, it’s just you and your person and you’re having a conversation or maybe not, it’s like unspoken conversation but there is this energy that you both have and it’s just magic.
Antoine: It’s not so much about what are you doing exactly, it’s all about person you are with, I mean when you are with the right person it doesn’t really matter what are you doing, you could be even golfing . So it’s all about the person.
-Oh, you are so romantic.
Antoine: Laughing.
Shannon: That’s good. I think the most important is just live the moment with whatever you are doing. But yeah, it’s hard to find another human being. It takes some secure and patient and honest.
Antoine: I think the perfect way, when you are busy and you have person who makes you feel like let go of it and like Shannon said being in a moment and enjoy your little break for now.
-Okay guys, thank you! And Shannon, good luck on MTV EMA.
Shannon: Thank you. I want to fans win, they deserve it, muddafaggaz. And it’s tuff cause there is Lady Gaga and her fans, but our fans deserve it. It’s not important for us, these award, it’s never been like” Look what’ve done” , we’ve never celebrate that one and it’s not what music is about for me, it’s about “Look what we did, look what Antoine is doing with this piece of art”. It’s spiritual.
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