Thank you for the deus
They may be Belgian, but there’s precious little waffle as Deus frontman Tom Barman discusses the hard times that inspired the band’s latest record, his relationship with Blur’s Damon Albarn and his parallel career as budding, if occasionally frustrated, filmmaker.
Paul Nolan, 26 Sep 2011
Belgian art-rockers Deus have returned with their first album in three years, Keep You Close, and frontman Tom Barman says that the album grew out of a fairly difficult period for the veteran outfit.
“It was a time for introspection, and maybe a more fragile kind of record,” considers Barman. “The tour for our previous album, Vantage Point, wasn’t the best, and we came home sooner than we expected. Previously, we’d toured for maybe a year or a year-and-a-half each time out, but on Vantage Point we came home after eight months, and we didn’t get to visit any new places. The reaction to the record was lukewarm, so there was a combination of things that left us feeling down. I don’t want to exaggerate the situation – I don’t have the talent for depression. But maybe I should have just taken some time off. I felt a bit sucked dry.”
Usually when rock stars use that phrase, it means something else.
“Oh Jesus!” blurts out Tom. “I’m in Belgium, you can’t use it against me if I use the wrong terminology!”
We’ll let it slide. A couple of years ago, Barman allowed a documentary crew to follow his day-to-day life for a film, and the frontman reckons this may have contributed to the stress he was feeling.
“That’s probably why it wasn’t the best year of my life, Paul,” he laughs. “I’m a big fan of that director. He chooses his subjects from all walks of life, he’s not into music at all, and that makes it all the more interesting I think. He’s done businessmen, cyclists, people who work in the harbour, animators – it’s all walks of life. So he has a detachment from his subjects, which a music buff or a rock journalist wouldn’t have.”
Also on the cinematic front, a few years back Barman – who attended film school in Brussels – made his directorial debut with the Altman-esque Any Way The Wind Blows, which even had a screening in the Irish Film Institute prior to a Deus performance at Electric Picnic.
“We had a couple of good screenings in Dublin,” recalls Tom. “Filmmaking is definitely something I’d like to do again. As well as working on Deus and writing material for Magnus, my electro-pop project, I have been writing scripts. There’s one that’s developed into a 30 or 40 page treatment, which is getting close to the next level, which is actually writing the script. I don’t really want to talk about it, because it’s based on obscure old book, and the rights are very expensive. Also, you know how these things go – you plan things and you have dreams. Then it doesn’t happen, and you get reminded about it ten years later, like, ‘Weren’t you going to do this? You’re a liar!’”
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