Jean-Marc Lederman (The Weathermen, Ghost & Writer, Lederman/ De Meyer ao) and Emileigh Rohn (Chiasm) got in touch for Jean-Marc’s conceptual album “Letters To Gods And Fallen Angels” (2019). It became a praised album and a successful collaboration inciting the Belgian-American duo to move on working together. Rohn-Lederman was born and a first album “Venus Chariot” was released in 2021. One year later the duo strikes back unleashing “Rage!”. Both albums released by COP International reveal a very own approach in sound, mixing different styles resulting in an atypical Electro-Pop production. “Rage!” sounds darker and harsher than its predecessor but also is a sophisticated piece of music. This is what both artists have to say about their common project.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: What motivated you to work together on a full length album and what makes the chemistry between both of you?

Jean-Marc: We kinda hooked up really from the beginning. I had provided Emileigh a song but ended up having to recreate the entire instrumental part beyond her voice. And she loved it. And I was so surprised as usually singers hate that, they’ll often get very self-conscious when the music changes too much. And I think Emileigh liked that I went as far as redoing a whole new music backing behind her. So we kind of got impressed by how each other was ready to alter course for making the end song shine through: commitment to the art.

Emileigh:  We began in 2019 with a song featured at Jean-Marc’s album “Letters To Gods And Fallen Angels” and realized the potential of continuing to try more.  So, we created an EP which eventually became an album and really haven’t stopped since. I think at last count, we have over 50 tracks released together at this point.  It’s been an incredibly dynamic partnership.

Q: Was there something like a consensus about the music, lyrical themes and global approach when setting up the project?

Jean-Marc: We just went straight in and got to discover things happening when they did and follow the rabbit down the music hole…

Emileigh:I recall, when we first began, having a discussion around Tom Waits quote regarding beautiful music saying terrible things. I think that intense emotional edge, especially with our recent “Rage!”-album, has only continued to sharpen. We knew well from our individual projects that our mindsets were similar and wanted to create music that continues to move and hold interest. I think we both have a fiery opposition to stagnancy.

Q: Jean-Marc, you already worked with numerous singers and artists so what makes the experience with Emileigh Rohn maybe different or that particular? What did she brought you never experienced before and in which way did she stimulates your artistic creativity and –skills in the production of this work?

Jean-Marc: I have been lucky enough to share a great music experience with amazing singers like Bruce Geduldig with The Weathermen and Frank Spinath with Ghost & Writer. Here, Emileigh brings in her amazing lyrical talent, her great voice, her ability to embrace changes and a genuine curiosity for bold and new things. The differences are multiples but I think it is also her natural attitude towards musical experiments.

Q: I often get the feeling Jean-Marc is one of the very few artists active at this scene who’s able to write the right music for the singers he’s working with… the singers becoming his muse? Do you recognize it or is it totally different? What’s your experience about it? 

Emileigh: I write from my own interpretations, but there’s no question that we inspire each other. Our tracks begin with a skeleton composed by Jean-Marc, and I create my songs around that.  Then he arranges the sounds around what I’ve provided, so there is indeed a chance for each of us to adjust what we’ve created.  It’s been an incredibly creative experience overall.

Q: Sound-wise Rohn-Lederman sounds driven by Electro-Pop influences and yet it sounds to me as an antidote to ‘classical’ Electro-Pop standards which are only but repeating themselves. What makes the inspiration for Rohn-Lederman and what’s your perception of Electro-Pop productions who nearly all sound the same?

Jean-Marc: We are both very open to many different music styles and we aren’t afraid of trying mixing things we’ve heard, be it in a Top Ten hit or an obscure sound in a song penned by an unknown Moldavian band from the seventies (lol). So, no real influences but many of them. Luckily enough, they get draft in and mix themselves with all the others and it makes up for something rather different. Electro-pop productions are most often amazing sound wise and terrible inspiration and novelty wise.

Q: I guess you didn’t record the album together in studio but did everything over the net. Don’t you think working together in the same room/studio would result in a different production? What’s your opinion about it? And what’s the next step now for this project?

Jean-Marc: Sure it would sound different: what we get today is the result of that studio isolation and geographical distance. Being together in the studio would allow us to refine certain parts for sure but still we would go in the same area: putting together elements that aren’t supposed to be seen together.
It would be amazing to record in the same studio and very probably would lead to even more research and musical melting pot.

Next step? We have already kinda define where we want Rohn-Lederman 3 to go and lazily get going lol. But first Emileigh gets to work on her own Chiasm album and then we’ll regroup for our next one.

Emileigh: I’ve always preferred to work alone in my studio because it allows me to experiment with different sounds and techniques without the fear of judgement, the opportunity to self-edit in my own space. I think although we are comfortable sharing with each other mid-progress, we’re still giving ourselves this chance to branch out and create content that’s extra memorable for the listeners. As far as what’s next, yes, I’m constructing my new Chiasm-album and I’m sure that will have some influence on how we approach our next ROHN-LEDERMAN-album together.  It’s going to be wild!! 🙂

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

Genre/Influences: EBM, electro-pop, new-beat.

Background/Info: The Belgian duo The Weathermen belong to the collective memory of all EBM heads. Set up in the 80s by Jean-Marc Lederman and singer Bruce Geduldig (who passed away in 2016) they’ve been responsible for some legendary hits such “Poison” and “Berlin”. This double disc features instrumental ‘backing tapes’ recorded in between 1988 and 2009 plus a live concert recorded in 2006. The album has been released on Dans Les Profondeurs, which is a new sub-division of the Belgian label Wool-E Discs.

Content: The instrumental disc will give you the music, but not the vocals. It’s the kind of ‘backing tapes’ bands often used when playing live. It’s a bit strange to get these songs as instrumentals, but it’s a way to focus only on the music. The songs were originally released in between 1988 and 2009 and will bring good old memories alive; from EBM inspired cuts to electro-pop to the unavoidable “Poison”, which even became a new-beat hit.

The second disc is a live recording that took place in Hoogstraten (Belgium) featuring 14 songs and some of the unavoidable hits such as “Poison”, “Berlin”, “Bang!”, “Punishment Park” ao. It also is an opportunity to rediscover the live spirit of the band, which had something funny, but also danceable.

+ + + : This album is mainly meant to please the die-hard fans of The Weathermen. The live disc is an opportunity to rediscover some of the band’s most famous hits in history, as well as the most eclectic. The Weathermen were hard to label as one specific genre and that’s probably why they’ve been linked with EBM, new-beat and even techno. Some tracks had a pretty pop-touch with groovy sequences (cf. “Transit”). The album has been packed in a cool digipak format with a very informative booklet inside.

– – – : You really have to be a fan to buy this album, but that’s why it’s a limited release and only featuring ‘rare’ material.

Conclusion: This work is not exactly an anthology, but a rarity! I’m sure there’ll be a kind of ‘best of’ album with some rarities and remixes as a bonus.

Best songs: “Posion”, “Berlin”, “Transit”, “Bang” + “Berlin”, “Bang!”, “Poison”.

Rate: (7).

Artist: www.facebook.com/THE–WEATHERMEN-6188693590

Label: www.wool–e–discs.be / www.facebook.com/woolediscs

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

Jean-Marc Lederman posted a rather funny story on his Facebook profile relating some of the early story of his band The Weathermen. We were given his ok to make an article out of it.

After releasing “Ten Deadly Kisses”, things were looking good for The Weathermen. The band’s release schedule (a 12″ single every 4 of 5 months) since “Old Friend Sam” was paying off as both the band’s profile and their sales were picking up steadily. Not only that says Jean-Marc Lederman: “It was a rhythm that was perfect on an artistic point of view: quick enough so we would always have new stuff out to keep shops, the press and the fans excited and slow enough so we could go to the studio with fresh ears.”

Use whatever you find

The band didn’t have any equipment at the time, except a new Ensoniq ESQ-1 bought thanks to Jonas Van Espen, their manager at the time, and Herman van Laar (Jean-Marc’s publisher at Les Disques du Crepuscule as Kid Montana was still going on). Jean-Marc recalls: “We were dependent on going to the studio to record, something that was pleasing me a lot as the tactic was to use whatever we found there, especially if it was some new (to us) drum machine or synth.”

The studio was Ludo Camberlin’s, one of Belgium’s finest producer ever. Jean-Marc: “A man with great ears, not always easy to go along with, but so was/am I so it was a good fit. The place was in PIAS’ early Cureghem office, it was in the basement and pretty much a dump to be honest. But it felt good to be making music just below our record company as it made us feel part of a family with a common desire: making good music known.”

“As usual, we had nearly nothing when going into the studio,” Jean-Marc notes. “I had brought my Ensoniq and Bruce Geduldig a copy of The New York Times. We hooked up the Esq-1 to Ludo’s system (a Commodore sequencer driving a DX7) and Ludo made fun of the lone two midi slots in the american synth: ‘What?! No thru slot?!’.” You can hear it in Poison in the chorus brass sound and the bass drum, mainly. Jean-Marc also brought a 7″ to the studio, one that had made a great impression on him at the time: “Human”, by The Human League.

The track had a great drum beat and Lederman wanted to start from that: “Ludo programmed the sequencer which was driving an RX7 drum machine, I think. So, we got a drum beat going, of course it was weathermenized, and it had not a lot in common with what The Human League had. One can hear it in the toms playing in “Poison”, it’s the low drum hit that is going as a back beat. We hooked up the DX7 and worked out a real nasty bass sound starting from one Ludo had and then I played around for a while until we found a good groove which pleased us all. Once we had that, it was really fast, we sequenced a few ringing sounds and there was the skeleton of “Poison”. It was all written before the voice, as usual.”

Using the desk as an instrument and the arrival of Susanna

Ludo was also playing at the desk, using it as an instrument, not only as a mixing device. He would process lots of the channels through different effects, his favourite tool of the time being the Yamaha SPX90. Jean-Marc: “After a few hours of hard work and many, many laughs, we came up with a track that was ready for vocals. As usual, Bruce would open a carnet with bits and pieces of scribbling he had done and we were going through them. He wanted to tell a story about pollution, any kind of pollution, be it in the air or in the news or in human relationships, so it was very large. That is one part of the lyrics: the serious content embedded in a humorous song. The other part is, well, Susanna Stammer, Bruce’s alter ego and somehow the representation of a groupie going awol.”

Susanna was with the band since “Deep Down South”, it was the perfect Californian blonde in love with a bleek-and-far-too-serious electronic band. Jean-Marc: “She was dear to us and somehow fighting patriarchy and male clichés as much as showing how vain being in a band can be. Let’s not forget The Weathermen did came along a little bit because we found the electronic bands of the time so fucking grey and whining. She would also be our reality check meter, balancing our ideas and how we implemented them in the songs. Here, she found her way into the lyrics and into the track as she would appear as a pitched-up Bruce, switched on and off as explained below.”

As usual the band were trying to have a laugh and Susanna would in this song take the upper hand, making them look miserable and herself like a goddess-like creature that would go after the band members, after the drummer, after all the myths of being in a band, the groupies, etc.. Jean-Marc: “So, there you are: a very serious political stab at everything toxic in our life watered down by the story of Susanna. Finding the right vocal melody however wasn’t going to be easy, but eventually Bruce found something pleasing all of us. Now, you have to remember this was 1987 and Ludo had only an eight track tape machine and we had such need for all the effects that we had to “rehearse” all the mixes as all the effects had to be played “live” and be injected in the song in real time. It took us a long day to be able to coordinate it all and make no mistakes as the three of us were on the desk, switching channels on and off, going through the SPX90 as we prepared them. Ludo exercised more of his magic touch and there we were: on the second evening (I never work at night), “Poison” was on the tape.”

The release

Jean-Marc: “I recall going up to Kenny the day after and all excited I gave him the final tape. It was released a few weeks later and immediately rocketed up: people loved it, PIAS’ salesmen loved it, we loved it and there you go it started to sell real solid. It actually was doing so well that Kenny wanted it to be remixed, something I never liked, but we were ok with it. Finally, three 12″ came out, the original version, one version I remixed with Ludo and the Snap remix (Ancilloti remix).”

And this is the story of Poison, the song that walked by itself. The 8-track tape itself was lost and never to be found again.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Very sad news reached us via Jean-Marc Lederman. Bruce Geduldig (aka Chuck B), singer of the Americano-Belgian cult act The Weathermen together with producer Jean-Marc Lederman (aka Jimmy-Joe Snark III), passed away in his Sacramento house on March7th, his 63rd birthday. Bruce, is the one on the left on the 1989 promo picture you can see above.

Apart from being known as the singer of The Weathermen, he was also a member of the San Francisco atc Tuxedomoon. Says an emotional Jean-Marc to Side-Line: “He’ll be remembered as a great fun guy, witty, clever, astute and very sharp. A swimmer too, he loved swimming. Godspeed Bruce.”

After The Weathermen were signed to Play It Again Sam (PIAS) Records the band recruited the assistance of Tuxedomoon’s visual specialist Bruce Geduldig who adopted the alias of Chuck B, a debauched playboy vocalist. He brought even more humour and satire to the already amused Weathermen. Later on the group slimmed down to Chuck B and Jimmy-Joe Snark III.

Singer and lyricist of The Weathermen, Geduldig penned the classic industrial songs “Poison”, “Bang” and “Punishment Park” which you can listen to below. For the non-dutch speaking readers, ‘geduldig’ stands for ‘patiently’. Which may also be the best description for this great artist.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com