Interview to MASSUE (France)

1. Hello my friend, pleasure to have you on Rotten Pages ´zine. How are you doing today? Let us set the scene first. Where do we find you right now? Please describe your surroundings.

Hello Rotten Records, great pleasure to make an interview with you ! C and L are answering right now, N can’t be there.. but we’re good. We are actually in L home, chilling on the couch. Listening to the last Neurosis LP.

2. Let’s start with the boring basics. Care to explain to the unknowing precisely where in the world you emanate such an aura of "Sludge Doom Power".?

We chose those terms because all the three of us have such a large panel of musical influences. So its was kinda difficult to put a term on the music we make. It’s in between sludge, doom, kinda hardcore sometimes.. and we don’t really want to put ourselves in a case.

3. MASSSUE has been active for over one year. How has your sound evolved over this time, and what has kept you inspired to continue creating music?

It’s been 2 years now since the band exists. What kept the envy of making music, is sharing it with people, meeting a lot of persons too, express a lot of feeling, and it’s like a neverending will to create. As we said before, there’s a lot of influences, so we don’t have any frontiers in the creating process.

4. As a band from Normandy, how has your local music scene influenced your development and growth as musicians?

It’s kinda weird because in Rouen, the music scene is very eclectic. A lot of pop, punk, and indie rock. But in terms of extreme music there’s only a few bands which stand out. (PILORI, SORDIDE or IFFERNET…). Those bands makes us also want to stand out ourselves in the scene, put the sludge music back on track, for example, few years back there was GREYFFEL (doom band), which is no longer active, but some members are still living in Rouen, and working with us, which is a very cool thing for us to keep this energy alive.

5. Your music has been described as doom mingled with pieces of sludge, and some stoner. How do you balance these different influences to create a cohesive sound?

It was really a natural process in creating music, all of our different influences are present in our music, and also as we compose new songs, there’s always something new and the will to break the codes. That’s how we balanced all the genre, by being free in our process.

6. In doom metal, there are often dark and brooding vocal styles. “L”, how did you develop your own unique vocal style, and how does it contribute to the overall atmosphere and narrative of the album?

At first, i (L) wasn’t into the fact of being the singer of the band, but i really wanted to keep a 3 pieces band. So one day, i wrote lyrics, i tried them on the song GLACIER and it was like a revelation for me. So i kept going on and writing more, try new things and we kept this mood. My style is kinda dark and relevant of what life and reality are to me. And i really like comparisons between films, books, horrors, and what i feel myself.

7. You guys have put out your EP titled “Confusion” and was released a few days ago. How was the overall reception from the people and what was the inspiration into writing this EP compared to past demo (2024)?

People have been really receptive about CONFUSION, this EP is the culmination of a year playing a lot of gigs.

The inspiration on this one compared to the Demo, is the fact that we wanted to make an even more complex music, with more influences. We wanted to evolve on the sound we have, trying to be as sludge as we needed to.

8. Would you say this EP is a new evolution into the band’s career and how the songwriting process all started?

It’s clearly a big gap for us, because MASSUE is in constant evolution, emotionally speaking, sounding speaking. And it’s like we want to go as far as possible in the deep of it, pushing as far as possible. The EP tracks are relevant of a year of working and building around our music.

9. Can you tell us more about the recording process? Did you do anything unusual or different this time around?

For the demo and for the EP, there was only one day of recording, really intense. Recording live cause we feel it like that, for the energy and that’s how we approach our music. To be honest it was the first time for us that we enter a professional studio, so it was great expérience that helped us mature for what’s next.

10. As a band, what do you hope listeners take away from your music? What emotions or connections do you aim to evoke through your songs?

To be fair, we write music principaly for the passion, with all our experiences and our feelings, so if people captures those feelings, it means we succeeded in making people feel what we wanted them to feel and touching them.

11. How does the band's live performance translate the intensity and energy of your music to the stage?

There’s a lot of cohesion between us, we are close friends now and we think that the public feels that we are ONE On stage it’s really massive and intense cause of the style but also cause this is how we feel it must be. We are MASSUE, not only C, L or N, when the show starts. you know what i mean ?

12. How do you define “underground” and where do you see yourself and your band in it?

We always have been in the underground scene as an audience, it’s a really close world. But we are really into it. A lot of D.I.Y process, a lot of people who do things by themselves, a lot of mutual aid. And we love to keep this alive.

It’s a great thing for us to be a part of it, sharing the stage with bands that we love and support.

13. When not making music, what are some interests you like to do on your spare time when not being in the studio or perform live music that fans of you may not know about?

Of course we are working on side of this project, but in general we are three persons that love music passionately so we are always making things that are music related (seeing gigs, buying merch, digging music and festival..)

14. France is home to the most recognized bands in extreme metal. What makes the music scene in France so different compared to other countries worldwide?

in France, we think that bands oustand worldwide cause there’s a lot of poetry in it, and people are like really into analysing and pushing things really far. For example you got FANGE or BRUIT that are really impressive in their creating process by pushing it real far.

15. Last but not least, what are your biggest hopes for this new year? What do we need more of, and what do we need less of?

For 2026, we hope that we’ll record a new EP, making as much gigs as we can. Meeting new people that can impact our music, keep touching people with our music.

16. Finally, is there anything else you would like to share with your fans and the readers of this interview?

Firstly, thanks Rotten Records for contacting us, it’s really great to meet people from all around the world, thank you that reads this interview. Keep the underground scene alive, for us it’s the most important thing, keep sharing with people, making contacts and moving things.

C / L / N.

https://www.facebook.com/p/Massue-61559065362347/