RAPPER, SINGER, multi-instrumentalist, producer, director, teacher: few heads are capable of wearing this many hats. One such head belongs to Hong Kong-based Frenchman Joul, better known as Dr Eggs. He got his start – and name – by dressing as Doc Brown from Back To The Future then having an egg fight with his band. And for more than a decade he’s been firmly giving ennui the middle finger with ska-punk, electro-rave and everything else in between. Sean Barret caught up with Dr Eggs during a rare moment he wasn’t teaching Chinese children to strum their first D-major chord to talk trumpet noises, crazy dancing and how not to get beaten up in a French prison.
Tell us about the new album, TINNS.
It’s a bad translation of ‘This is not new songs.’ I know we don’t say that in English, but whatever. It’s new songs for the audience, but not for me. It’s songs that I recorded in the last four years: some that I didn’t release; some that I recorded with the first album. I did add two new songs, Back and Little Thing, to make it a bit more fresh.
And you make all the music videos. Any plans for more?
We’re doing one next month. It’ll be the last one for this album and then on with the new album. We went to the US last August. There was a guy from the music label Warner. He saw us and kind of liked it so he’s signing Doctor Eggs. They’ll be having me make songs then try to sell them to TV, movies, advertisements, things like this.
Congratulations!
You say ‘Congratulations’, but we all know it’s bullshit. Major labels like Warner and Sony are not what they were before. Before it was: ‘Wow, you signed with Sony; you’re gonna be famous’ or whatever but then you realise that Warner’s got thousands of artists and some of them just stay here and don’t do anything. I think, now, production that you can do by yourself is more important.
Is that what you do?
Yeah, exactly. Especially for the music video [for Little Thing] which I made in Nepal by myself for maybe 3,000 Hong Kong dollars and now everybody in Nepal knows Doctor Eggs. Now we have a chance, with YouTube and things like this, to do things by ourselves.
Are you bringing your own musicians with you to Phnom Penh?
Yeah, two Chinese people and one Western guy. It used to be a French band at the beginning. We were full time musicians, non-stop. I think the guys got pretty tired so they decided to split up and then I moved [to Hong Kong] by myself. So, yes, when I’m on tour, I’ll have different musicians, friends of mine, some who have played in the previous tour. It’s difficult to find musicians who will follow you.
But in the studio, it’s all you?
Yeah.
Really? Drums, guitar, everything?
Um, some of them, yeah. Some are a bit too difficult, a little bit too fast, but when I’m preparing the songs, I spend the day in the studio by myself recording all the parts. If I cannot make the recording than I give it to a better drummer and say ‘Do the same thing, but better.’
So you’re writing parts that you can’t play?
[Laughs] Sometimes. Now we’ve got computers so you can create a fantastic drum track on the computer and then you give it to a musician and say: ‘OK, do the same’ and he’ll say: ‘Really?’ It’s a pretty fast tempo.
The music moves around a lot. The song Toys Attack goes from ska to metal without warning.
That was on the first album. When a band’s doing a first album, they want to do everything and they wanna put all the effort. I think we probably put too much. It was like a potpourri, a mix of all the music that we like. Some newspapers said it was really good but some said: ‘Oh wow, those guys don’t even know that they want to do so they do everything.’ At that time I believed that you can play all the music that you want, but in fact no, you cannot. People want to put you in a kind of like… you know what I’m saying?
A box?
Yeah, yeah. The song, Toys Attack, we thought: ‘Let’s do hop-bah-bah-da-bah.’ You have to be logical. Since this, I try to calm down myself and make something with one direction – not the band – but I wanna believe in it.
Still, it’s hard to say what the new album is: is it electronic? Is it rock ‘n’ roll?
But I can do better than that. For example, yesterday night I was up until 6am in the studio by myself, trying to make easy songs. You know, after you pass 30, you think ‘I should do easy songs’ and then, PFFFFFT! I couldn’t do it! So in the end I did the same kind of shit with a lot of different influences.
You got your start doing ska in France. Was that your first musical love?
Yeah, yeah it was. It was in 1999-2000 and the ska in France became so big at that time so we were touring with all the horns and stuff like this and we played every night with ska bands. I love ska music but when you play – I think we did 150 gigs that year – it’s all the time every night, ska band [makes hilarious trumpet noise] and, at the end, you’re like PFFFTTT! Enough! We had had enough of this [more hilarious mouth trumpeting] so we quit. And the funny thing is now in Hong Kong there is not one fucking ska band, so now we’re thinking maybe we should do some ska probably one day soon.
You moved the whole band to Hong Kong?
No, no, no. I moved by myself. We were touring like crazy; last year we did a lot of gigs in different countries. The band was fucked up and said: ‘We can’t do this anymore.’ At the end, I went on vacation to Hong Kong and then I stayed forever. The funny thing is that it was eight years ago and, last December, we had a tour in France with this band, those guys.
The ska guys?
The original line-up, exactly. And we didn’t see each other for eight years then after eight hours of practice, it was like [snaps fingers] UP! It was the same thing again and we were on tour for ten shows. It was pretty fun. But with time passing by, people need to have a job, which I totally understand. Besides this, I’m doing some production; I’m making some videos; I’ve got a music school for children also. I teach guitar; drums; bass and voice. Which means anytime I want do to a tour it’s like: ‘OK there’s no school this week’ and then I can go. But it’s difficult for everyone else to do the same.
Was this the same band that you played in prison with?
Exactly, exactly.
How did the inmates take it?
When you go to a jail, people are not ready to accept you. Not to make a cliche but most of the people who are in jail are listening to rap music. Luckily, we have some rap parts in the songs but we didn’t know if the guitar would be cool. In fact, it was a total success. I think one of the best gigs I’ve done was in jail. Most of the time they see some really sad artist who’s come to sing acoustic songs. We came to jail, most of the time, pretty fucked up and drunk because it’s a lot of pressure to be in jail. One gig in jail is the pressure of five gigs in stadiums. There is a big tension; it’s cold; it’s too early in the evening, so you need to drive yourself to do better. And from the first song I was insulting them and jumping on the table and asking them to move their fucking asses. They thought: ‘We’ve never heard this before: someone kind of talking in the same language as us.’ After two or three songs, the guys were really enjoying it. At the end of the show they would always come back and say: ‘It’s not my style of music but I really liked the gig.’
So you’re the French Johnny Cash?
Yeah, there aren’t many French bands who do this. We did about 50 jail shows and after 50 I was thinking that’s pretty tight. The funny thing is I did keep contact with some of the prisoners by letter; we were writing letters for the first few years and they never showed up at my house! [Laughs) At that time, my girlfriend was saying: ‘Oh, you don’t give the address. They’re gonna show up and need a job or something.’
A big part of your act is the way you move on stage. Is that all self taught?
[Laughs] Yeah. Watching James Brown, Michael Jackson; even lately The Mars Volta. I started listening to funk music, with all those black musicians. It was my first influence even before hip-hop and rap. So yeah, dancing was a part of it. I really like it but at the beginning we were doing more punk rock and ska and I thought: ‘Oh, I should not do my dancing because they will think it’s ridiculous.’ Now I don’t care. I just do it and it’s working; people do like it. When you go to see a rock show, you’re not expecting to see guys dancing like that.
What do you do to get psyched up before going nuts on stage?
Nothing! That’s the good thing. I don’t really take drugs. I like drinking a little bit but I prefer do that after the show. I do sports every day. For me, it’s like a football match: ‘Ah, let’s go!’ you know? I’m thinking technique, having to sweat. It’s coming naturally. I don’t really care much now and just having fun with it. It’s a success because people appreciate the music and the band more now that we get wild.
When you say sports, what’s your thing?
I’m running every day. Cardio and stuff like this.
What’s a typical day for you?
I wake up at 1pm [Laughs]. I go to Thai boxing and then I run. I’m working four hours a day and that’s it.
Now that you’re using more electronic sounds, it seems like crowds at your shows can’t decide if they’re in a mosh pit or at a rave.
I see that more with what I’m doing now. It’s party rock. I don’t have this dream of being famous. The most important thing is that we really have big fun on stage and the people have big fun. The rest is not important. I really say this in a sincere way. If you asked me this when I was 16, I would say: ‘No. I just wanna be famous.’ Now it’s just putting on a good show, whether that’s for 5,000 or two people. A great show was in San Diego: there were only 30 people, not much, but it was pretty funny and people were crazy. That’s a good show for me. The rest, fame and things like that, I don’t really need it anymore and that’s making it much, much better because you really enjoy these things.
WHO: Doctor Eggs
WHAT: “Party rock”
WHERE: Equinox, St. 278 & Sharky Bar, St. 130
WHEN: 9pm March 29 (Equinox) & 9pm March 30 (Sharky’s)
WHY: Have big fun!