Spotlight on our band of the month: The Bruise Market!

For the release of their first album, "Evil Eyes", the grunge/stoner band, The Bruise Market called on us to create their merchandising (CDs, t-shirts, stickers...). The band also took the time to answer a few questions for Distrolution Merch. We'll let you discover the complete interview below!

Hi, The Bruise Market! Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! Can you quickly introduce your band to our readers?

Eve-Lise: Hi! We're a duo with grunge and stoner sounds. Originally, Tom is a drummer and I'm a guitarist, but for this project we challenged ourselves to switch instruments. With The Bruise Market (TBM), we're giving ourselves the opportunity to step out of our comfort zone, which boosts us to write energetic, sometimes melancholic tracks, but always with our guts.

How do you manage your band in such a particular context?

Tom: It's difficult right now because the future is uncertain. We love concerts, the tension of live performances, the encounters, and not being able to play weighs on us. Especially since we don't know when the situation will allow the return of live music in good conditions. Nevertheless, it gives us time to write new songs and better prepare for the future of the band. By the way, the team from Echonova (a Breton concert hall) is supporting us this year, which allows us to benefit from training and work sessions in professional conditions. Also, we live together so we consider ourselves lucky to have time ahead of us to develop our musical identity and repertoire.

How does your composition process usually unfold?

Tom: At first, it was quite complicated to find time between studies and work, which meant I was mainly writing and composing alone. Eve-Lise would then add her drum parts. Now we have opportunities to compose together and I think in the end the songs resemble us more. Most of the time, we compose during rehearsals. We allow ourselves some improvisation time to decompress and one riff and pattern later, we have something. Sometimes it's very precise and results in an almost finished track like "Amnesia", which is part of our album. Other times, the idea stays on the shelf for a while and we rediscover it when sorting through our dictaphone. For example, this was the case for "Safe", which we started composing in 2016, forgot about, and finally reworked.

Your first album, "Evil Eyes", has been available since November 2020. How long did you work on it?

Eve-Lise: It was a long-term project since some songs on the album were written even before TBM began. We had to compose for a year and a half to get a coherent set that represents our universe. The album was recorded during the winter of 2019 at Bad Plafond studio, followed by a long period of arrangements and mixing. Since TBM was born in 2018, we can say it took us two years to arrive at "Evil Eyes".

For its release, you called on us to create your merchandising (CDs, t-shirts, stickers...). Can you tell us about your experience with Distrolution Merch?

Eve-Lise: We're lucky to work with Pulp Syndrome, a couple of friends. They've been handling the visual part of the band from the beginning and we were eager to pay tribute to their work with merch. By calling on Distrolution Merch, we were able to press our album, create our stickers, t-shirts, and even our bottle openers. It was an opportunity to realize all our merch projects with a single intermediary. We were well guided thanks to quick email responses and numerous file checks offered. This allowed us to get beautiful results on the different items of our merch. The only downside: a small printing defect on the discs. Despite this, we're still very happy with the final result.

In general, is there a merch item that you consider particularly important? If so, which one and why?

Eve-Lise: We both primarily focused on the digipack. We wanted to extend the album's atmosphere through a coherent package. The goal was also to share another aspect of our universe thanks to the integrated poster, with one side being a concert illustration, and the other a collage of photos that traces our two years of existence and work within TBM. It's also a way to show that it's not just Tom and me, but that other people collaborate with us on this project.

Tom: However, if we had to choose the most important merch item for us, the CD digipack would perhaps be tied with the bottle opener. Not sure we need to explain why, haha!

We know that the current situation makes things difficult, but do you already have any dates or other projects for 2021?

Tom: For now, we prefer not to plan too many dates. We mainly play in bars and cafe-concerts, so it's quite tricky to approach establishments that have been closed for months and whose reopening is sometimes uncertain. As for projects, we have new tracks up our sleeve, including a collaboration in preparation with a well-known artist from the stoner scene. We won't say more...

Any final words?

Eve-Lise: We're eager to perform concerts again! While waiting to meet up over a beer, we can only advise you to listen to our first album "Evil Eyes", which is available on all streaming platforms.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak and see you soon!