Wikipedia places Puggy in the category “Belgian musical groups”, but the reality is a bit more complex. Bass player Romain Descampe has a Belgian father and a French mother. He’s lived in Brussels since the age of 14, when his parents moved to the city from France.
Swedish drummer Egil Franzen (known as Ziggy) also had to follow his parents as a teenager to the capital. British guitar player and singer Matthew Irons was born in this country and lived near Leuven for a while, after which his family moved to Brussels.
So, how Belgian are they, really?
“The band is Brussels based; that’s a geographical truth,” says Irons. “But we don’t have a political agenda; we don’t walk around with flags.”
Descampe: “At the start of our career, the local press was stating that we were not a ‘Belgian band’. But as soon as we started to have success abroad, they liked to call us Belgian.”
They communicate with each other in English. But they swear in French. “Even me”, Franzen admits, adding with a big smile: “When I swear in Swedish, no one gets it.”
Irons met Descampe at the Jazz Studio in Antwerp, and the latter was already friends with Franzen. They might be jazz trained, but Puggy is a pure pop band. “You have very few options in Belgium when you want to study non-classical music,” says Irons. “The Jazz Studio in Antwerp was more lenient and open-minded than the others: You didn’t have to be able to read music. Still, we were black sheep because we were playing more alternative things, not just straightforward swinging jazz.”
In their spare time, the band played “at weddings, Bar Mitzvahs or whatever,” says Irons, “and afterwards we would jam ’til five or six in the morning in bars in Brussels. One night, at 4.00, Romain and I were having a drink. He went on about how we should stop playing other people’s music and do our own thing. A few hours later we ended up at Ziggy’s rehearsal room. There was an amazing vibe, and songs were pouring out.”
They finished three songs that day. “Unheard of in band terms,” says Franzen.
Irons: “We quit all the other projects and bands we were in.” That was 2005, and two years later, Puggy released its debut Dubois Died Today. The very good second album, Something You Might Like, followed last year.
Puggy produced that second one themselves, although that was not the initial plan. They were going to work with François Chevalier. Descampe:
“Sadly, he died two weeks before the recording was supposed to start. Actually, he was one of the few people who died of the Mexican flu.” Irons: “He was on his first holiday in three years.” They dedicated the album to Chevalier, who was 29.
After their first album, Puggy had contact with Steve Lillywhite, the English producer who has worked with Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads and U2. Yet, they didn’t think about asking him to produce their second album.
“We were stupid at the time,” says Descampe. At that moment, continues Irons, “there was a lot more interest from American than English or European labels. But in the end we signed with a French one”.
Three days after their upcoming gig at Brussels’ Koninklijk Circus they’ll be playing at L’Olympia, the mythical concert hall in Paris where the likes of Jacques Brel and Bob Dylan have thrilled crowds. Nervous, guys? Irons: “No, just excited.” Franzen: “It’s gonna be great to see our names in those big red letters above the entrance.” Irons: “There is a sense of achievement, when you see that. It’s very encouraging.”
This month’s Puggy concert in Brussels is sold out; see the website for future dates
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