Days of Rona: Mars Red Sky
The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.
Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.
Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan
Days of Rona: Julien Pras, Jimmy Kinast and Mat Gazeau of Mars Red Sky (Bordeaux, France)
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How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?
Mat: First of all, everybody is in good health so far. We were on tour till mid march and were heading to the next city when we got a phone call from the venue saying we can drive straight home as all the public manifestations were canceled, so we did.
Jimmy: We had to postpone a lot of club shows and we’re trying to reschedule summer festivals as well for 2021. The most complicated thing is that nobody can say today how long it will take before we’re authorized to organise shows again, pretty scary…
Julien: We’ll try to get together and practice again as soon as we’re free to do so!
What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?
Mat: We must stay at home. Still we can go out to work (if you cannot work from home), to buy food, to make a minimum of physical exercises, plus some other things… For these things we need a paper we fill ourselves saying what we do.
Jimmy: The government said on April 13th that they will gradually open some stores, let people go back to their work and children go to school starting May 11th but bars and restaurants will stay closed for months…
How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?
Mat: It’s obvious as most of the bands/musicians around us rely on live shows to exist and to grow. Personally I live it as being temporarily unemployed for operational reasons.
However, I spend lot of time working on my instrument, I’m lucky enough to have a cabin in the woods where I can play drums and work on different exercises.
Also, I’m improvising myself as a teacher with my 11 years old son in the morning, we keep doing sport with my girlfriend on a weekly basis, and i have more time to read books.
Jimmy: I’m very lucky because I have a house and a garden, I spend a lot of time gardening and taking care of my chickens too…
Julien: Some artists in all fields are embracing the concept of digital communication to a extent that seems questionable.. Saying it’s a bad thing would be bogus, we even made a Beatles cover video with my sweetie, but it’s quite a pressure just to witness this endless stream of content washing over… Now I’m also fortunate enough to have a little home studio where I can stay busy mixing stuff, sketching out song ideas or riffs, fiddling with effect pedals.. And reading quite a lot too, switching from newspapers to fiction depending on my degree of anxiety.. Though so far we’ve managed to stay relatively serene in the household, considering the situation. We’re blessed with good health and a positive attitude… and a cat.
What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?
Mat: I try to keep in mind that even if the situation is extremely bad, we still have a roof, we have food (too much), and it’s not war!! These words have been used by our president which, to me, is a zealous, over-reacting message given to the population. Besides, that word was unnecessary and out of context, nobody is shooting at us, no bombs are falling from the sky, we don’t have to run out from our country, we just have to stay at home!
I am not undermining the situation, I find it sad and serious but I often see on social networks people complaining because they cannot go out and they get bored. It’s quite egocentric!
Much more horrible things are happening right now in Syria (for info: Bordeaux to Damas, Syria, is almost the same distance as LA to NYC), many countries in Africa don’t have enough food and people there die from famine and multiple diseases, but in our egocentric occidental state of mind, we just don’t give a fuck as none of this happened to us (yet).
Furthermore, what strikes me is that our medias can show an incredible ability to inform and react when a situation feels so close to home, when it knocks at our door, when it feels tangible. Horrible, similar and worst, issues are killing humans everyday already, be it famine, multiple diseases… but this happens so far away that we kind of see it in a passive way, we know it is there, we kind of mention it here and there in the news, say it is sad, then move on to our lives thinking “ok, that’s the fate of these places”, it is lived and accepted as THEIR fate, like WE are lucky and untouchable. Today, we realize that we can be affected and touched by similar issues, so we start panicking, all of a sudden we feel vulnerable, and we don’t like it, so we wanna feel heard, looked at, and taken care of, we cannot accept it as fate anymore, it takes another turn, now solutions have to be found quickly, it reached too close to home.
That is selfish to me, even more, it is dangerous behavior. It shows our capacity to willfully ignore the impact of big important issues when they are not literally touching us, regardless of the fact that they are in fact touching us, but indirectly, in a more passive way.
Take pollution for example, it kills at a bigger rate than the Covid-19, but we do not see it, it is not as tangible and fast, so we don’t react, we keep living and consuming in a blissfully unaware, irresponsible way, making us responsible for the death of thousands if not millions of people. If we can react now, if our government can take measures now, what prevented them from taking some measures many years ago to protect the planet? What prevented us from adopting a responsible behavior?
Where was daily front cover on every media? We are all guilty. We are responsible for destroying our planet, killing species, reducing their living environment and causing migration of species and humans. Bringing them closer leads to merging germs that shouldn’t meet in their natural environment and causes diseases to appear. Our behavior contributes to unbalancing the way nature works, and thus bringing war, famine and diseases all over the world. It is high time we open our eyes and see that the marching death band has been walking alongside us for a long time. What we finally accept to see now is nothing but a consequence of this biggest worldwide issue, it is a warning and we will face many more of these. If we are able to accept adapting our behavior now for the greater good, I hope we’ll be able to keep doing it once the quarantine is over.
Julien: May I add, it’s not exactly the first time the West has an epiphany, the crisis in 2008 for example. And a growing number of us are seeing the flaws and the limits of an aggressive liberal economy, the way it affects our lives in so many ways. Not to mention the ongoing ecological crisis that a lot of us are now aware of.
But we sure hope that it won’t be back to “business as usual” this time, that our governments will come up with at least a couple of progressive actions, and not just temporary ones… And that “exceptional measures” likely to come up and jeopardize our civil rights won’t apply forever!
Jimmy: There are some interesting things in that covid crisis. Speaking about civil rights for example: it’s really impressive how the population in Europe is ready to give away a lot of their freedom (lockdown, tracking, checking etc…). The whole population is supporting our leaders and scientists over here. We entrust them with saving the same amount of lives as during a famine or due to pollution within a very short span of time. Hope we can be that brave and involved if the big one hits because of global environmental issues. These last days in France a lot of producers and farmers had to organise a new way to distribute their goods and we can see a real change because more and more people are looking for local products and short-cut « the Big Market ». No plane for a few months is also very good news for the environment and seeing all these wild animals all over our cities makes some people think.
That crisis might be a chance for us because facts / science proved that going back to « normal » with economic growth as a main goal for a few is a suicide for all. We need to stop these « has-been » people because environmental questions can only be fixed if we connect them to worldwide social issues.
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