Interviews: Iron Lizards

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the Rock 'N' Roll band, Iron Lizards from France. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, did you plan it or did it just come out like that?

I wanted to find something related to Motörhead. I searched for song titles and lyrics and found the line “Thunder lizard, stony eye, You got me hypnotized”. I thought ‘cool! Thunder Lizards sounds great! Then I saw that it was already taken, so I combined Lizards with Iron, from Iron Fist, my favorite Motörhead album, and that was it!

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

17 years ago (I feel old…) in Milan, René a metalhead dutch friend of mine, told me there was this really cool band playing a gig in town, Peter Pan Speedrock, he was telling me, it’s like Zeke, you’ll dig it! There was nobody in the audience beside us, that was insane! The band played like they didn’t care, like they were in front of a stadium with the best attitude. After the gig my friend talked to the guitarist/vocalist sayin’ they did an awesome show, he answered him ‘I could see you guys were enjoying it!’ That particular moment made me think of playing in this genre. A few years later I searched for people in Paris, to start a speedrock/high energy r’n’r power trio but it wasn’t convincing. It’s hard to find Hellacopters fans here. I kept on playing metal, but I had to wait for the end of 2015 to start Iron Lizards.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

No, I searched for a drummer and a bassist on a website like Craig’s list here in France, especially for musicians.

4. Each band member's favorite band?

Tough question, but I have to go with Black Sabbath. It’s one of the only bands that I listen to albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath more than once every month. For Kevin (drums) it’s Pantera, he even has a CFH (cowboys from Hell) tattoo on his back. Valentin (bass), told me it’s the Exploited, he’s a huge punk fan from every period.

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

I get inspiration from movies and personal experiences. It can happen watching an old B movie, 70s biker exploitation films or old cheesy horror movies, and it makes me think of a theme for a song, or just a feeling or a thought that I’ll build a song idea from.

6. Where was your last gig?

Our last gig was in Paris, that’s not really exotic. The good thing about big cities like Paris, is like you can meet great bands at gigs from all over the world, that you won’t necessarily listen to. Great things can happen. We opened for the American band Dommengang, great guys, with awesome music and attitude!

7. Where would you like to act?

We’d love to play in Spain and Germany and Scandinavia. We are planning to book gigs in these countries for later this year. In Europe, those countries really love our kind of speed rock, it’s not really the case in France, not a country suited for Rock’n’roll. We have also a lot of good feedback from the US, that’d be really awesome to play there! Maybe one day, who knows!

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

We always like to be featured with bands from our genre. We recently took part in a Kiss compilation “SSIK ACTION” (we did a cover of the song ‘Cold Gin’) with many bands from our scene, like Märvel, Turbocoopers, The Boatsmen, The Drippers, and many more. It’s like a big family of action rockers! It’s always a good thing to be involved in a tribute like this one with bands that you dig.

9. Whom not?

We played gigs with bands from different genres, punk, hardcore punk, stoner doom… there’s not really a band in particular that we felt disconnected from, maybe a nu-metal trio one time, that really sucked! ahah

10. Have any of you ever suffered from stage fright? Any tips for beginners on how to beat that?

I don’t think we really suffered from stage fright. Every gig, I feel a bit of stage fright the first seconds right before the start, and it goes away as soon as I hit the first chord. I don’t think there’s a particular recipe, just don’t get wasted before the gig, as it would tend to aggravate the fright. Drink pints during the gig, not before!

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

The live recording It’s alive by the Ramones is my favorite live performance of all time! It seems like they never stop, they keep headbanging and blasting hits one after the other, it’s the best example of what a rock’n’roll concert should be!

The Hellacopters are also a great inspiration, in terms of musicianship and how they handle things, especially their mastermind Nicke Andersson: I read the biography of a french dude called Rudy Charis, and it has a lot of interesting stories a band like ours can relate to, really worth it! He did a translation of the book in English, it’s available and it’s really a good read!

ZZ Top 70s /early 80s era, the best power trio that ever lived! (with Motörhead classic lineup, of course!): another great example of classy musicianship and what a trio can do is just amazing!

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

During a gig in France a few years ago, an old dude asked me if I could teach him guitar lessons, he was really weird, like he kept on insisting and finally stopped, such a weird fella!

13. What do you think of your fans?

There are a few guys that you don’t know personally that you see at almost every gig, they tell you they only came for your gig, and that’s really great! We also have fans from other countries that follow every release, and that’s really awesome! Especially from Spain, Spanish people are the best crowd for our genre!

14. What do you think of our site?

I remember it, you posted an article about one of my other projects called Horrid Apparition (black thrash metal) about our first demo “Evil Reigns” when we were still called Baphomet, you were really fast, I remember it, we were called Baphomet like a week in total before we changed our band name! You’re fast to find new bands to discover!

15. Something to add?

I’d like to thank you for this interview, you can find our latest single the Kiss cover ‘Cold Gin’ on Spotify, Bandcamp, and other streaming services, we’re really happy with it, it’s like Kiss hanging out with AC/DC and the Stooges, check it out!