ROCK MAGAZINE – 2005 – about 25 000 copies.
Mark Maggiori the sound and the image.
Singer of Pleymo band, Mark Maggiori is also a graphic designer and a video clip producer who is more and more requested. Face to face avec the most rocky student from the Penninghen 2000 year.
ROCK MAG : How old were you when you started drawing and how did you succeed to follow graphic classes?
I was drawing randomly, for me, on notebooks edges in middle school. It was not really elaborated but it happened that I had some vague desires seeing that the drawing teacher used to say to my mom “he should do drawing”. Actually I did not care a lot. Then, after I graduated from High School, I was more into music, but I did not want to study musicology because I thought it was useless … I wanted to do Rock’n’roll! My uncle, who is a graphic designer, told me then to go to the graphics arts graduate school (the ESAG, also known under the name of Penninghen, Ed), he said that it was a good school. So, I went there and it occurred that it really got me into it. I discovered my abilities in drawing, painting, etc. Which is good, it is that it is a general-interest school, you don’t have any specialization nor option, so you cover a little of everything, such as photography, web design but also illustration or typography. It is really well-rounded and it is especially on this point that it is difficult.
Penninghen is known for being a demanding school. How did you do to combine classes with music?
I organized myself pretty well … When I was in 8th grade, which is the hardest because you have a thesis to present; I was on tour on “Keçkispasse”? At that time, we usually performed on Friday and Saturday. As I did not have class on Friday afternoon, I left to meet the others by train, everywhere in France, and after the concert I took a night train back to school to be in class on Saturday morning; then I was meeting them again at night. Finally, I spent 3-4 crazy months like that, dealing with classes and the tour at the same time. Actually, when I started school I had more or less quit music, I was telling myself that it would never work out. At that time, I was with Tangerine. Then, it happened that we set up Pleymo band the summer following my first year of school and it worked out better than we thought … So I kept on with Pleymo.
And your thesis’ topic, what was it about?
It was the trailer of a movie I had written. As I could not entirely do it within 3 months, I wrote the story, I worked on the concept, the storyboard, the film sets, and I did the trailer where you see a two-minute coloured animation. It was a kind of mix between Disney’s style things and manga …
And after school, what was your first professional experience as a graphic designer?
It was for a studio which is called Attitude. They came to see me at my thesis’ presentation and they offered me a job right away. At that time, they were about to set up realistic 3D characters systems. I had to create the feature design of a virtual test girl who was called Eve. And then, just after that, I worked for them again on NTM band’s video clip called the clash, with a friend from school whose name is Bertrand Gatignol ( he drew the CD cover of “Keçkispasse”, Ed). They offered us to do the designs, we did pencil drawings and we modelled the characters with a team. At some point, It was even about us to produce it, but it did not happen because we were too young … It had been only 2 months that I had left school! Finally, they put a guy on it with whom we fist fought a little because we had created the concept, we had a specific idea about it and he interpreted it in his way, and it was not really like we wanted. Anyway, I think NTM was very happy and every time I see Kool Shen again, he always talks to me about it … So maybe they liked it! (Laughter)
Thereafter, you worked on Watcha’s CD cover or on Noisy Fate but also for Patricia kaas or Louis Chedid’s video clip. How do you consider your work when you deal with people who stand away from your universe?
It is the same thing. If they ask for me, it is because they liked something I did. So, every time it is an opportunity to test things, bring his own style. It is also interesting to succeed to melt into something. We used to do that all the time at school: to try to change style for each different subject, to try to be different and especially not get always stuck in the same things.
Between Pleymo and your director and graphic designer’s plans, do you still have the time to stir your curiosity, to go to see exhibitions, that kind of stuff?
I try my best to watch movies that must be seen. All the things that I like, a lot of American stuff because there are often beautiful pictures. I also watch everything that is about manga, things which come from Asia, I remain pretty well informed about all of that.
Then, regarding exhibitions, I often go at the Orsay Museum. I go there occasionally, I pass quiet, to look at one or two paintings in details; I stick myself on it to see how it is painted. Recently, I also went to the advertisement museum to see an exhibition about psychedelic posters that was not bad at all. There were short movies where you could see Jimi Hendrix in the recording studio, etc. It was cool. I felt like doing a psychedelic imagery for Pleymo. But well, at the same time, I do not know if I would really go away on that, for now, I am craving too much, I am going into too many things! Now, I am really into Buddhism and all of that...
Yesterday, at the Fnac store, I also saw a book with an old American dream imagery, like in Betty d’Helmet’s CD cover atmosphere. A book full of the American society photographies from the 60’s and technicolor stuff that advocates “American happiness”! So, it is swarming everywhere. Now, we are already working with the band and before everything we are trying to compose songs …
I think that once I will start to put words together, I will begin to brainstorm myself on the concept of the new album.
To conclude, what are your influences, the artists that you fancy?
Actually, I like things really varied and diverse. Regarding guys who do manga, I am a total fan of Koji Morimoto, who directed Beyond On Animatrix. There is also another guy that rocks, a Japanese guy that I discovered a while ago, it is Tanaka Tatsuyuki, who actually works at the studio 4°C with Morimoto. And as for him, the drawings that he does, it is completely insane. For me, in that kind of stuff, he is really the best of all! By far! After, in relation to painting, there is Singer Sergeant and Joaquin Sorolla …
There is a painting of him at the Orsay Museum, which is not the most beautiful by the way, but it is the only one that we have in France.
Pleymo news.
Still as active, Mark works among others on a new movie plan with Benoit Poher from Kyo band and should soon get down to the direction of Mélatonine’s first video clip, which the shooting will be in Bulgaria with a hospital set. At the same time, Pleymo works on the next album expected in January 2006 : “We already have songs, so now we did team works. We all move forward on the titles. Right now, I am even working with Davy and Fred, Benoit and Erik are together and Franck is patching up in his corner. We all set up an appointment on March 15th to listen to everything we worked on and from there, we are going to rehearse all together on what we recorded on the computer. It is going to be quiet open because, on one hand we want something really harsh, and on the other hand we want a symphony orchestra ! So, the only solution, it is maybe to record two albums ! We will see …”
By then, the live DVD recorded at the “Zénith de Paris” should be out around April-May, laced with archives from the band going back to they beginnings until today.
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