Enfnts Terribles

It’s not your first time performing at Rock Werchter. Does it feel like coming home?

Gus: It’s true. It’s really nice to be back.

Joe: We recognized the journey to the festival as well, and we have some favorite houses on the road.

You’re finally able to perform at festivals again. Is it still special for you to play at festivals even after so many years of performing?

Gus: It’s different doing festivals because you have to compete for people’s attention.

Joe: You don’t have a captive audience, and they’re free to leave anytime, so we’re trying to keep them with us.

Gus: Tonight’s show is just an hour, so that’s a shorter set. We’re playing our greatest hits, so that’s going to be fun, and then we’ll watch Metallica.

Do you prepare each show because some songs work better in different settings, or is it a fixed setlist?

Gus: Generally, we keep the same setlist, and we normally don’t change it too much. But we are very excited because our album went to number one in Belgium. We’re very grateful because it’s our first Belgian show since that happened, so we’re going to show the fans our gratitude.

After so many years, we can imagine there’s some kind of routine in being an artist. What do you do to keep it interesting and fun?

Joe: Once you’re in a routine, you’re going through a repeated pattern. How we get out of feeling complacency is by taking advantage of where we are and actually getting out to see local sites. It’s a boring answer, but it’s quite effective.

Gus: We’re also taking time off because that makes your desire bigger to come back with music rather than forcing ourselves to work all the time. When we finish an album tour, we never go straight back into the studio and write the next album.