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How was the band formed ?
Jan : Winterbrief was roughly formed after a previous band Julian and I were in split up and a friend of ours asked to play drums for us. But we didn't really take things seriously until much later. We later got a bassist and one song from this line-up is on our seven-inch. After a couple more line-up changes we decided to be a duo and that's when things
came together more and we started recording our album and playing out a lot. I think of the band really forming when Julian and I started writing and playing out songs just the two of us even though technically Winterbrief existed before then. I think this is because the way we wrote songs changed and our sound changed as well because we started using drum machines, more keyboards, and Julian started doing backing vocals.

Why Winterbrief as a band name ?
Julian : I liked it instantly because it did not say anything... Winterbrief is quite cryptic and I like that because people can read whatever they want into our name.
Jan : We just wanted a name that was as neutral as possible. We didn't want someone making lots of assumptions on how the band would sound based on the name or for the name to pigeonhole us into certain genres. The name is a made up word from an EE Cummings poem.

In the review I made, I feel like you sound like bands such as Bis, Elastica or Sleeper, do you feel close to them ?
Julian : I admire all three bands but I don't feel close to them because in the USA all three bands are unknown on the whole though Elastica did have brief success... But still all three bands concentrate on the UK so we don't hear or even see these bands...  If we were British it might be different I guess. I think in the future we will mix up our sound with more electronic sounds and breakbeats along with rougher edges here and there so I think musical references will change in due time...
Jan : Being American I wouldn't say that we feel close to them but I can see the comparisons. I'm not bothered by being compared to any of those bands. Doing music, I'm always really scared that we'll write songs thinking they sound one way and then other people will hear it and interpret it completely differently and compare you to people you don't want to be compared to. Thankfully this hasn't happened with the album. With our old band someone once compared us to Green Day and I almost cried.

Which bands do you accept as your real influences ?
Julian : There are certain bands that approach music in a way I admire like Blur or Fugazi but then again we don't mimic or even sound like these bands. My influences come from punk rock, garagey indie pop, and harder electronic music. When I write I take from bands people would not associate with us like early XTC or Atari Teenage Riot by messing with sounds or tempos...
Jan : I think one of our strengths is that we are really influenced by lots of different genres or scenes. And in writing music we try to strike a balance between all of our influences which come from punk rock, indie pop, new wave and electronic music. Like a song will start out sounding one way and then we'll add other parts to contrast with the "sound" of how it started to hopefully create something new.

Are you working on new material ?
Jan : We've been writing tons of stuff lately which I can't wait to record. I just have to write tons of lyrics. I'm really slow at it.
Julian : We are working on new songs for either a single or ep... As well these days we seem to be writing new stuff every day but we have scrapped a lot of ideas too. We are slow with releasing songs because we expect a lot from ourselves.

Do you feel that you are enough recognized in the music scene of your country ?
Julian : Yes and no... Some scenes recognize us which is cool but then I realized that a lot of scenes are not very big... In Philly we get recognition but nationally we don't because it is tough for small bands to get exposure of any kind because if you stay localized in a scene like the punk, emo, or indie pop scene you become known between only a small handful of people... though some scenes are bigger than others. We like so much stuff and wish only to be seen as sceneless so that people take us at face value. I stress that the USA is huge and very few bands I like have national recognition though...
Jan : No, although we have been pleasantly surprised at how well the record has been received by the people who have heard it.  But that also makes us frustrated because we wish more people could hear it. We wish our album got out more nationally but we couldn't be happier with how we've been received at home in Philadelphia. People have been really supportive and we've gotten tons of press locally. It's such an enthusiastic scene here and I think it's rubbed off on us making us want to work harder and play out more.

Do you plan to go and tour in Europe one day ?
Jan : We'd absolutely love to though we have no plans to do so in the near future. If we did try to come play in Europe it probably wouldn't be until next year. But if anyone wants to help set us up there please contact us cuz we'd really like to go play in Europe and see how the scenes are overseas.
Julian : I was just in Spain last week and I realized how much musical (punk and pop) activity there is so it makes us want to go for sure...  Right now we don't have a plan but interested fans should not assume we are not thinking about it... Who knows what the future holds. Me and Jan think about Europe a lot and we love a lot of European music so expect something in the future. 

interview by Etienne

review of "Complaints From The Beauty Class" (in French)