Zevk: Finding Pleasure, Fighting Erasure, and Amplifying Representation

Zevk is a queer-feminist punk quartet from Paris who dropped one of the best demos this summer, released on tape by Dirty Slap Records in France and A World Divided Tapes internationally.

The lyrics, sung in Turkish, come from vocalist Gizem, formerly of Istanbul’s finest UK82-inspired punks Crudez, while bassist Caro previously played in Fracture, a band that put out a brilliant EP on Une Vie Pour Rien Vinyles before disbanding last year. Drummer Julien also joined Gizem and Caro in this conversation about friendship, pleasure, and the sense of representation the band is carving out in the Parisian DIY punk scene.

Zevk means “pleasure” in Turkish, right? How did you all end up in a band together, and what’s the pleasure you find in punk music these days?

Gizem: Caro and I already had a band project before Zevk, but it never really took off. I was already friends with Caro, and I met Alejo in 2019 at the K-Town Hardcore Fest, where I played with my old band from İstanbul. When I moved to Paris around 2021, we started talking about how cool it would be to have a band together, but we were missing one thing: drums. A friend from the punk scene put us in contact with Julien, who had just moved to Paris at the time. We had our first rehearsal, and we were already bonding as humans! For me, the pleasure is that we’re good friends before being a good band.

Caro: To me, Zevk represents the pleasure that both the music and the political sense of punk bring to my life. It’s also about those friendships that feel like family when you’re away from home. We had tried to start a band with Gizem before, and I also asked Alejo to join my last band, Fracture. I’m happy to finally have a project with them. And Julien is the best friend and drummer we could’ve asked for.

Julien: The pleasure I find in punk music is the same as always: going to a lot of shows, playing a lot of music, and not letting shitty jobs or problems destroy that routine. In this sense, Zevk means a lot. We need the kind of pleasure this band gives us to keep going no matter what.

For decades, punk has been largely framed through English-language and Western perspectives. Do you see the new wave of immigrant punks in Western Europe, especially those bands singing in their native tongues, as part of a broader push to decolonize the DIY punk scene?

Gizem: Language is power, and while it can be a tool of oppression, it can also be a tool for change. I think we’ve finally reached a point where singing in English is not the only way to be heard (heard where, right?), and replicating the style, codes, and even the sound of Western punk doesn’t always make sense for some of us. There’s this disjunction. It’s funny looking back now, because I used to sing in English in my bands in Türkiye, and it was only after I moved to France that I really started writing and singing in Turkish. It changed everything for me.

I’m so happy and excited to see new bands forming that defy Western standards of punk and create their own sense of it. Singing in non-Western languages is an act of resistance in scenes where almost always the only language you hear is that of the dominant or colonizer. As we all know, the punk scene in Europe is so white, and you don’t feel represented. Well, it will surely stay that way if we do nothing about it. Decolonize punk! ✩₊˚.⋆☪⁺₊✧

On your Bandcamp page you use terms like Latinx and Haram punk, which can be pretty ambiguous. Can you elaborate on what they mean for you? I imagine it’s more than just being influenced by bands like Los Crudos or Taqbir.

Gizem: I think, before anything else, it’s a way for us to name what we bring to Zevk—our backgrounds, histories, cultural references. There have always been labels to name genres in punk, like UK82, ’77, or more recently the meme-turned-real egg punk vs chain punk. If punk is still alive today, it will also change—and it should, for the better.

Like I said earlier, representation matters. When I see bands calling themselves “haram/harami punk,” it instantly speaks to me, and I’m so glad for it. I’m not here to do identity politics or whatever, but being perceived as a Muslim woman in Europe, and the racism that comes with it, is something I experience in my everyday life. With Zevk, I have a space to express myself and talk about it.

Caro: I agree with Gizem. We don’t intend to put identity above everything else, but for me, identity and representation become important when you’re a migrant in the so-called First World. We carry political and social struggles that might be global, but are also directly tied to where we come from and shouldn’t be made invisible. Latino and Haram are not genre tags meant to show influence from other bands—they speak about our identity and our contribution to what punk from the Global South has to say.

Across your lyrics, there’s no separation between personal rage and collective struggle: queer liberation, anti-colonialism, anti-authoritarianism. Do you all share the same vision of the world you want to build, or do different perspectives, contradictions, even straight-up nihilism?

Caro: We all have different backgrounds and life experiences, but we share the same values. There’s no apathy or cynicism in our views or daily attitudes, and that’s reflected in our music.

Gizem: I cannot separate the personal from the collective, just as I cannot think of queer liberation without anti-colonialism. It simply doesn’t make sense! As members of Zevk, we don’t experience the world in the same way—there’s no doubt about that. But if we didn’t share the core values of punk like anti-racism, anti-fascism, and anti-homophobia, we wouldn’t be making music together in the first place.

The song “Nehirden Denize (From the River to the Sea)” is a clear statement of solidarity with Palestine. What’s the Palestine solidarity movement like in Paris, and how present is the punk scene within it?

Gizem: A big part of the movement is organized by Collectif Urgence Palestine. How present the punk scene is within it? Well, I’m not sure if Palestine solidarity in the overall Parisian punk scene goes much beyond the Palestinian flag at the back of the stage. That being said, there are leftist and feminist punk collectives who try to find ways to take part in solidarity, especially by organizing benefit gigs.

Gizem, you also play in Paratonnerre with Victoria from the feminist label Mascara Rocks. Do you feel connected to the wider queer/feminist scene in France right now?

Gizem: It did take time, but I can say I’ve built my queer family here in Paris, though not in the punk scene. There’s a great feminist scene, but I don’t think we can speak of a “queer punk scene”; we’re not there yet. Do I feel connected? Yes and no. The spaces where I feel most connected, the ones that make the most sense to me, are QTPOC spaces—not the punk scene.

Tell us about the shows, the venues, and the bands you’ve shared the stage with as Zevk. Do you feel a sense of community there? What do you enjoy about the Paris scene, and is there anything you particularly love or hate about the city?

Julien: One positive thing about the city is the huge number of shows. The downside is that most punk shows don’t happen in punk spaces. Renting non-punk venues in such an expensive city makes free entry almost impossible. So yes, there are a lot of shows, but it’s hard to see everything because of that. As for the sense of community: sometimes yes, sometimes no. It’s always hard to be definitive about that.

Caro: Paris is a big city with a lot going on, but organizing shows can be very difficult because we have a real venue issue. Many spaces are not accessible to DIY collectives, and those that are often get shut down. Besides squats that host more politically driven initiatives and gigs, DIY collectives can count on very few venues.

That being said, there are still a lot of shows happening. You could see four gigs in a week if you wanted to (and had the money). About the sense of community, I agree with Julien that it’s hard to say. Sometimes the punk scene feels very fragmented into small groups that organize and attend their own events, but maybe that’s just the big city effect. Personally, I feel a sense of community through my friends, but it’s not really linked to the scene itself.

I’ve been speaking out against Spotify for a long time, but only recently have more artists started abandoning the platform. What are your hot takes on punk and the modern digital dystopia? And do you think it’s even worth focusing on such small pieces of the puzzle when the main culprits remain authoritarian states, wars, and the quest for power?

Caro: I think every effort counts, and it’s important to aim for a certain level of coherence between what you think and what you do. It’s impossible to live entirely according to your values—the system won’t let you—but that’s when those smaller pieces of the puzzle become relevant. Even if they’re small, they’re still part of the puzzle.

Many bands in this genre don’t make it past a cassette demo or a short EP. Do you see Zevk as something long-term, or is it more of a here-and-now project?

Caro: It’s difficult to think of it as a long-term project because it’s not certain some of us will stay in France (classic migrant visa problems). Personally, I’ve been thinking about going back to Latin America at some point. That being said, I think we’d all love Zevk to be a long-term project.