Phoenix interview outtake #6

From what I understand, music scenes have always been very splintered in France. But you came out of this Versailles community. Would you say that there’s still a strong local bond there?

Deck: Not really, not that we know of. But yeah, it was quite random, what happened there, [during] that period of time. The funny thing is, we had no idea, because the rest of those people were a bit older than us, so we had no clue there were other bands than us in Versailles.

There’s not a scene and there’s never been a scene. I remember the NME once came to Versailles around that era to make a big thing about “What’s going on in Versailles?” and actually, they realized there was nothing going on because it was totally empty. But you know, it’s also, it’s a cliché and everything, but the suburban environment is super boring, it’s a good creative environment. The boredom leads to finding out your own way. You fought to get out of it, and Versailles is the typical place like this. It’s one of the most conservative places in France, if not the most conservative place. It makes it easier to be cool, basically.

Maybe Reims is now getting to that point.

D: Yeah, actually it’s quite a similar city. It’s quite further out, but a bit aristocratic like this. It’s the champagne headquarters. There’s champagne on draft in bars there.

Christian: That’s true! On draft! When we played there, they all drink champagne instead of beer.

There’s so much good music coming out of there now, too.

D: It’s true, it’s the new electronic scene. Oh, Yuksek is from there.

And the Shoes, Brodinski.

C: Oh, you know everyone! You’ve been to France, you speak French.

Outtake from here.

Phoenix interview outtake #5

I spent the summer after Wolfgang Amadeus came out in France, but I only heard about it while reading things online from English sites.

Deck: We are very happy with where we are in France. We’re really good with that. It’s not like craziness. Not that it would change anything, but we still have the same way of life or whatever, we are not Beyoncé of course…

Christian: We are less pressured. When we’re in France, we have no pressure at all. We have no expectations, and that’s a good thing, to have more freedom.

It’s always harder for French artists with English lyrics, right?

D: Yes. But no one really knows we’re French in France, anyways, we are more considered as coming from somewhere else.

And there’s the French language ratio requirement.

D: Yes, but it’s only for radio, it’s always tricky and we don’t really want to be played on French radio anyways. It’s not a great sign, while here you have many kinds. In the US, you can have good radio, besides the mainstream or whatever. In France, it’s like you have no choice. If you’re on the radio, it’s not always a good sign. Actually, it’s quite a bad one, in terms of quality, of course.

Outtake from here.

Phoenix interview outtake #4

Christian: We never listen to our old songs. We should, maybe. We love everything we’ve done equally. Everything we’ve released, we are happy about it forever. With mistakes, too, but we’re happy about it. The old albums, they gain something with time. But what, I don’t know.

Outtake from here.

Phoenix interview outtake #3

Christian: We have this rule, we have to like it, the four of us, and our girlfriends. If us and our girlfriends love it, then the song is done forever, no matter what everyone else will think. If we like it, if Deck likes it, if his girlfriend likes it, I’m good.

Outtake from here.

Phoenix interview outtake #2

Let’s talk about the visuals for Bankrupt!.

Christian: We control everything, that’s a main thing for us to do exactly what we want, from the music to the record sleeve to the videos and everything. It’s a key thing for us to control, to be totally free.

Deck: It’s not even control. The three last covers, Branco made them.

C: Yeah, my brother. It came organically from the brain of Branco.

You have the fruit thing going on, and the neon signs. What’s your take on what that says about this album?

C: What do you think?

The fruit symbolism has the themes of growth and blossoming into something different, while the neon signs are more futuristic.

D: Good. We have it now, we have the explanation.

Those two styles are so different, but they’re being put together.

C: That’s exactly it. Contradictions, we love contradictions in art. We love it. You have a good vision, I love what you said.

So do you think that finding these contradictions was a big part of how everything came together?

C: Yeah, there must be a tension. Tension is really important, so contradiction is a tension. Even in our songs, there are lots of contradictory elements. That’s what we love.

The goal is to always be surprising people?

C: Yeah, but firstly us. If it surprises us, we hope it might surprise at least a few people. But it’s to surprise the four of us. It’s very selfish. To stay pure, we have to be selfish when we write songs.

Outtake from here.

Phoenix interview outtake #1

I’m sharing a few extra bits from my interview with Phoenix for BlackBook.

You’ve described your songwriting process as accumulating a lot of parts and then putting them together. Is that the way it’s always been?

Christian: Now we have a very rational technique to do it. It’s weird because it’s very [irrational]. Every day is totally different. We don’t know, we are totally lost. We never know what we will do in the next hour. But at the same time, we found the technique to work with this [irrational] kind of day to day life.

What makes it irrational?

Deck: Creation is kind of irrational by essence.