Phoenix: The 13th Floor Interview

French quartet Phoenix is about to roll out their sixth studio album tomorrow. As the title Ti Amo would suggest, the band has based its lyrics, if not the music itself around an imaginary day in Italy.

The new album was recorded in Paris over the past two years, a time and a place that has been the scene of some horrific terrorists attacks. The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to bandmember Deck d’Arcy a few weeks ago, just after the terrorist attack in Manchester. Needless to say, these events weighed heavily in the conversation, at least initially ..then is was back to the subject of making, what Deck calls, their “sexy album”.

Click here to listen to the interview with Phoenix’s Deck d’Arcy:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:
MD: I was reading some of the information about the making of your new album, and how it was made at the time – in 2014 – when all this terrorist stuff was going on in France; and now we have this thing in Manchester with the terrorist attack,. I was wondering… what affect an event like that has on the folks where you are? Does it seem like it’s still a very close thing?

DD: Yeah, I’d say it’s almost next door. We obviously relate a lot to it. The target was similar – even younger people, apparently… it’s horrible.

MD: Has the night life changed in Paris since all that happened a couple of years ago?

DD: It changed a bit after the attack, but it seems to be, pretty much, back to what it was. I don’t know what this is going to do.

MD: When you had to record your album, what was the feeling like in the studio, after all this had just happened?

DD: It was, I guess, everywhere in France and Europe… everyone was overwhelmed and upset. When we were making this album, the situation felt like it does at present: we were far from the atmosphere that was happening in Paris at the time.

MD: Was making the record an escape from all that?

DD: It could have been. The thing is, it didn’t really affect us directly. We didn’t make this recording in reaction to the situation; we just kept on doing it the way we felt that we had to do it. It would have been… a sad record if we hadn’t done it that way; so, it didn’t really affect it directly. Now, people think it‘s a healing process. Maybe it’s unconscious as well: we didn’t really think about it. We questioned ourselves a little bit, but not for very long. We tried to make a happy record.

MD: Well, it is an uplifting record. It’s very romantic and very joyful; kind of the opposite of what you would expect.

DD: Yes, but it was not really a conscious thing; but it’s probably better to wait and celebrate this kind of emotion when this kind of thing happens….

MD: I think it’s really interesting that you folks are determined to record in a different location and a different studio every time you make a new record. What is the reasoning behind that?

DD: It’s very important. When we start an album, we don’t really have any musical concepts, but the only thing is we want to start from scratch, as much as we can; so, the first thing is a new place; a new place, and also an unusual place. We try to avoid those grey, professional studios. We got this place… doing the last tour –when we had the tour, we met someone who has a place in Paris. It’s a studio in a former opera house that had been renovated into a digital arts centre. It has a concert venue and exhibition centre and conference room – a lot of things – truly, culturally, a very active place. We also have a studio in the attic, on the top floor. So, we went and visited, and it was amazing; so, we took it. Nobody had made a record there before, and that was perfect, and we brought all of our equipment in. That thing – when we start – the problem is that on each album, we try to do something new, and try to forget what we’ve learned – even if it’s not possible, but as much as we can. A new location and sound palette as well; as much as we can. We try to get rid of all the recipes we built. Every album is a bit of a reaction to what we did just before: Bankrupt was a complex and cynical album; this one – for us – is the opposite. So was Bankrupt compared to Wolfgang: an album that was very different from the one before; it’s always like this; we try, at least.

MD: You mentioned that there’s different instrumentation and you try to change things around. For folks who haven’t heard it yet – because, obviously, it’s not coming out for a few more weeks – how would you describe the sound of this record, compared to the previous records that you’ve done?

DD: This album: it’s our sexy album… with all the fun techniques we can put in it! It’s a much more simple album as well. We try to stick to the original idea of mine, but not develop it too much. The challenge on this album was to keep the freshness…. When we work, we improvise a lot and record everything, and we try to keep all those takes, and not really redo them, and not add too much to it; not change the raw material too much, so that it sounds like something… fresh… and not over thought. It requires a lot of energy to make something that doesn’t sound too elaborate, but in the end, you have to make every song.

MD: Do you think about how you’re going to recreate that sound when you go out and perform…?

DD: Actually, we are a bit worried, because – as I told you – it’s our sexy album. It’s a bit slower, and we’re not sure how it will fit… with songs that have more tempo. It’s a very different dynamic. It’s more about the beat as well, and it fit’s pretty well in the ___ which we’re really happy about. We started the tour ten days ago, and started playing of the songs already, and were actually a bit relieved, because a new tour means new live songs, obviously, and it would have been a shame not to play them. I think we can play, pretty much, all the new album live….

MD: I would imagine Tutti Frutti would go over pretty well live.

DD: Tutti Futti, we haven’t played it, though.

MD: No!

DD: But we want to keep a bit of a surprise, because we didn’t want to play the whole album now. We did it on Bankrupt – we played everything before – but it’s better to wait a little bit. We grew up in the ‘80s where there were real record release: we had to wait until the ‘D-day’, and it was a real surprise when it came out.

MD: Yes, it’s good to have a bit of drama and intrigue.

DD: Yeah, exactly, but now, that’s all finished: our three last albums were leaked two months before the release, and people already knew everything. It’s like opening your presents before you’re supposed to; so, we want to keep a little bit of surprise for the day when it comes out. We don’t play everything live yet.

MD: You mentioned obviously… you go into this new environment to record. Does that mean that the songs are written in that new environment, or is most of the writing already done by that point?

DD: Oh no, we write and record everything at the same time. We just improvise, and the whole thing comes together; the instrumentation and melody: everything is linked. We don’t really have a writing session, or anything; it’s just like everything at the same time. It’s the four of us in the same room, and just play for hours, and then after that, we just tweak all the little bits of music [we find interesting, and we make songs out of it; so, the sound palette is a key thing in the song writing process: the sound is going to influence the melody, or the melody’s going to influence the sound and the beat; everything is kind of linked. It’s a little chemistry we are not trying to even analyse. We just know that the four of us need to be in the same room, because each of us, individually… are pretty weak; it just happens when the four of us are together. We used to try to work by ourselves… but we know now it’s a waste of time; so, we don’t even try anymore.

MD: Do you have a production team that works with you as well?

DD: No. We do it ourselves. We worked with a friend of ours: a sound engineer called Pierre Devon. He helped us, by the end, to record and mix as well. But no, we are four people already, with very strong opinions; so, it’s already full on.

MD: I noticed, on one tune, that there is some kind of afro-beat influence – some Fela. How did that work its way in there?

DD: We have a big pool of loops… that we work with, and at some point, we started playing around with this one; it was really hard to get rid of it. We use loops – especially on this album – as a starting point, and then we get rid of it, but this one was so cool; the harmony was so weird. It’s funny, because this sample has been used a lot… we are not the first ones that I’ve spoken to who use it; we just use it in a much more subtle way. It’s really at the back. It’s not the main gimmick at all: it’s just at the back. It adds a little groove and harmony, even though it has notes that are not in the right key, but without it, it just sounds a bit flat, and this sample makes the whole difference. And actually, the people of Fela have asked us a very low rate for pairing it.

MD: Oh, that’s nice!

DD: They really acknowledged the fact that it was a texture of things.

MD: I imagine that must have more of an influence than most of us are aware of, as far as the availability of sampling things, and how much it’s going to cost, and whether or not anybody’s going to allow it to be used these days; whereas, it used to be a free for all, right?

DD: Absolutely. But they were very cool, actually. We didn’t have to negotiate anything. It was really fair.

MD: I also understand that the album is kind of a fantasised version of Italy, in some respects; of what you guys imagine Italy to be like. Are you planning on taking it to Italy and playing there?

DD: Italy has never been a real familiar territory for some reason; we try. We love Italy, but the thing is… we have two brothers in the band who are half Italian – they have an Italian dad – so, they have those real Italian roots, and they used to spend a lot of time in Italy when they were young. It’s a bit of a discussion of Italy; so yeah, it’s a fantasy of when they were kids. It’s typical pretext as well: it’s not an Italian record at all…. It’s something that’s not really used: the Italian language or Italian aesthetics. For us, we take it as a gift, to be able to go in this direction. We listened to a lot of Italian music in the past six or seven years as well, and it probably grew in us.

MD: Speaking of travel: have you folks played in New Zealand at all, or have you got any plans to?

DD: No. We never played. We’ve been, but we’ve never played…. We went to New Zealand after our Australian tour, and spent ten days there… just to have a look at the country.

MD: Taking a little holiday time instead?

DD: Exactly, holiday time. But we’d love to play in New Zealand.

Ti Amo