interview / Evan Smith
Evan Smith: So your new album is coming out in a couple of weeks, which is really awesome. Does it kind of go away a little bit from † or is it more of a continuation of †?
Xavier de Rosnay: To us, it’s really made on the same base. I mean we made the records with the same obsessions and the same intentions as what we’ve always done since we started. Just to make simple music that conveys simple emotions, which is a blend of like epicness and melancholy and something a bit violent at times. Only the varnish changes a bit. Only details and production change, but although they are small details, it takes a lot of importance after. The new album is like seeing an old friend with a new hairdo, but sometimes the new hairdo will make a lot of difference. So for us, it’s really the same thing. When we made this record we didn’t think too much—we didn’t look back. We never try to be surprising; we never try to be different. We just try to make something that is natural and simple to us. So what needs to change changes and what needs to remain the same remains the same, and we just carry on with that. So for us it’s pretty much a continuation of the first record.
I’ve seen your live set once and your DJ set a couple times, is there a difference between the preparation of the DJ set and the live set? Do you prefer DJing or doing your live stuff?
It’s really different. With our live shows there are a lot of preparations, and the DJ sets are like no preparation at all. We don’t even own turntables. So we never trained or practiced or anything, but the shows are really different. The DJ set is just really fun and we play music for a party time, because that is what it’s meant to be. It’s nothing more than that. When we play live shows, we don’t feel that we need to make people dance. You can sit and stretch out; you are efficient in a different way. Maybe the live shows are more emotional, and the DJ sets are just more like a party time, like it’s just physical.
I know the tour for † was pretty long. Are you guys anticipating an equally long tour for Audio, Video, Disco?
We aren’t planning anything because we have no idea what’s going to happen. We just don’t know what’s going to happen with this record, and also the type of audience that’s going to accept this record is going to drive what type of venues we play and the length of the tour. It’s so circumstantial that it’s really hard for us to plan more than six months ahead.
How did you get involved with The Creators Project?
Well, funding. We are funding The Creators Project, that’s how we got involved. We give them a check every year so that we can make things like this happen. It’s what we do, just donate. Laughs. No, no, the thing is that VICE is really much involved with The Creators Project, and we were signed on VICE Recordings in the U.S. like four years ago. Then we went on different labels and now we’re back on VICE Recordings. So it’s a bit like how we put one step in it, and it’s a good location for us to catch up with them a bit and just talk about the future and things together.
Do you still have a good relationship with Pedro Winter and Ed Banger Records? I mean you guys have been together for so many years.
Yeah, but let’s not exaggerate because I think it’s been like less than ten years. So it’s not that long, but yeah we have a really good relationship with Pedro. We met when we started at Ed Banger Records and when we started Justice, so we are just making our histories together hand-in-hand. So we’re pretty much like inseparable. I can’t think of Justice without thinking of Ed Banger Records, and I think for most people Justice is a part of Ed Banger Records—not an essential part, but a significant part of it. Just because we started our beginning together, and it’s cool to walk with someone who is really close to us, who is always on the friendship side of a walkway.
Are you guys happy to be back in New York?
Yeah, absolutely. We were thinking this morning when we got to New York that this was the only city that we could actually possibly think of living in apart from Paris. Although I live in London right now, New York is way better, but it’s just so hard to get a visa for the U.S.
++Check out more of Justice in the Winter Issue of Ladygunn.