As the many thousands at the festival (plus many more thousands streaming online) found out, the “secret” was a surprise visit from soul superstar R Kelly – joining the band for a mash-up of his Ignition (Remix) and their 1901, into verses of I’m A Flirt over new Phoenix track Chloroform. It was all pulled off with Phoenix’s goofy brand of cool.
A fortnight prior to my interview with Laurent, Phoenix made their first live appearance in over two years. In that time, the band have been busy putting together their new LP Bankrupt! – the follow-up to the Grammy-award winning success that is Wolfgang Armadeus Phoenix. “We spent so much time in the studio for this last record, so going out, seeing these places and travelling is exciting for us. We have too much work for too small amount of hours, so we are excited but very tired,” he states, with excitement clearly overriding any fatigue.
Wolfgang Armadeus Phoenix took the band to tremendous heights, to the point where they take top billing at the world’s biggest festivals and pack out stadium-sized performances. The lofty live settings, however, haven’t influenced the band in terms of crafting stadium-sized anthems on Bankrupt!
“We always have in mind that we will play the songs live, so for us it is important that they are playable by human beings. But we never think about music designed for festivals or stadiums. Usually that is really bad music. We tried to make our best album ever. Some moments on the record are pretty massive-sounding, but there are some moments of intimacy,” Laurent reveals. “Musically, the extremes are more extreme. But when we play them live they have a new meaning. It’s difficult, but it’s our job to combine all those things and make something that has balance. What I think takes us the most energy is combining things that usually wouldn’t work together. It’s creating a new chemical reaction with different elements.”
Lead single Entertainment is buoyed by vintage synth tones, with many aspects of Bankrupt! following suit with various nods to ‘80s pop. “It wasn’t a conscious move, but we realised that we were taking all these elements from music we were listening to when we were kids,” Laurent ponders. “I think on this record we weren’t obsessed with the perfection of the mechanism of the song, but more with the charm of the song. The charm has a lot to do with the memories of childhood. These things resonate in a special way. Prince, Madonna, and all the music we listened to as kids, we were attracted to the elements from that period. But there was no conscious decision, and it’s only one part of the spectrum of the album. We have elements of every part of the history of mankind, I would say.”
Though showcasing vintage pop styling, Bankrupt! embraces some touchstones of modern electronic music. But it doesn’t come from a desire to emulate current trends.
“Our goal is to create new trends. It sounds pretentious, but that’s our goal. If we were paying attention to what was happening around us, we would just be followers. There are a few things that are too good to miss, but I’m not too obsessed with what’s happening in our field of activity, which is music,” Laurent states wryly.
Within the space of a few weeks, Phoenix performed on American television institution Saturday Night Live, headlined a night at America’s biggest music festival, and were invited to perform at Jay-Z’s Made In America Festival. So how did Phoenix become one of the few contemporary European bands to make it big in the USA?
“I actually have no idea why. Perhaps it is some kind of misunderstanding. Maybe it’s because we have worked a lot for a very long time to achieve what we have in mind. But I have no idea what people expect from us, no idea why they accept us at these big festivals. We always have the feeling that it must be a typo. What I do know is that we were lucky enough to start doing music before YouTube, so we had the time to be very bad and improve without too many people noticing how bad we were,” Laurent laughs self-deprecatingly.
Soon after Phoenix unleash Bankrupt!, their compatriots and friends Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Laurent performed with both in the early ‘90s group Darlin’) will be releasing a lil’ old album called Random Access Memories.
“We have the same goal – to make the universe a better place,” Laurent says on Phoenix’s and Daft Punk’s shared prerogative. “I really like the fact that both of our albums are being released in the same period. It reminds me of the good days of popular music with a lot of good albums coming out at the same time, and this friendly rivalry. But it’s more friendly that rivalry – we’ve known each other for so long that it would be stupid to be rivals.”
As for when we can expect Phoenix to showcase their new material live in Australia (presumably, but not hopefully, sans R Kelly), Laurent reveals we can expect some news sometime in the near future. “We finished our last tour in Australia, and we talked about this album while we were in Byron Bay for a few days. For us it has a special meaning,” Laurent beams. “We are working on returning right now, but I cannot tell you when. But I can tell you it will happen. Very soon hopefully.”
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
