“I don’t know what to think of it all, apart from the fact that we’re really happy to go to Australia because it’s so fucking far away!” Hadida exclaims. “It’s always fun. I don’t know what to expect at all. We’re just really, really happy to go out to Australia and show what we do to Australian people.”
“I think Lou Doillon is going there too. We toured all the summer festivals together and bumped into each other quite a few times. There is this thing – you always bump into somebody you know at a festival.” Doillon, a singer-songwriter and recent winner at the French Grammys, received acclaim for her debut similar to that of Hadida and Cotto, all three real up-and comers on the French scene. Despite this, Hadida is sceptical of the band’s influence in other parts of the world.
“I think if people know us in Australia it’s probably just five of them,” she states. “It’s a great opportunity, but I’m not crazy, I’m not expecting any kind of success. It’s a tough industry and you guys probably have great bands at home already. But at least we’re going to try, and it’s going to be fun.
“In France we’re pretty big now. Our next gig in Paris is in a 7,000 people venue. We finished a tour of 30 gigs and now we’re doing another 30 again just in France. It’s going really well. We went to Germany for ten days last month and we played at clubs. There was nobody there. It was really cool, it was so good for us. There was nobody to put your gear up for you or plug in your amp. It reminds you about what it’s about to be in a band and make your own music. It’s nice to have a challenge sometimes. That’s what Australia is about.”
For a band still relatively early on in their career, there’s a lot of hard work ahead. “I’m going back on tour tonight and I came back yesterday,” Hadida tells me. “I’m pretty tired, but it’s okay. If I hear anybody complaining about that lifestyle they can go fuck themselves, they can go do something else. So many kids dream of doing that, and if you have a chance and the amazing opportunity to be on tour and make a living from your music you should just say thank you. I hate it when people are on tour frowning or complaining…you’re not allowed to do that, it’s not okay.
“I was never the cool kid. I never had friends when I was in school. I’ve never been the successful or the cool person, like seriously. I’ve never been in the light. So it is a shocker to me. I’m really being really honest with you. I really do know that I’m very lucky. Even if it doesn’t go any further, I’m really, really happy with everything that’s happened to us here. I enjoy it and I really appreciate it.” The same goes for Cotto.
“That’s how we are,” states Hadida. “In the band we talk about it all the time. We’re very sensitive people and we have a lot of talks about all this. We have a lot of flaws as people but they would be the same if we were dog-walkers or babysitters or whatnot. I don’t think our personalities were altered by the fact that we have a band. The first album was very successive here in France already, so since we’ve been 20 we’ve been living this life. Who we are now was made up by this experience. The years you’re supposed to become who you are, we spent them having this band. All of that is very linked. We know what our place is, and we know where we stand.”
Success as a musician was never something Hadida expected. “First of all I’m not sure I was aware that this existed,” she says of the artist’s life. “To be totally honest with you I had no idea how it worked. I started having a band when I was 19. It was like a joke – I’d never been in a band, I couldn’t write music, I’d never played a guitar. Our friends thought it was pretty cool what we were doing. We made shows for our friends in shitty bars and things. I remember at one of our first shows I asked the sound guy what the speaker was doing, directed towards me, because I had no idea what a wedge was. That’s how bad it was. I never fantasised about it because I didn’t know about it. I fantasised about being special, and I know I didn’t want to do anything common, but I think everybody is like that.”
BY JOSH FERGEUS
