Interview by Anne-Cécile L.
Credit Photos: Lcdpix

Clique ici pour la version Française.

Last Thursday, one week after their crazy show at L’Olympia in Paris, Benjamin Lebeau and Guillaume Brière, aka The Shoes, were playing in my hometown. Time for us to finally meet in person after talking so much on internet and time for me ask them some questions…

Despite your very long trip, are you happy to be in Brest tonight?
Guillaume: Of course! Well, we’re happy to finally be here!
Benjamin: Yeah, that’s the positive thing about long trips… You are happy when you arrive!
Guillaume: And most of all, it’s the first concert we’re doing since L’Olympia, that we had to postpone a few months ago… It was quite painful after what happened at Le Bataclan… We were initially scheduled on the 18^th of November…
Benjamin: We took the decision to postpone the concert, it wasn’t easy to but we wanted to do something very festive. That’s what we did, but the initial date of the show wasn’t very appropriate…
Guillaume: We wanted people to let go and have fun, so yes, it didn’t seem to be appropriate just a few days after the attacks… It was still in everyone’s mind. A lot of people wouldn’t have come and we understand them. Maybe I wouldn’t even have come, well not to my own concert, but you see…
Benjamin: I would have been in deep shit! Anyway, we had a nice time and we’re very happy to be here tonight. We are very excited, in a good vibe.
Guillaume: Yes, we are still in that good mood, L’Olympia was cool, very joyful. I liked it because it was festive without being kind of « festive ska ».
Benjamin: In fact, when we prepared it, we were afraid, really, to be on the edge, that it would become a little bit too much like La Foire du Trône. (* the most iconic fair in Paris) I’m really happy with this concert because apart from the music, people had smiles all over their face… You see, we were talking about the attacks, it’s still quite recent and for the first time, I feel like a lot of people had a great time, so I’m really very, very, very happy about that.
Guillaume: It’s extremely pretentious if you misinterpret it, but it was a bit like « back to the party ». We had a period, after the attacks where we were quite depressed, we were not well, like a lot of people in Music Industry obviously and many more… We all know someone who was either a victim or who was injured… So it was a very dark period and that was the moment we told ourselves « Let’s get on with it and have fun! » It’s a bit pretentious because we don’t represent anything at all, but there was something about us, a desire to get back to something positive.
Benjamin: Something that really touched me above everything else is that a very good friend of mine, who was at Le Bataclan, who spent two hours in a small room, locked, in atrocious conditions… He came and that was the first concert he’d done since then, he entered through the backstage area, he was careful and everything… But after the show he said « Fuck, thank you! Thank you guys! »
Guillaume: So for us, it’s a symbol. We are galvanised by this Olympia, we are very happy to come and play here and we want to do it again!
Benjamin: We want to make a mess tonight!

Let’s talk about your music, how would you define it, because I personally can’t find any word to describe it?
Benjamin: People often ask us this question, and we can’t really define it either, it’s been a problem for a long time… We listen to a lot of different styles of music, and we always want to do tracks in one style or another… And so our style is to mix everything we like and to manage, I hope, to link those different things. So I’d say that our style is a non-style.
Guillaume: Yeah, as I often say, our style is not to have any style. If tomorrow we feel like doing a zouk track, we’ll do a zouk track and we would try to add this kind of « pop writing » that characterises us in it.
Benjamin: We often say that we’ll do a zouk song in interviews… We’ve never done it, we should do it!
Guillaume: Zouk or reggae! Well, maybe our style is incoherence. Yes, it’s incoherence!
Benjamin: It’s the first time we define it that way.
Guillaume: And not long ago someone told us « You are incoherent », I replied « It’s my style, dumb twat! »

I’ve been listening to your music for quite a long time now, since your first band The Film, and I feel like you used to sound more rock n’ roll at the time. Now you’re much more into electro… Did you feel like you had to change and do something new or did it come to you in a natural / obvious way?
Benjamin: I think it’s related to the question you were asking before, we didn’t start listening to electro all of a sudden and then started The Shoes… We’ve always been listening to everything at the same time. We started with a bit of punk music and then there was the home studio… Guillaume was totally into Hip Hop, I was a bit into Electronica. Afterwards, we went back to other styles. With The Film, it was complicated because it wasn’t a very pleasant environment with the people we were working with…
Guillaume: And I think we weren’t good enough… It was the beginning of a lot of things when we started… At the time, it was the « baby rockers  » period… We were already too old to be baby rockers, we were working in a different way…
Benjamin: And we weren’t from Paris.
Guillaume: But the rock side you’re talking about, if you’ve seen us on stage with The Shoes, there are times when we express it, when we bring it out. You know, as we say the natural always comes back at some point… Maybe there will be guitars on the next The Shoes’ album… We don’t stop us from anything at all!
Benjamin: That’s what is good, because with The Film, we saw the band as a glam-rock band, now with The Shoes, we can do anything! Maybe we can make a record in the Neil Young style. I insist I have just said « in the Neil Young STYLE ».
Guillaume: Yes, with all due modesty!

Since Crack My Bones, your music videos seem to be a huge part of your universe. They are more than just here to kind of illustrate your song. Some of them even look like short films. As I was telling you the other day, the Stay The Same one made me think a lot of Shane Meadows’ famous movie This Is England. Even more because Johnny Harris, who plays in the movie, is also in your video. What importance do you give to visuals in your work, for your album covers or your videos for example?
Guillaume: I’ll be very clear on that, we give it a very great importance, but the credits don’t belong to us but to our manager, Pierre Le Ny, who is someone who has very specific tastes and is confident about them. He is very cultivated when it comes to image, design, contemporary art, video…
Benjamin: We followed his ideas because he understood very quickly who we were. All the videos really stick to who we are. He is like a third member to the band.
Guillaume: We trust him blindly, except of course if he proposes us something that we don’t like at all, but that never happened. He immediately understood what we wanted to share with our music, and so we had to give him that back. We don’t have much to do with it really. Of course, it’s important to us, but there are guys we’ve worked with, like Woodkid for example, who is capable of making music, singing and directing, doing 3D artwork, but we cannot. We’re good at making music. With Pierre Le Ny we found an ally with whom it obviously works. As we’re pretty crazy, pretty punk, he can do anything he wants. He can go in all directions.
Benjamin: Did you see the video clip we’ve just released?
Guillaume: You see, it’s something we’ve never done before but it’s completely crazy.
Benjamin: Our album came out and four months later we release a song that’s not on the record, it sounds much more like rock music, with many guitars… And this track, for example, shows our Sonic Youth influences, among others.

But do you take part in the writing or the production of the videos or do you give the directors « carte blanche »?
Benjamin: No, we don’t, we give them full carte blanche!
Guillaume: Honestly, we are incredibly lucky to work with those who are, in my opinion, the best directors. We worked with Yoann LeMoine (Woodkid), with Daniel Wolf, now we are working with Emile Sornin, Karim Huu Do… All of them are people, directors, that we respect infinitely. For us, it would be so inappropriate to tell them « Maybe you should do it this way, or that way » , as much as it would be inappropriate if they were coming in the studio and were telling us « Do an E major here, rather than an E minor ». We love to delegate.
Benjamin: Of course, if someone showed us a clip that we didn’t like, we would tell them, but that never happened because we’re on the same wavelenght with people we work with so yeah we’re lucky, it’s perfect.
Guillaume: No, but Benj, to be very honest, sometimes it happened… I mean, every time I watch one of our videos for the first time, it’s very rare that I tell myself « It’s great, it’s so good!» It’s your music, and all of a sudden you get something new… I need a bit of time to get use to it and to get what the artist tried to pass in it.
Benjamin: Especially on the first videos we’ve made. I remember for Stay The Same for example… We had that song in mind, and when the video came out, we didn’t realise it straight away… Then at some point, we called each other with Guillaume and we were like « The video is better than the song ». It took us a long time but it was a first experience. And now we know how to deal with it when something new comes up like that. We know that we have to take a step back but it’s true that at the beginning, it wasn’t necessarily obvious.
Guillaume: The rather incoherent entirety of our work, I’m not going to say our « artwork » because it’s super pretentious…
Benjamin: …Wait a minute, I said we were going to make a record in the Neil Young style so we can say our artwork !
Guillaume: The whole thing is super incoherent but that’s what interests us, and I think that’s what makes us special. We didn’t make two videos that look the same. And we didn’t make two songs that were the same either, I think. Sometimes we have a problem with that, maybe people find it hard to connect and become attached to us because of that. You see the White Stripes, it’s the first example I can think of, it’s the same sound all the time and each song is better than the other.
Benjamin: They’re consistent and in the same vein, we never are. But to be honest, we don’t care anymore.
Guillaume: It’s quite complex, but yes, we have decided not to care because it’s too late!

As we were talking about videos and movies, what is your relationship to Cinema? What are your favourite movies?
Benjamin: Guillaume always thinks that I’m a huge cinephile…
Guillaume: No, no, it’s because I’m so uneducated when it comes to Cinema… For me, he is kind of Francis Ford Coppola just because he has bought four DVDs!
Benjamin: Well I find it hard to talk about that film because it sounds cliché, but it’s not a cliché… A film that really changed my life is Phantom of the Paradise… I saw it on Arte when I was fourteen, after coming back from a rehearsal. It’s a glam-rock film. Otherwise, I’m more into Spike Jonze movies or Macadam Cowboy, for example, it’s a beautiful story about friendship.
Guillaume: I would say my favourite is Full Metal Jacket or Les Valseuses.
Benjamin: Oh yeah, Les Valseuses and Buffet froid too!
Guillaume: Actually I’m much more a comic book lover, so I don’t have time for movies. I read a lot of comics.

What are your favourite comics then?
Guillaume: I discovered a new one, a manga called Last Hero. I swear I cried while reading it, it’s remarkable. There’s also Naruto, a classic… I love it. I’m a big fan of Marvel too, and I buy everything about Deadpool. In fact, I’m not into comics at all, I am much more into entertainment. Maybe I’m not old enough at the moment to be interested in adult comics. I like this regressive side, where I take refuge in a little teenage thing… Oh and also Sangsues, which is an exceptional manga in five volumes, so it’s good for people who want to get into manga because most of the time they have fifty volumes and it’s a pain in the ass… So you have to read Sangsues!

As I was telling you earlier, I know you since The Film, also because of the remix you did of DYWD on Gaëtan Roussel’s album, which is one of my favourite songs and also the name of this website…
But if I’m really honest, I know and love you so much because of Time To Dance which, for personal reasons, really means a lot to me.. It’s one of my favourite songs of all the times. It’s one of those songs that makes me want to do a lot of things and this website was born out of a story like that.
You are in a way part of my heroes. So I was wondering if any songs had made you feel the same way, maybe not that much, but songs or bands that are iconic for you?
Benjamin: It’s not often that we’re told things like that and I’m very moved by what you say. What we told you about L’Olympia, when we said we tried to make people happy… Well, this song is maybe not our favourite one but it’s a feel-good song, of rage and if it gave you that feeling, it’s the best thing we could do. We’ve got some songs and bands like this too, The Cure for example…
Guillaume: When I was a teenager, mine was Radiohead – The Bends and Pablo Honey, you know that moment when you’re a teenager, you’re in love with a girl who doesn’t give a shit about you… And you think you’re too fat, too ugly, and then you think that one day you’ll have your revenge, and you listen to this, and you cry… Also Tindersticks.
Benjamin: Spain too… For me, Melody Nelson by Gainsbourg.
Guillaume: Lunatic, Le Crime Paie. It’s the first song that Booba released. It‘s a song that has really marked my adolescence.
Benjamin: Maybe we should stop now, Guillaume, because…
Guillaume: No, but I’ve just realised that we’re full of contradictions… I’m telling you that on one side I was crying because there was a girl who didn’t like me so I was listening to Radiohead and on the other side I was wearing a Lacoste tracksuit and I was listening to Lunatic. You realise that it’s a little bit complex and a little bit weird. Is this a psychoanalysis or what?!
Benjamin: And why Time To Dance? Cause it’s not an emotional song at all…

It’s the lyrics, especially the chorus, the music, the rhythm, everything. I can be in my bed in, you know, this kind of « I want to die » mood and then I hear it and I’m like « Fuck it! Fuck everything! Move your ass, you can achieve anything you want. » It makes me want to get up, to dance, to do things – or at least to try, to burn everything down!
Benjamin: Fuck, you see, for us that’s BANCO!
Guillaume: When I’m in bed in that « I want to die » mood, I take a Xanax.
Benjamin: Well, when I’m in my bed in the « I want to die » mood, I watch Faites Entrer L’Accusé… (*Famous TV program about French serial killers) Can you believe it? It’s so creepy that you think « Oh, I’m alright, it’s not that bad finally! »
Guillaume: And he’s not kidding!
Benjamin: My life goal is not to win a Victoire de la Musique, not a Golden Globe or anything, my goal is to make the soundtrack of Faites Entrer L’Accusé!
Guillaume: The soundtrack is good!
Benjamin: And if I ever achieve this, everybody will have to address me as « vous ».

Well, you could do a zouk song for Faites Entrer L’Accusé ?

And in the same way, are there any concerts that had a huge impact on you?
Benjamin: Well, I think L’Olympia was my favourite concert. But we did so many together that it’s hard… Ah yes, I remember that show that we did, with The Film… We played at Le Truskel, the famous bistro in Paris, it was the two of us, a drummer and a saxophonist, who was older than us. It’s a small pub, so we didn’t have much sound system and the guy blew into his sax like a mad man. He passed out in the middle of the song, on the drums, the drums bursting in my face, then fell on the amp.
Guillaume: And at that time he weighed at least 110 kg! It made an earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale!
Benjamin: So yeah, I remember that thing, it was funny, we kept on playing while the guy was half-dead on the floor!
Guillaume: It’s true, it was good! And we didn’t like him too much so we were happy!

I have only seen you twice, at La Cigale in 2012 and at L’Olympia last Thursday… You had a lot of guests on these two dates, did you change the sets a lot for these show in comparison to a « normal » concert, like tonight for example?
Benjamin: Yes, but not that much either. On our first record, our weakness was on the voices, we interpreted the songs but you had a little bit of kludge/DIY, also some backing vocals behind. On the second record, we worked a lot so we can do most of the songs without vocal guests. For example, we can’t do our song Submarine without guests, whereas the rest of the songs can. So yes, we’re changing a few things.
Guillaume: Even if sometimes the vocals are not perfect, we try to compensate with our energy, by embodying the show. I think people understand. For L’Olympia for example, I think that someone who makes the effort to come, who paid his ticket 35 euros… which is very expensive – we don’t decide on prices… Well, I feel like we owe those people a little « extra something », like the presence of Woodkid… It was great, people really liked it! I feel like it’s normal to have guests, and extra things. What’s interesting when you do a big show like the Olympia, is that you have a base of work that’s now done. Tonight, for example, we’re going to play things that we don’t usually play on tour because we’ve been working on them since L’Olympia and we were like « Fuck, it’s working well! » So every new step you make, when you’re about to do a bigger concert, is added to the following shows… You add these things that you’ve imagined and that are a bit special. It sounds a bit old-fashioned to say that, but playing at L’Olympia means something.
Benjamin: That means something, even if there are bigger venues in Paris. It’s not even the size, it’s the symbol behind it.
Guillaume: You’ve got your name, in big letters, on the front of the venue and everything… So, yes, we worked harder, but tonight we’re going to do some of the things that we did at L’Olympia again, just for fun, because it worked well there.

Did you keep the tribute to David Bowie: Time To Dance x Let’s Dance?
Guillaume: Yes, it’s a nice little tribute. Everybody has done tributes to Bowie in concerts…
Benjamin: We wanted to do something funny, dazzling and quick…
Guillaume: And not in some kind of pathos!
Benjamin: It’s not long. Anyway, I don’t want to say we’re legitimate or anything but Bowie is everything we like. So yes, we’re going to do it tonight, and we could do it again, not only because he just died…
Guillaume: Anyway, in two years time, we’ll have moved on to something else. Johnny will be dead by then…
Benjamin: If Johnny dies, we’ll make him a special cocktail too!
Guillaume: I like Johnny Hallyday. I like Johnny because he is one of the French symbols, and I like France.
Benjamin: You mean, you like the way he dresses up!
Guillaume: I have a lot of affection for Johnny’s fans, my cousin is called Johnny for example because his father is a fan. It’s something that represents us, something we can like or dislike but it’s our popular heritage. I don’t like people who spit on Johnny Hallyday. I like him a lot. That’s all I like.
Benjamin: You see, you asked a question about David Bowie and we end up with Johnny Hallyday!

Thanks to Hugo for the video!

Since the Crack My Bones tour you also seem to have developed the visual side of the stage too, don’t you?
Benjamin: Yes, we didn’t spend too much time on that before, I’m exaggerating but we used to play on kind of a camping table. It was held together with two strings but it was very good like that.
Guillaume: It was very punk. I think, well I hope, that we made a lot of progress between the two tours, we play more « for real ». It’s always quite difficult for bands that are playing electro to show the difference between what you play live and what’s in the computer/machines. We found a good way there I think.
Benjamin: And we’ve developed it more and more. For example, for our TV promos when we play Submarine, there is no computer at all, but we need to have the guys from Mystery Jets with us. So when we play live now, it feels much more like a rock band. We have more fun.
Guillaume: But it took us some time. It’s true that there are a lot of electro artists that we love who sometimes have a bit of trouble playing their music on stage. Either you do a DJ set or you bring machines, but as soon as there are vocals, pop-writing, there has to be someone singing and it’s quite difficult. We really didn’t want to play music with a pre-recorded voice. We do it with all the flaws it has, because it’s not perfect and we’re not super good yet, but we absolutely wanted to commit ourselves physically for this live.

Well, I’ve been waiting to ask you this… Will there be chickens on stage tonight or not?!
Guillaume: Roasted, pre-cooked chickens that we’ll be throwing from the stage…
Benjamin: Well no… We wanted to, but our tour manager, Thibaut Jamin, who is usually good, forgot to take the masks that we bought for L’Olympia… Those stupid masks are fuckin’ expensive!
Guillaume: You can’t with it! At L’Olympia, on stage, I took a mask and throw it to the crowd, he came to see me and said « Hey, it cost me 20 quid! »
Benjamin: That’s not true!
Guillaume: It is true!!
Benjamin: It is clearly not true!! Besides, who took this chicken mask home?!
Guillaume: We have to find him!!!

Do you want me to post a message?
Benjamin: Yes, go ahead! Give us back our chicken mask! It costs us 20 quid! I told Guillaume on that night!
So no, there won’t be any chickens… But you can make us masks if you want! We could make them!

Well, talking about messages… You’re one of the rare bands so closed to people, your fans, via your social media platforms. The fact that I’m here with you doing this interview now is clearly the proof of that… Is it important for you to get direct feedback? To be in touch with people?
Benjamin: I’ll let Guillaume answer because I don’t use it at all.
Guillaume: He’s still using the Minitel, or kind of.
Benjamin: My social medias are pubs, I prefer going to bars…
Guillaume: It seems natural to me, but I respect both points of view. There are guys that we admire a lot like Gesaffelstein or SebastiAn, who are very mysterious people, who don’t have any social medias, not many photos of them… For me, there are two ways of doing it, either you embrace this way of communicating with fans directly, which is what we do, or you keep kind of a mystery. We don’t have the charisma nor the desire for that. SebastiAn is one of our idols, we became friends with him, but trying to contact him on the internet is really difficult. You have more chances to get in touch with him by sending him a carrier pigeon, honestly.

Well, that will be my last question… How does it feel to be nominated at Les Victoires de la Musique?
Benjamin & Guillaume: We are pleased!
Benjamin: We’re happy because we’re on an independent label and we know that there’s not that much space for indie bands/labels. So we’re very very happy! And we don’t care, we’ve already had some Victoires… With Gaëtan for example! What we’re interested in is the ornament, the decoration, you can throw it on your dresser… It’s beautiful, it looks good, it shines and everything!
Guillaume: No, but Gainsbourg, for example, loved rewards. He loved to win and he never hid from it. I don’t like, and I say it loud… I don’t like the attitude of some artists who say they make music for the sake of art, not for rewards. No, it is pleasant when someone recognises your work. It pleases you, it pleases your grandmother!
Benjamin: What I’d like to do is to make the Victoires de la Musique in a Geneviève de Fontenay style… We should make real Victoires de la Musique, where real people vote, where there aren’t majors who have more power… That doesn’t exist because there wouldn’t be enough audience I guess.
Guillaume: No, it’s not that, it’s just that it’s the way it exists and I’m very flattered that we’ve been nominated.
Benjamin: Oh yes! Even if we don’t believe in it too much…
Guillaume: Honestly I am very proud. I’d like to win, but just the fact to be nominated as an artist on an independent label is great. I’m not just saying it, I mean it, it’s sincere! And as I was saying, it makes my mother and my grandmother happy, so I’m also very happy! But I’d like us to win!