How do you feel today in Paris ?
It’s great. We drove here through the night so I just woke up in the festival on the bus. So I’ve only seen the inside of the festival not around.
You don’t know where you are right now ?
Yeah, where are we actually ?
Well this is Paris.. Capital of ..
No I mean how close to the center are we ?
Well from the stage you can see the Eiffel Tower and we’re like ten minutes from Paris actually.
That’s cool.
Your album came out right before the summer. It’s called “New Eyes”. So is it true that you named it in an hommage to French city Nouailles ?
Yes it’s true. It’s not really a city, it’s a tiny place. Tiny town in south of France, near Toulouse.
So I guess you guys speak fluent French now ?
Well… I don’t 🙂 Grace and Neil who are not here, they are both sick.. They do both speak French.
Because I prepared a little game for you guys in French.
O no 🙂 Ok maybe I can try if it’s easy French.
It’s really simple. I’m gonna tell you the names of some artists who play at Rock en Seine this year. But I’m translated them to French.
Les Singes Arctiques ?
Artic Monkeys !
Prodige …
Prodigy.
Ok little tougher : Les reines de l’âge de pierre …
…. Oh Queens of The Stone Age !
And finally Jacques Problème …
…
He was playing yesterday …
O Jake Bugg ! why Jacques Problème ? Why not Jacques Insecte ?
Ooo You’re actually better than me at my own game. That’s a shame ! So, all those guys are great, do you want to see someone here in particular ?
Yes I really want to see Portishead actually and Prodigy of course.
The very special thing about you guys is that you don’t have a permanent singer, only guests. It’s pretty much one song, one singer. Could we see anytime soon a main act sing with you ? Could it be a Lana Del Rey Clean Bandit track or a Jake Bugg ?
Yeah ! Hopefully ! Because our song “Rather Be” is starting to do really well in America now and it’s been crazy how many people have asked to work with us. so yeah hopefully.
And who would it be ?
You know, probably Beyonce or Shakira … someone like that.
Nice ! Tell me when that happens !
Haha. Well, we’re open to work with anyone, we don’t have any kind of rules or anything like that …
Because working with so many different people means you have the opportunity to play with many different styles .. And that’s something we clearly hear in your album and even with singles like “Extraordinary” is different from rather be… And from your last track “Come Over” …
We’ve met this guy Stylo G, who’s an amazing artist from South London. We got into the studio with him and that song was born. And it’s very much like … It moves into his sound zone, it’s a little bit like dance world…
Yes feels like raggaeton. And on the album of course you have that hit we talked about : “Rather be”. What is your relationship with that song now ? Are you tired of it, do you love it ?
Oh I love it ! It’s kind of like … I play piano and it fits under your hands really well all those chords. It’s quite satisfying, especially because the crowd goes crazy when that song hits. It’s fun. It’s difficult to get bored of that.
So you’re not tired of people asking for that song, or getting really hyped on it ?
Oh no, I’m being quite surprised though, people know a lot of our music as well so that has been a really nice surprise actually. So if people are singing along to our other songs like, there is this song called “Dust Clears” on our album that is one of my favourites so seeing people sing along that song it’s really special. And that kind of gets you in a good mood and then you play “Rather Be” and it’s like … cool.
You are now in tour, like crazy. You sometimes go to four dates in one week, but you keep working so hard
