The Teenagers Interview-Chicago 1/26/08 – Sonotheque

(Courtesy Disco Attack)

The Teenagers, a trio of French-born Indie/Electro/Lo-Fi rockers from London have finally come to the states on their first ever North American Tour. So Last Weekend, I went to Chicago because I had set up an interview with this band that has been one of the more talked about in the blogosphere throughout the previous year.

During the interview we talked about their First LP out “Reality Check” on the XL label, their remixes, their reaction to the States, and what some of their plans are in the coming months.

A note about the interview. It was transcribed as accurate as possible from the recording. The recording occurred about an hour to them going onstage. It was difficult to transcribe because it was all of The Teenagers answering the questions in no particular order, so it was a good conversation with them. The Teenagers are (See picture above) Quentin (Left), Michael (Middle), and Dorian (Right). I use their first letters through the interview, along with mine. (I am Eric).

E: So your album is titled “Reality Check”, why the specific title?
Q: We looked for a name, and its one of the biggest differences we have had. Everyone came up with his own little names and then we just came up with “Reality Check”, and we like, it just sounds good.
D: It wasn’t even the same day, it was like two weeks after.
Q: Its funny, because everyone asks us if the songs are autobiographical, and apart from “Streets of Paris” they are not, so reality check is cool because our songs are about a fantasy world when you are teenage person.

E: And how have the digital sales on the album been so far?
Q,M,D: We don’t know yet.
Q: You have to wait a little before you can get all the figures
D: Yeah, you have to wait a month, and then you get the results for the first week or something.
Q: I hope its doing well though.

E: I had heard a couple of demos before, and You changed a couple of the lyrics from the original demos, why the change?
Q: Oh my god, you are a hardcore fan! (they all laugh)
M: We’ve changed on ‘Feeling Better’, it was like, “and buy our CD”, and now its like “And buy our T-Shirt”, and also it was like “and take a pen, grab your ass”, and now it is like “take a pen, write it down” (Dorian and Quentin have a laugh)
M: Maybe you see why now we changed the lyrics now.

E: I see why you changed it now, to make it more radio-friendly?
Q: No, I felt like when we heard the afterwards, it was pretty lame, and I think we asked people to take their shirts, grab their ass.
M: I think we asked the girls to write their names on their bodies, but we stopped that and so we were like yeah lets change the lyrics
Q: On ‘Homecoming’ its pretty cool to be a bit passive aggressive about the “cunt” thing, but after (on Feeling Better) we realized it was stupid and could say it in a normal way. But we were not thinking that we wanted to have it more radio-friendly.
M: So buy are T-Shirts is a sort of subliminal message, and we want people to buy our T-Shirts
Q: Yeah, cause they don’t buy CD’s anymore.
M: and we changed something on “Sunset Beach” but it was just a mistake in the English.
E: Yeah I noticed that
Q: So you checked all the songs then?
M: So that means you like the album?
E: Yeah, I liked it.
M: and did you buy it legally?
E: Yeah
M: So at least we have one! Thanks! (All Laugh)
Q: We should download it since we are here, since it is gonna work.
D: I am going to buy it tomorrow.

E: You didn’t use some of the other tracks on the album itself?
M: We had to save some for the B-Sides (Tiger), and some of the tracks were sticking out. There were like 4 or 5 tracks that were sticking out. And we used the ones we preferred for the album
Q,M,D (in combo): Trouble, Sleeping Bag, Secret Crush, Tiger
Q: Secret Crush is just really bad (different)

E: And tell me about “Sleeping Bag”…?
Q: It was like “Fuck Nicole”, but with different lyrics you know, but kind of the same. I personally love it, but no one wanted to have it on the album.
D: It was too different I believe from the album (the Yo version of sleeping bag).

E: I know you guys have done a bunch of remixes, do you have any plans to do more remixes?
Q: Right now, we think it is better to focus on our own stuff, and get the remixes more rare and valuable. You know how some bands remix everything, and then nobody wants to hear a remix by them. So you need to save them so they become more valuable
M: And we think it would be more funny to remix big acts. So if we want to have them someday we have to wait

E: Like Who would you want to remix?
M: Mainstream acts, like Kylie.
Q: We said Britney before
M: But Britney is so lame now.
Q: There was some light when the album came out, and all this stuff is still going on.
M: Like Britney “The Rehab Remix” and “The Trainwreck One”
Q: But no, that’s not happening… Kylie would be good, and her album is good.

E: Who would you want to remix your own material?
M: Daft Punk, Soulwax,
D: Soulwax would be good… Justice
Q: I don’t know whoever sells records
M: Jacques Lu Cont (Thin White Duke)
Q: Stuart Price, if he would do it I am having a tear.
M: Maybe Someday

E: What has it been like so far in the States?
Q: Crazy. We are going to write a song about California. Even Vancouver was really good. The Three Dates we had in a row in California were just crazy. But we are having a bit of pressure here, because in LA the show went really smooth.
D: It was great in San Francisco, and LA was really good too. All the cities have been good.
M: The hardest was
Seattle. It was our first show in the states and we had to really rock.

E: So how many of you had been to the States before?
Q: I have been for like three weeks.
D: I had been to the states with my parents for tourism. (California,
New York)
Q: Yeah, Me too. (Philadelphia)
M: First Time

E: So in your short time in America, what sorts of things specific to
America have stuck out?
M: The car thing, and you have to take a car for everything.
D: And you have big cars.
Q: The food portions are like twice the size of the food portions in
Europe… You get so much more food.
D: Your cakes are like that! (Holds out arms to show size)
M: It’s like eating a brick.

E: How has the reception been so far in the states?
Q: Honestly, so far the reception has been good, and the people we have met have been awesome. The vibe has been good; it’s like such a different world. Like from Europe, it’s hard to explain, but you can tell. If you make me sleep and take me somewhere, I can tell if it is Europe or USA straight away.

E: So after this Tour is over, what all do you have in the works? I know you are playing Coachella?
M: We have a couple of gigs to do in London and in Europe, and then promo for the album.
D: We play with Justice in London for NME.
Q: Its Valentine’s Day so it is sweet.
D: We play in Paris once as well.
Q: In March
D: A bit in England, a bit in Europe after.
M: Mexico in March.
D: And then Coachella.

E: So you don’t know if you are playing SXSW?
Q: XL used to have a tent, and they cancelled the tent, so maybe if someone else wants to book us, you can do it (leans in towards the Mic, laughs)… It would be cool. But Coachella is cool because we learned about it here.
D: I saw it on their website after I received an email from Coachella (about the bands being announced, and I knew we might be playing, so I went to their website.
Q: I didn’t even know that (about us playing Coachella)

E: On Tour, who have you gotten along well with and meshed with?
Q: Crystal Castles, we really bound with them even though they are so different, and we bound with them really quickly.
M: I really Like Dev from Lightspeed Champion
Q: Metronomy are nice as well.

E: What sort of influences did you have growing up in Paris?
M: There weren’t really that many in Paris, and right now if Justice could be an influence ONLY for the success they have had, not for the music.
Q: Maybe some French pop-artists that my parents were listening to but I don’t know. Maybe some Danish Music Tour Limited, Dr. Alban, and this kind of stuff.

E: I have read in other interviews that you like to be lumped into the British Indie scene?
Q,M,D: No, we didn’t say that.
M: We are just pop-rock, and we don’t pigeon-hole ourselves.
D: I think they put us in the English scene because we live in
London and we play with English Bands.
Q: But I think we are really in-between many different things. We are not really French but not really English in terms of music. We are not really pop but we are not Indie, we are not really Justice, but we are kind of unique and special. (All Laugh)
Q: Tonight we are playing in a club, but it is going to sound Indie, because we don’t have our backing synths, so it will sound rough (like indie- rock music).

E: So a year from now what do you think you will be doing?
Q: Promoting the second album
M: Playing in Birmingham, England
D: Maybe everyone can have his own hotel room.

E: My one final question is this… if you had anything to say to the teenagers of the world, what would it be?
Q: Don’t Drink and Drive Guys.
D: Protect yourself when you are having sex.
Q: War is really bad.
M: Go to school
Q: Yeah, go to school a little bit
D: Our album comes out March 18^th, but you can download the digital now!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 4:13 am and is filed under Concerts, Dance, News, Random, The Yellow Stereo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.