Another amazing interview from my time at weekend two of ACL 2022! I was lucky enough to sit down with French disco-funk group L’Imperatrice after their Friday performance, which was one of my favorites of the whole weekend. I had been lucky enough to catch the group in Barcelona at Primavera Sound over the summer, so I was geeked to be able to sit and chat about touring, their latest album, and, of course, movie soundtracks.
D: We are huge fans of you guys at KTXT, we loved Tako Tsubo, we spun it a ton back in 2021. Thank you guys so much for taking time out of your day to sit down with me.
FB: No worries!
CB: You’re welcome!
D: I want to start off by saying that I saw your set earlier and it was so amazing- my coworker actually saw your set last weekend and he said it was his favorite set of the whole weekend. *
FB: Really?
D: Yes! You guys have such an amazing energy and you captivated the whole crowd – and what a huge crowd, too! It was such a good time. I noticed that you guys have been doing tons of big festivals lately. You’ve done Coachella, Primavera Sound in Barcelona, ACL now. What do you think brought you to this point in terms of your career?
FB: Well, we started basically from the bottom, in a way. The band has been existing for almost 10 years now and we’ve been touring a lot. We started with small clubs, small venues, and then little by little we would get to the bigger ones. But yeah, I would say it’s been just a lot of work. Also being very humble because you have to take everything step by step. I mean, listen, we’re playing big festivals, but we’re not headlining. So there’s still a lot of work to do.
D: For sure. And I’m sure that will be coming soon, with the crowds you guys draw. I’m sure they’ll have to give you a headlining spot pretty soon!
CB: Hopefully!
D: I can’t help but ask, it’s been a little bit of time since your last album. Are you guys working on a new album or any new songs that may be coming out soon?
CB: We are working on it.
FB: Yeah, we have been on tour for a long time, so we haven’t been really focusing on making new music. The tour is actually over today.
D: Oh, this was your last show?
FB: Yeah, our last show was today. So we will be able, from this moment on, to focus on making a new album.
D: Right. How do you guys build out what your setlist will look like for your performances? Because it flows so well, it just feels like one long dance party. How do you come up with your transitions all that?
CB: We would like to make it seem like a DJ set, but with real instruments. So we work on the transitions and making the song longer. The start of the song is like a warm up, and then it just goes into a big party at the end.
D: I can sense that. The energy just builds as you guys perform.
FB: It’s something that we really work on. Before we go on tour, we make our setlist with our transitions, and we organize it all. It doesn’t really move from the beginning of the tour to the end. Sometimes we change it if we have to play longer or shorter sets, but it’s not by chance – its all planned out.
D: Months in advance, I’m sure. That’s so cool that today is your last show, will you be heading back to Europe after this?
FB: Tomorrow!
D: Very cool. I was wondering, what differences have you noticed between performing in the U.S. versus other countries in Europe?
FB: Oh, there’s a lot.
CB: It’s not the same audience at all. American people can dance to anything, I mean they love everything. They love the bass, they love the guitars. They like to sing the lyrics. They’re all really careful with that. With French people, they care a lot about perfect vocals and the singing. They almost forget about the “live” part. Here [in the U.S.] it’s really different. You know, people really understand that you’re a band. And, they love it, I think. It’s just really different in France. I think sometimes it almost feels better here.
D: Well, that’s great to hear as a Texas native. I’m glad you guys enjoy performing here. I have kind of a random question, but I love the album art for Tako Tsubo. It kind of reminds me of Daft Punk with the illustration. How did you guys decide on that cover?
FB: It was a long process at first, because we didn’t know if we wanted some pictures or if we wanted illustrations. It’s really hard to choose an album cover when you don’t want a picture of ourself on the cover – because that’s not a thing we do, you know? We don’t put photos of ourselves on our album covers. But yeah, it’s this French comic illustrator called Ugo Bienvenu. He’s really getting big in France at the moment, he’s doing amazing stuff.
CB: His work is beautiful.
FB: And he’s doing animations and comics and stuff, and it’s all in this really peculiar world. And so yeah, he proposed this idea of the three characters on the cover. He really liked the idea of the Tako Tsubo, which is, you know, the broken heart syndrome. So he went even further with the three characters, and we liked it because we like the idea of being represented by a character. That’s why we’re called L’Imperatrice, but that’s also why we used Matahari for the first album. So this time it’s these three goddesses on the cover. And yeah, it was really interesting the way he read the whole concept. I love Daft Punk, so I’m glad you made that comparison.
D: Yeah, I think that conveys the vibe of the album so well. The album feels otherworldly for sure. And you guys have grown your sound a lot, from your beginning to now. I feel like you used to have kind of more of a jazz or atmospheric sound, and now you’ve moved to pulling from some more funk and disco influences. How do you think that sound naturally progressed? What factors led you to the sound you’re at now?
FB: I think touring, definitely.
[She repeated the question in French to the rest of the group].
CB: The fact that we were touring and in a lot of other countries. I think we realized we don’t have to be 100% French. And we have to assume our influence, and all influences. We grew up with funk music, jazz music, Black music from the U.S., of course, disco and all that. Being French is not only about making music with choruses and verses. You can play, you can groove. And, to me, the groove is from those influences, those U.S. influences. So that [touring] teaches us how to assume those influences. At the beginning, Flore was only singing in French. But, since we played in New York for the first time four years ago, we were like, we have an audience here. And then we played in Chile, Turkey, other places in Europe and the U.S., and we discovered we could talk to everybody. So, we mixed it up.
D: So cool. Okay, I have another question. This is kind of a question I ask to every artist I interview, just because I think it’s super interesting. I’m a big fan of movie soundtracks and movie scores; if you guys could re-do the soundtrack to one movie, what do you think that would be?
FB: Oh!
(The whole band began to discuss this question in French).
CB: Re-do it?
D: Yep!
CB: Wow….
TD: Yeah, maybe…Blade Runner, or I would say maybe Inglorious Bastards by Quentin Tarantino, because we love him.
D: Oh, that would be cool!
TD: But all his scores are perfect to me, except…
D: Except for that one?
TD: Right.
D: I would love to see you guys take on Inglorious Bastards. Someone should edit a scene from that movie with your music on top. I think Blade Runner is a really good one, too.
CB: Yeah, for Blade Runner, I’m a huge fan.
D: Me, too. Well, thank you guys so much for sitting down with me, I really appreciate it!
CB: Of course!
FB: No problem!
*Read Andrew’s ACL recap (and further praise of L’Imperatrice) here.
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