Interview: Junior Boys

Pour la sortie de leur dernier album Begone Dull Care (Caprice en Couleurs, en français dans le texte), un bijou d’electro-pop charnelle, le duo Junior Boys répond à nos questions sur la difficulté de travailler à distance, le live, le deejaying et bien sûr leur musique qui fait battre les coeurs des amateurs de pop synthétique.

TheClubbing.com: For this new album, you are working far from each other. Did you work via internet or by travelling? How does it affect the sound? Would the album be very different if you were neighbors?
Junior Boys: We were traveling. I think it forced us to work very hard on a small amount of music. Like every musical idea we had was explored, because we became precious about every song a bit. I think for the next album we will spend more time together and try another approach where we do a large amount of music very fast…Just to change things up a bit.

TheClubbing.com: How did you get in touch with Get Physical to realize the Body Language compilation? According to you, what makes a good DJ?
Junior Boys: They got in touch with Matt, when he moved to Berlin. For me a good DJ is someone who plays good music, nothing more than that. There’s no secret recipe, and it doesn’t matter how precise your beat matching is, or whatever. It’s someone who plays good music at a good venue, on a good sound system with a good group of people watching.

TheClubbing.com: How could you describe your new album?
Junior Boys: I would describe it, as us trying to do everything that isn’t popular in music right now. Trying to make an album that doesn’t bang you on the head over and over, and doesn’t have a ton of soundbites to be replicated and cheapened. I hope that the people who like it (and I hope there are some) will feel that its an album they can listen to the whole way through, and it moves slowly for them.

TheClubbing.com: You use to choose nice remixers for your EPs. What can we expect for the EP to be released in April?
Junior Boys: Ewan Pearson has done a bunch of mixes, he also mixed the final version of Hazel on the album. We have also got a really nice remix from Prins Thomas, and hope to reveal a few other ones that are being worked on right now.

TheClubbing.com: According to me, pop and electronica are the right words to describe your music. Do you agree?
Junior Boys: I don’t usually use any words other than pop to describe us, to me I think the harder it is to describe us, the better I feel. I hate music that is highly marketable, or classifiable, but I do like music that is not alienating. I like music that provides a way in for people, that engages people I guess…

TheClubbing.com: Do you play any instruments except synthesizers?
Junior Boys:Yeah but all of them badly!

TheClubbing.com: What is your live approach? What can we see on stage?
Junior Boys:I play keyboards and a bit of guitar and sing, Matt plays keyboards and uses a sampler and runs effects through a mixing desk. And then we have a drummer. Don’t expect us to look cool. We try hard not to.

TheClubbing.com: Carl Craig won an award for his remix of Like A Child. Isn’t it a bit frustrating for you, who composed the original track?
Junior Boys: Nah, Carl Craig is an inspiration, we love his music, it was a pleasure to have him remix us.

TheClubbing.com: What is your position about downloading? Do you use to buy MP3?
Junior Boys: Downloading, legally or otherwise gives people access to the music on a scale which is unachievable with physical media… That being said it would have been nice to have had our album released before people started downloading it illegally, but there is nothing we can do… Yes, we do buy MP3.

TheClubbing.com: A last word for the people of The Clubbing.com? Do you project to come and see us in France and Belgium?
Junior Boys: Yes definitely! We will be playing two shows in France in June as well as a show in Brussels at the end of may, early June…

Merci à Jeremy Greenspan, Matthew Didemus et à Pias Recordings pour cet entretien.