Employee Of The Year: New Release + Interview
A couple of weeks ago Employee Of The Year’s Remixversion of “It’s too late” by Wild Belle has spread around the internet like a virus and has affected thousands from all over the world. They recently have played a live show at the Bus Palladium in Paris, France, are just about to release their next bomb ‘That Train’ and are currently finishing another goodie which they will release through their own label next month. Conclusion… These guys are very busy musicians!
Audiokult took the time to find out more about them and their plans for 2013.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Hi and thanks for your time! Please tell us who you guys are!
Hi, We are Edouard and Romain a.k.a Employee Of The Year. We are based in Paris, France and our band is one year old now. We released our first EP called “1” in October 2012 on a small indie label in Paris.
Your latest live show took place @ Bus Palladium (Paris). When was your first one?
Our first live show was in December 2011 in a castle for a party. Since we met, we always wanted to play live, just like a band. We don’t really consider ourselves as DJs or producers, we are a band and we want to be recognised like that.
Speaking about your releases… when have you actually started creating music?
Employee Of The Year (EOTY) is quite a young band for now, but Edouard released several EPs on various labels before. He makes electronic music for quite a long time now – His pseudonym is called “Super Commodore“.
How would you describe your genre? Everybody is talking about ‘Slow French’…
We always try to sound like the music we both love. At the beginning, our songs were full of instruments, too much guitars, synths etc… The beat was high and it sounded like a “trent Reznor fighting with all the French touch” And after a while, Edouard found the key: we did invent our “Slow French concept” : We are French, we grew up with the French touch, but we always wanted to play this music in a lot more slower and deeper way. So we deleted all the demos and came up with the EP “1″.
Wow! That’s a very brave move! How did you record the final result?
Edouard played all the instruments except guitars and voices. He learned music the classical way, you know, conservatories for 20 years. And I started to play guitar back in Highschool, in a band, when I was 15.
The next one is a tough question… What do you like more… Playing live or producing music?
It is really two different worlds. In our studio, we are alone together, mostly laughing all the time. There are a lot of back and forth when we make a song until the moment we are both satisfied. We have our golden rule: until we are not proud of the track, we continue again and again, trying to be honest. But playing live is really our goal. We want to have fun and see the smile on our friends’ faces. On stage, we just play the best we can.
Sounds like you have a lot of fun in your studio and on stage…
Do you have any live acts or musicians in general you admire?
Romain : Prince and Phoenix
Edouard: These days, i like Flume, Nicolas Jaar, James Blake. Also love those old french boys : Cassius and co. I really admire Zdar’s work. His work with Phoenix is awesome. And De Crecy, Jacques Lu Cont.
Who do you think are your main influences?
Romain : Prince…it sounds “cliché” but when you listen the song “sign of the times” today…you have everything you need…
Edouard: Cf question 6 !
What can we expect this year?
Definitely a lot !! Our second EP is almost finished. It will be different compared to the 1st, deeper… We gonna make a few remixes and begin to work on our first album. We are working with Fred Fiol (the realisator of the french TV program “One Shot Note”) on a short movie mixing one of our live show and real scenes…It’s gonna be great. But we want to play live, live, live this year…
Sounds like you guys have a promising year ahead of you. I wish you all the best and good luck for 2013. I am sure we will hear a lot more about you! Thanks again for your time! Cheers!
