Teenage Riot
The Teenagers are about to be your new favourite potty-mouthed French indie pop band, so Andrew P Street pins down Dorian Dumont and Quentin Delafon to discuss music, profanity and Sebastian Tellier's awesome turn at Eurovision.
Your music seems more US/UK-sounding than French, or even Europeanwas there a deliberate decision to distance yourself from stereotypical "French Pop"?
Dorian Dumont: It's just reflecting our listening habits. None of us is into French singing music. We grew up with 90s dance music and heavy metal, so it couldn't be French.
Quentin Delafon: We actually never tried to or not to sound like anyone else: we just did what we wanted to. Some of the stuff we liked just sweated out of our music as a matter of fact, but not calculation.
Is it true that the band was started on a drunken whim?
DD: Yeah, exactly: we just started at Christmas Eve 2005 to have fun. We wanted to make a song, to see how it would sound, and it was ‘Fuck Nicole'. We started to take things more seriously when we signed our deal and we realized we'll have to play these songs live.
QD: Yeah, when labels started to contact us we were like "mmmm, wait a sec: could we really do this full time?"
I've heard that some Americans have taken offence to the chorus of ‘Homecoming' ("I fucked my American cunt"): any reactions particularly delight/offend/amuse you?
DD: Someone on MySpace sent us a message: "you fucking frogs talk shit about America but we saved your ass during the war," something like that. Totally fun.
QD: It was funny cause so over the top: just say ‘fuck you' but don't refer to WWII! Most Americans are cool enough to understand its a fun song not targeting their lovely nation.
Sebastian Tellier's performance at Eurovision: was he totally robbed?
DD: Of course he was the best, of course.
QD: Thing is, he looked like he didn't care at all. Of course all those countries for who it means something culturally were pissed off, but I liked it! The buggy to arrive on stage, the bearded backing singers: ace. I can't believe Russia had an ice skater spinning around the singer, and that they won.
The Teenagers play the Oxford Arts Factory on Sat 14 June.