Last month during Montreux Jazz Festival, on 17 July 2015, I had the chance to meet Isaac Delusion, a French band composed of four guys: Loic Fleury (singer/songwriter), Jules Pacotte (electronic producer), Nicolas Bourrigan (bass), Bastien Dodard (multi-instrumentalist). Isaac Delusion play a dream pop mixed with electro and which has a lot of other influences.
Thanks a lot to Sabine Pythoud of Warner Music Switzerland for arranging the interview. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the gig but I’ll see them live at For Noise on Saturday 22 August 2015 🙂

The Liberation: Your first album Isaac Delusion (2014) was released a year ago, where are you with things now ?

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: We are touring for this album, we are on the road doing summer festivals. We’ve done a beautiful tour this year, we had the chance to play some amazing venues, like in Paris and France in general. Now we’re approaching the end of the album tour and we’re going to restart composing and go back to the studio in autumn between September and October.

The Liberation: Why did you choose to give the name of the band to your first album?

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Actually it’s simply because we didn’t have any particular idea about a name we could have given to the album. For us it was pretty logical to name it like the band because it was like a first draft, it’s not something about which we thought too much, we didn’t have much time to conceive it and think about all that comes with it. It was more like a first draft, yeah.
• Isaac Delusion – Jules Paco: It’s a presentation. It’s a business card. We had to put our name everywhere, so we put it on the name of the album and on the name of the band, so that people know us.

The Liberation: There are many bands who do that but there are also many others who find that self-title the first album is a bit too soon…

• Isaac Delusion – Jules Paco: Exactly, to be honest, looking back I think we would have preferred not to name it like that. At the time it was a mix of old and new tunes that we composed just before going into the studio, some of them were even two years old. So yeah it was really a patchwork of everything we had done and were doing at that moment. At the time, it was logical to name it Isaac Delusion, it was like clarifying things, put it on the table, etch all we had done until then. Looking back I think that today we would have preferred to name it differently. Self-title your album is like freezing things, telling “Here we are we play this music, this is Isaac Delusion” and today I think that that is not Isaac Delusion anymore, we evolved a lot, we do other things and go towards different horizons. So, there you go, maybe we’ll call our second album Isaac Delusion as well! (laughs)

The Liberation: Yes!

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Do you know who the band Ratatat is?

The Liberation: Erm no.

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury : You don’t know them? It’s a band from New York. Ratatat for their albums don’t rack their brain, they name them: album 1, album 2, album 3, … You see, it’s as simple as that. It works. No need to rack your brain right? (laughs)

The Liberation: Yeah that’s true! How does your composition process work? Do you think about lyrics or music first?

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: About the music. We compose the music first, once the music is composed we do the lyrics.

The Liberation: Your music is a sort of dream pop therefore it makes the listener dream. Are you dreamers as well?

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Yes, I think so (laughs). I think we are dreamers. Well yeah yeah. It’s good to dream, it’s important no?!
• Isaac Delusion – Jules Paco: I think we’re all a bit, how should I put it …
• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: We are all. (laughs)
• Isaac Delusion – Jules Paco:  We are all a bit sitting on. I think that none of us could have a normal life like normal people do. I think it’s a quality because it pushed us to do this and to try to live like we really wanted. To do what we wanted. But it can also be a fault because we can have troubles to adapt to situations in which we are scattered as we’re living right now. I think it goes well with the band, with the music it reflects something I guess.

The Liberation : OK. You said you’re soon going to be back in the studio. Do you have any ideas about your next album?

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Yes, we have plenty. But for the moment we are still in the composition process so it’s hard to define exactly in which direction we are going. But we already have plenty of things in store. But in reality the aim of the game is to set the bar higher than for the first album, that’s the main aim.

The Liberation : What does playing at Montreux Jazz Festival represent for you?

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Yes, yes it’s fantastic we are super happy, but mainly we are really proud to play at this mythical festival. It’s a real honour. I hope we’ll do a concert which lives up to the festival prestige!

The Liberation : Yes, sure! Is your music inspired by any artists in particular?

• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Yes, yes it is inspired by many music styles. There’s a lot of influence. I think we all listen to a lot of different types of music, we try not to confine ourselves at the level of the way we write music. For my side, I listen to as much of Nina Simone as Mogwai. What I want to say is that with electronic music you can do incongruous mixes. Actually it’s really interesting. There are no limits, it’s never ending you can mix everything. According to me the more interesting bands are those which have created something but they didn’t really create, they took a bit there and a bit there and hop they put it together, for me there lies the originality of a band.  A band like Sigur Rós for example is a band aside because they took a bit of classical music, a bit of traditional music, a bit of progressive rock and there you are. This is the magic of music, to mix things which do not have any link one to the other, that’s what creates an identity, an originality.

The Liberation : Yes, that’s what creates the beauty as well.

• Isaac Delusion : Yeah

The Liberation : What is the aim of your music?

• Isaac Delusion : Make girls dance! (laughs)

The Liberation : Make girls dance! That’s what you try to convey?

• Isaac Delusion: Absolutely. At all costs.
• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Originally, it was to hit on girls, but well now I’m a dad so it’s not the aim anymore. But making girls dance is ok.
• Isaac Delusion – Jules Paco: It’s to make your son dance!
• Isaac Delusion – Loic Fleury: Ah it’s to make my son dance!  (laughs)

The Liberation: (laughs) Good ! Thanks a lot!

 

 

Simona @TakeMe2aConcert