A Quick Q&A With Keep Dancing Inc
Celebrating the release of their new LP ‘Embrace’, Keep Dancing Inc, are a Parisian trio championing their own brand of well-crafted, electronic pop anthems. Having recently reviewed their single, ‘No Milkshakes In Hell’, a song about a milkshake-addicted-psychopath, we were intrigued to find out more about the newest French outfit to hit our shores. Spoiler: it’s not all milkshakes and psychopaths.
What are your names and what are your roles within the band?
Louis is the lead singer/guitar hero. He also plays some keys and synths. Gaby plays the drums and sings too. Joseph plays the bass, the keys, tweaks a lot of useless knobs and sings as well.
How did the band start?
It started with Louis and a friend called Charles, somewhere in 2015. The band was a duo for quite some time before Joseph joined in late 2016. Gaby was always kind of there, playing drums on a song from our first EP in 2017, but she officially joined the band in 2018. Charles then left the band in September 2019 and now it's just the three of us.
You’ve released two EPs over the last few years, ‘Initial Public Offering’ and ‘Restructuration’. Sonically, you can hear similarities in your early releases in ‘Embrace’. Many bands change their sound quite drastically from release to release, yet you’ve remained very distinctive in your sound. Is the sound of the group, something you envisaged from the outset?
It's funny you say that because we feel it's pretty different from our first EPs, especially because we used to make our beats exclusively with drum machines and with Gaby we used a drum kit on the whole album. To be honest, we've been a little worried about our fans not liking the new music that much because of that shift in sound. But if you say we remained coherent it's great!
However, I don't think we have ever had a conscious idea of what the band should sound like. I think it's more of an addition of all our influences. For example, we could get inspired by the snare drum of Joy Division's Disorder, a Surf Rock guitar sound and write a chord progression inspired by Blood Orange and blend them together to make a song. It really depends on whatever we're into when making a track.
Can you outline the band’s main influences?
We love a well-crafted pop song, in any style really so we listen to a lot of different genres. If we had to choose some important artists for us we could pick: New Order, Chromatics, Grimes, LCD Soundsystem, The Smiths, MGMT, Porches, Aphex Twin, and many, many more.
Something I find incredibly unique about the band is, even your earliest releases are in English, despite being a Parisian band. Can you expand upon the decision to perform in a language different from your native tongue? It’s incredibly impressive!
I think it's because we mainly listen to English-speaking music. It wouldn't have been as natural or felt like ‘us’ if we had been singing in French. Of course, we listen to a lot of French music like; La Femme, Paradis or Taxi Girl but it's not as embedded in our ears as English music.
The other reason we don't write in French (yet) is because the lyrics feel too direct to me (Louis) and therefore kind of embarrassing. Not because they are awkward in themselves, but because I would feel like I'm yelling some very personal things to the crowd and I'm pretty demure. Using another language is like veiling those words and it makes it less awkward for me even if they are the same lyrics.
You recorded between Paris and Margate with Tom Carmichael, how was working with Tom? Were you aware of his work before working with him?
Tom is the nicest guy we know. I mean, we must have put him through some shit while recording because we are perfectionists, and we know exactly what we want. Yet, he never flinched. He's solid as a rock and appeases everyone in the room. We had never worked with someone from outside the band before, so we were a bit scared; but it went so well, way beyond our expectations.
He contacted us during the summer of 2018, saying that he liked our sound and that he'd love to enhance it with his wizardry if that was something we were looking for. We were not working on our first album at the time, so we didn't need his services just yet, but we kept in touch because we really liked his work. So, by the spring of 2019, when we had all our demos in the box. We brought him to Paris for an afternoon to meet him and that's when our collaboration started.
He brought a cohesive sound to the album and helped us when we couldn't agree together. We recorded mostly everything with him between Paris and Margate and he mixed the whole album. Good job Tom, we love you man.
What should people expect from the new album?
I think it's the outcome of what we've been doing since the start of the band but much better. We gathered our best songs yet, however different they might have been, and perfected them as much as we could. That's why there are many different genres in the album, ‘Start Up Nation’ is a disco-funk hit, ‘No Milkshakes in Hell’ the secret child of Devo and Fidlar, ‘A Letter’ is the poppiest/saddest power ballad we could end with; whereas, ‘Old Child’ is more of a club banger.
But with the help of Tom Carmichael, we managed to record a very coherent album and we think that's what makes it great; being that eclectic and consistent at the same time.
You’ve toured relentlessly with Blossoms and built a substantial following in the UK. Do you regard the UK as your spiritual home?
I think it depends on which aspect you're talking about, but UK is definitely one of our spiritual homes (with the US) when it comes to music. Musical acts like The Smiths, The Beatles, Cleaners From Venus but also Palma Violets, The Kinks and Arctic Monkeys. We’ve toured 5 or 6 times in the UK so far and we loved it, the venues, the bars, the people we met... we really love that country of yours mate.
With the pandemic putting a stop to live music performances, we bet you’re itching to get out and perform your new record to the world. Are there any plans for a full headline tour in the future?
Yes of course, it's very frustrating not to be able to perform this record live, especially because our live show is ready. We even did a residency in Paris in September to prepare for potential gigs in October, but they got cancelled last minute... but we shouldn't complain too much because a lot of people have had it rougher with this pandemic. We'd love to plan a headline tour in early 2021 but it's still way too uncertain right now.
Can you describe your sound in three words?
Catchy. Filthy. Epic.
We recently described ‘Could U Stop’, by saying it should’ve been on the FIFA21 soundtrack. If you were to lend one of your tracks to a video game/film soundtrack, what would it be and why?
Thank god for those words. FIFA if you read this, we're so ready.
We grew up with video games and their soundtracks were really important in building our music tastes, especially skate games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or any other sport games really. Having our music featured in a cool game like that would be a life achievement for sure. Shoutout to GTA soundtracks as well, they're the best.
