Roll of the Dice: 7 questions with Rendez Vous

Have you checked out Downcast the new record from French post-punks Rendez Vous, yet? The fantastic new record is so damn good! TGEFM highly recommends you click this link to download, press play on the record and then check out our interview with the quartet below, and then listen to Downcast again and again and again and again.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats on the success of your latest record, Downcast.  What can you tell us about your sound and your goals for readers just discovering Rendez Vous?

thank you, this album is our 4th records and is a new evolution of the band in term of sound and artistic directions. We’ve been known at first for our cold wave songs with a post punk energy and now we evolved towards something more shogazy with more guitars and live drums, sometimes more quiet but still with some punk energy into a lot of the new songs (especially when playing live). we always want to create the music we’d like to hear and our tastes changed a little bit during past few years.

What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do”  Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?

maxime: nirvana really made me into playing drums when i was a teen, not playing drums anymore but that’s how i started making music
francis: as a kid i started guitar playing ramones tunes, when i discovered that most of their songs were played with powerchords i knew i could do better
elliot: i think crystal castles when i was a late teenager. it was such a combination of a lot of things i loved and i felt really connected to their sound
simon: One of my first striking memories was the discovery of loveless from My Bloody Valentine . It was the first times I heard something so strange and beautiful at the same time.

What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences as a touring band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?

There was a lot of great experiences and it’s hard to pick just a few ones .. in general it’s always very intense to discover new places we’ve never been before and see how people react to our music like when we went to eastern europe and russia. coming playing in the US for the fist time was also one that great moments with some very cool and funny crowds, and so much very kind and touching people.
weirdest was definitely touring in china for so many reasons.. some of the show were the weirdest shit ever like playing in front of some random Chinese farmers in the middle of a ghost fake European city for a promoting event

We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?

Strictly regarding the musical side we don’t regret anything even if we’re no longer into some of our oldest songs the way we were before. if we had to do it again we just would be more picky about some label contracts stuff during our early years, we were a bit too naive at the time and despite some advices from friends we didn’t really paid enough attention to it.

One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?

Our friends from Bryan’s Magic Tears have just released their new album and it’s dope

Now that the world has its hands on the album and your North American tour is finishing up,  what’s next for Rendez vous?

Tour continues in Europe till next summer, we also will come in the us next spring heading cities where we haven’t been playing yet
we’re also about to release a couple of new singles by the end of the year.
as an extra we also filmed a DIY live session in Paris recently playing songs from the last album. we want to show how the songs sound in a context which is more live and rough cause it has a different energy from the album which is way more produced. we’re going to release some cuts of it through our social networks soon.

What do you wish I asked about or that you had more of an opportunity to speak about during this interview?

Fuck trump and free Palestine

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Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.