Q&A with La Femme

Introducing himself first as, “the tomato,” Kathryn Garcia of WRBB was able to interview keyboardist of La Femme, Nunez Hijo, after their show at Brighton Music Hall on October 26, 2017.

[three_fourth]I was able to catch La Femme last weekend at Desert Daze, you were wearing a bandana and everyone had very funky outfits. How would you compare the crowds at Desert Daze versus at the show tonight in Boston?

It was very dusty. My character was Dusty Man, it was some serious bull shit. The crowd was very cool! At Desert Daze, it was in the desert with festival people, and it was not the first day of the festival, so I think everyone was doing California things, but here it was super cool, people killed it. There was a different mood, at Desert Daze it was a lot more psychedelic and more funky. We mentioned taking mushrooms at the festival before we played the song “Mycose” because it means mushroom in French – there are good and bad mushrooms! At night we took mushrooms with some really good salsa and we really liked it.

Speaking of French, how is it performing and singing for audiences that do not speak French?

We love it because people sing like yogurt when they are at our concert. You know? Like when I try to sing “Satisfaction” by Rolling Stones, people do this for our concert. I love it! (mimicks people attempting to sing in French). It is fun for us because we do this all the time for other bands that come to France from the U.S., UK, Australia, or South Africa, etc. We never heard that in reverse, not many French bands are international, so it is very cool [to hear people sing along from a different language].

La Femme has a new single, “Orgie de gobelins sous champignons hallucinogènes,” and the style is very different from the usual surf rock sound heard in previous La Femme albums – it sounds almost like a country song with the twangy guitar and banjo. What inspired this change of sound?

Orgy of goblins in magic mushrooms! It was fun because Sacha and I had a concept; in Japan sometimes people work so hard that they take naps in coffee shops, so we dressed up like Japanese business men and pretended to take naps in random places. People asked us “are you ok?” and we would just say “agh I need to sleep man!” Sacha came up with the song idea, he is really into country music. We played one of his country songs tonight. We like to make music that you don’t expect. We want to give you some surprise because we don’t want to play the same thing forever. We are experimental, every kind of instrument is important – different moods, styles, it’s all important. We are like a kind of book, but to listen. It’s a story.

Tonight, every single person in the audience was dancing; Your music is so easy to dance to. Do you ever have crowds or particular people that don’t dance at your shows?

Yeah, there are certain people that don’t like to dance. There is this one guy I know who really doesn’t like music, which is very weird to me because I love music. Maybe he prefers the sound of the wind. You can dance to the wind, you can dance to anything, there is music in everything. You saw with Jacques, he can make you dance with scissors, with a bowl, with anything! It’s a good lesson.

What bands would you say inspired the surf-rock style of La Femme?

We listen to music from the ’60s from every country, we are not just listening to American or French music. I love The Spits, the punk rock band. If you have all night, I would tell you all of the bands, but we don’t, so that’s it! So, you listen to me, listen to all music!

If you could collaborate with any band, living or dead, who would they be?

I would love to collaborate with Die Antwoord because they have a very interesting style and I really like it. As for a dead person, GG Allin, or with The Shaggs.

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Listen to La Femme here:

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