Photography by René Habermacher.

Styling by Suzanne von Aichinger, with Maison Martin Margiela.
Concept by Antoine Asseraf.

Transcribed by Amandine Flament. Translated by Edward Siddons.
Assisted by Amandine Flament & Ed Siddons.

read more on PARIS IS DEAD.COM

He’s already worked with the likes of Richie Havens, Yelle, Katy Perry, Moby and Taylor Swift, done short films for kids, and been rewarded for a film about a dick graffiti… And now he’s releasing his first EP, IRON.

IRON EP cover, illustration by Stephan Balleux.

ANTOINE ASSERAF: The music video for IRON – is it strange to make a music video for yourself ?

YOANN LEMOINE aka WOODKID: Not that strange, because as soon as I started the WOODKID project, I knew I wanted to make images, so it made sense with the video, and it was the first time I could make a movie and control all the parameters, with a budget and without at the same time being told what I could and couldn’t do. Being both the client and the director was a crazy opportunity, so I’m super happy with the result.

To direct and to make music is a bit similar, emotionally you are touching the same sensible points, it’s just a different medium of expression.

You have a material theme going on – you are the WOOD kid, the single is IRON, the tentative album name wood and CRYSTAL…

The project is always evolving, but I really like attention to textures, I made a film once on the texture of rocks, in IRON there is a lot of marble, black smoke.  I love looking at textures and the emotions they create. The color, the complexity, what they evoke, mystical and dark things.

So did the song or the visual come first ?

I’ve had an image in my head for this project for a long time, I wanted to make a statement about heroic fantasy, not in a kitschy, elf and trolls way, but to explore what Tolkien, Final Fantasy,  and Matthew Barney did. How you create a world with social codes, in a documentary sort of way, with specific imagery, dogmas, political parties, currency, dresscodes, ethnic groups, races, geography… How you recreate these codes in a parallel world. And how to do this in a way that is less cheesy than we are used to seeing in heroic fantasy, more intellectual…

 IRON music video, directed and sung by Yoann Lemoine.

You once said on Facebook (laughs) that you were afraid that one day you would have to make a choice between music and directing, do you still believe in that ?

If I have to choose, it will be a matter of scheduling.

So a temporary choice ?

Temporary but… you never know how things evolve.

I come from illustration, and a series of circumstances led me to move to directing without ever deciding “I’m quitting illustration”, but I never came back to it… I just never had the occasion to do it again, a road built itself in another direction.

How did you make the transition between illustration and film direction ?

First it was animation films for kids, because I come from 3D, then I felt the need to make live films, with actor direction, a quality of photography, so I bought myself a camera and started making my own films. Then it turned into commissions, and I transmitted into real shooting my desire to compose images and artistically direct scenes….

At first jobs were appealing to your 3D and special fx know-how, but now on the Taylor Swift video you had no post-production special effects…

It’s all experimenting. What I’m trying to do in my career and in my artistic development is to reconcile a beautiful image, detailed and in good taste, with fashion references, in the air of the times, that people want to see, with a type of narration usually seen in Hollywood films. Postproduction effects, a bit WOW, symbolic narratives with visual trips… It’s part of my identity.

But I’m no Gondry either.

Yoann Lemoine in Erotokritos FW 2011. Photo by René Habermacher.

It’s as if there were different Yoann Lemoine signature looks – the 3D look, the natural video look, the fashion film look…

Less and less… What’s complicated, is that at some point you ask yourself “who am I ? what am I trying to say ?” and you realize that in everything you did before, when you were in the insouciance of discovery, you were leaving hints about what you wanted to do next. You did it in the moment, visions, and then you see it’s all linked, and little by little it becomes more uniform and it’s a battlehorse, that can take many forms, but always with a certain common ground. That’s what I believe will be my common ground — a relationship between a beautiful image and the impact of effects that you’re not used to seeing in fashion film or music videos. An important array of means but not used a cheesy hollywood way.

And yet you’re not exactly anti-Hollywood…

There’s good and bad in everything.
What I like in a fashion film is the demands of the image and its actuality.
In a Hollywood film, it’s the power of visual effects.
Together, it makes an unlikely mix.

LIGHTS fashion film for Vogue Italia - Light Series. Filmed at The Stimuleye headquarters.

How do you think having made your own music will affect your relationship with the artists for whom you make music videos ?

Well what’s changed already is that I have a lot less time so I can’t accept as many things, so I turn down a lot of projects. And I’ll only do projects that I’m really into and are in the path of the visual statement I’m trying to make. So right now my own music videos are my priority, it comes before anything else, because they’re the films where I have the most means of expression.

When did the musical project start — the song IRON goes back quite a long way…

I started 5 years ago… it takes some time… IRON was an old demo, which was completely turned upside down and re-worked, the lyrics changed 3 or 4 times, it had all the names you could imagine – TWO TIMES then TOO BAD…

Music takes a lot of time.

It started with Richie Havens offering you a ukulele….When did you know that music was more than a hobby ?

It came really little by little. At first it was kind of a joke, then I realized I loved singing, that I had a voice… People around me supported me…Things happen quickly, but not suddenly. It’s not an overnight process.

You trained quite a lot to play live, was it a shock for you ? When you’re used to 3D and illustration which are very studied, or even live shooting where you can do multiple takes…There’s no takes in live performance.

I actually did some theater when I was a kid, so I was used to the stage. I lost it but regained it very quickly.  I was very happy to re-discover this feeling of peril and excitement, of real and immediate stakes, which you don’t have in film.

BALTIMORE'S FIREFLIES live at Montfort 2010. Filmed by Antoine Asseraf, René Habermacher and Christophe Deroo.

You can tell that the music video is a personal project, but how about the music itself?

I want to avoid going too much in personal songwriting, I prefer having more epic and mystical things on the album. I feel like transposing my universe in a unique world, accessible through music. Even though a lot of the material relates to love in a covert sort of way, I keep my distance.

So this video is for the EP, what’s next ?

We’re waiting to see what the response is. This video has been 7 months of hard work in the making, it’s drained me completely. I see the projet as a fresco, so what I can assure you is that we will continue the imagery, it’s only the first episode, and I will develop what I have to say, trying to have returning characters.

But right now I can’t say if the next video will come from the EP or from an independent single before the release of the album.

Let’s be optimistic and say it will come out before the end of 2011.

What’s the last thing that stimulated you ?

Seeing THE FIGHTER at the cinema, for an American movie I found the mood and the artistic direction very British. Stylistically, it’s amazing, this sorority of 90’s chicks, very middle America, wild brushings… Some beautiful and emotional images, very well played, especially Christian Bale.

You want to make a feature film yourself, right ?

Yes I’m working on it, still writing – homosexuality, violence, USA, 80’s/90’s — it touches about topics which I appreciate. I’m working with a writer who’s injecting many 90’s references, especially on a musical level, which help me situate the story in a real context. I would like to film this project in the USA before 2013.

Yelle in Marios Schwab FW 2011. By René Habermacher, styling Ines Fendri, make-up by Akiko Sakamoto.

When you play live, do you try to add other things visually, like with the Katy Perry tour for which you’re opening ?

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: Well as opening act we have actually less means on the Katy Perry tour!

JULIE: Normally we’re 6 on tour, with the sounds, the lights, the stage, but on Katy Perry we’re just 4.
Also we don’t give our whole show away, it’s more of a teaser — anyway we know Katy Perry is following up with 4 trucks so there’s no use trying!

JEAN-FRANÇOIS:: We want to make our show stronger, so we have these suspended drums which are very visual, the logo, which is new – an inverted Peace sign. We like bringing in new elements, whether they cost 20 euros or 2000, but we’re not in a fantasy of something crazy. However from the beginning we’ve wanted to make one-off shows, like with a choir, big ensembles…

You were also mentioning new lights for your tour ?

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: We found this guy for lights, we were looking for a long time for someone who would bring something to our live performances,
someone who’s creative on his own but open to our ideas…

TANGUY: We need that extra, because we’re coming a second time around but without huge means, we want to make a show with songs we’re proud of — lighting is really the little ‘plus’ that we can bring.

So would you want to make a “live” music video to show people who don’t know how you perform ?

TANGUY: We thought about it at the end of the last tour, with all that footage [shot by “Ce Jeu” director Yoann Lemoine],

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: We just haven’t been able to edit it yet… we could have done as a single,  but not for the first single of the album — but we’ll do it eventually.

"Ce Jeu" music video by Yoann Lemoine. Photo by Antoine Asseraf.

I still have a hard drive somewhere saying YELLE with all your tour footage, I was asked to help edit it “when I had time”, I was really into it but documentary editing takes so. much. time.

JULIE: And you can’t do just one hour per day, you need to really get into it…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: Even us,  we don’t even feel like going back in there right away, you kind of need to put those images aside and let them rest, but we would like them to show them at some point.

It looked like an amazing experience.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: There were some beautiful images…

Trailer for the 2008 Yelle world tour, by Yoann Lemoine.

What’s your idea of the role of the record label, since you started without one and were without one for this album, you also released things without a label in between albums…

JULIE: We learned a lot from the time we had at Source, good things, bad things, some things we didn’t want to do the same way again, it was evident for us that we had to make our own structure, to get even more freedom.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: To sum things up, on the first album we had ideas but not the means, now we have both!

For the first album you worked with Pierre LeNy, acting as an artistic director of sorts…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: Yes Pierre brought a lot of ideas, a lot of contacts, a network, in fashion, which made it a lot of easier, now we’re the art directors, it’s the next level.

Second music video for "Je Veux Te Voir".

How was that experience of remaking the video for JE VEUX TE VOIR – doesn’t it feel strange ?

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: That was a flashback [a lot of time had passed since the original release of JE VEUX TE VOIR]. First of all we hate the first music video for JE VEUX TE VOIR, we hated it as soon as we made it.
But you’re not always in a position to say no to a label who’s invested, we still hate the fact that it has so many million views!!

The new video was made with Nicolas Benamou following the experience with Michael Youn, it’s the work of a label, who feels there’s a second life to give to a single,
it was so strange for YELLE, when they first brought the single to radios, they didn’t know what to make of it, but once they had gotten used to it it was ok… it’s really the work of the record label.

So are you at ease with that freedom ? Talking to Roísín Murphy who has done many things herself over the years in terms of styling and ideas for music videos, she was still happy to have worked with an art director on OVERPOWERED, to sharpen the image.

JEFF: We’ve never felt forced, we’ve never had the record label pressuring us, at first we were a bit naive, everyone’s nice, we were just happy to do things, and except for that first video we enjoyed everything we did.

We’ve always been masters of our image, but of course somethings get out of hand, get bigger than you expect them, doing things by ourselves is exciting, it makes us feel more responsible. the DIY style is very stimulating, you want to defend your project even more because all the choices are yours.

Of course it becomes 100% of your life! So when you say “I’m going to relax, i’m going to the beach” you’re not really relaxing because you’re thinking about what you could do. But that’s the case with everyone who’s a freelance or has their own company, it’s an obsession!

Work becomes a luxury.

It’s not work, it’s not labor, it’s energy!

For this 3 part interview, René Habermacher shot Julie exclusively for THE STIMULEYE wearing the new MARIOS SCHWAB Fall/Winter 2011 collection. Styled by Ines Fendri, Make-Up by Akiko Sakamoto.

Yelle in Marios Schwab FW 2011. By René Habermacher, styling Ines Fendri, make-up by Akiko Sakamoto.

ANTOINE ASSERAF: Let’s talk about your new album first, SAFARI DISCO CLUB, there’s an immediate visual concept from the name to the album and on to the double music video…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS aka “GrandMarnier”: Actually it’s something that was not there to start with but added at the end. We found the name SAFARI DISCO CLUB very late into the process, at the last minute almost. We thought we should keep things simple, find 2 tracks from the album to start with.

The most inspiring track in terms of visual adaptation was SAFARI DISCO CLUB. This double-theme made us naturally think of Jean-Paul Lespagnard [whose styles had inspired the CE JEU video] and his penchant for double-themes, for juxtapositions. So we discussed it with him, with some references such as the final scene of Luc Besson’s SUBWAY, in explorer mode.

The only thing I remember about this film is Isabelle Adjani’s punk  “fuck you” dinner scene…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: It turns out that Julie’s hair in the video is not far from Isabelle Adjani’s, but that’s pure coincidence…

But the explorer look, that was something stuck in my head — it’s a bit why I started to get into music:  I was such a big fan of Jean Reno playing the drums in the subway as a kid, it left an impression on me. So this final scene where they play music dressed like explorers was the starting points for Jean-Paul to work from…

So, do you feel that this SAFARI DISCO name applies to the album as a whole ?

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: It definitely gives a tinge — from the moment we had the title, we listened to the tracks differently, you hear the percussions more. The word “safari” also brings the meaning of “discovery,” which works because we had applied ourselves to making all the songs very distinct.  We feel very much part of the compilation generation!

It all works out in the end, but once again it wasn’t thought out that way, we made the songs really one by one.

Safari Disco Club album cover by Grégoire Alexandre. Styling by Jean-Paul Lespagnard.

There are some African vibes in the title track and on LA MUSIQUE…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: There is a percussion side, coming from the live… Julie has a Tom Bass, we have these suspended drums, we really base ourselves on the percussions for the live show, constructed a bit like a  DJ set, with transitions — that really rubbed off on the way we composed for this album.

TANGUY “TEPR”: We didn’t want to copy anything, it’s just a slight tinge, nothing too ‘in your face’…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: On SDC itself, the most obvious thing in terms of inspiration is the guitar gimmick which is almost Zouk.

Both LA MUSIQUE and SAFARI DISCO CLUB are very instrumental tracks, very percussion-driven, you’re in a sonic trip with words just guiding you on your way…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: It’s less constructed.

JULIE: Less of a traditional song format.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: The voice is used more like an instrument, on POP-UP it was more spoken.

TANGUY: Julie’s way of singing changed, not in a calculated way but gradually while writing — it was very spoken and broken on POP UP,  on SAFARI DISCO you find this style only on one track really: COMME UN ENFANT.  We wanted to try new things.

And yet QUE VEUX TU is very classic pop…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: SAFARI and QUE VEUX-TU are the 2 extremes on the album, that’s actually why we are releasing them at the same time. SAFARI is different for us because there’s a breakdown on the chorus, while QUE VEUX-TU is more classic… the album goes back and forth between these two moods.

Que veux-tu by YELLE

Safari Disco Club by YELLE

How do you feel you’ve evolved since your first album, musically, visually and personally ? It feels like you know where you’re going more…

TANGUY: We worked with [our label] Source before releasing POP UP, and then between the release and the last tour date in 2009, the label disappeared and we became “label orphans”… all the people at the label really worked hard for YELLE, we were in a kind of symbiotic relation. You start alone, you meet a lot of people, and the you end up alone…

It helped us find our ground and think things out a bit better – we created our own label [Recreation Center], and we realized we could do a lot of things ourselves…

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: For the evolution, we were touring to support POP UP for 3 years, we really gave it all our energy, with tours getting bigger and bigger each time: first 3 shows in USA, then 8 with Coachella, then 25, twice Japan, twice Australia, 3 times Scandinavia… bigger venues, more people… in the end we’re the ones who said “we have to take a break” – we were tired, thin even, we wanted to think about the next phase – so we went home, we got some rest, and then we started getting depressed…

Then we started writing, in a cabin in the middle of the woods of Brittany, to get things started. It was a mix of excitement over starting something new with the melancholy of everything that had happened, and you feel it in the album, this need for energy.

Often you hear about bands on tour who have tons of ideas and record right away — somehow it was not your case ? (laughs)

JULIE: We take notes, Jeff sings some beats, but we really need to be in the studio to get to work.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: We don’t write on the road because it’s not as easy as picking up a guitar — we need to let it simmer, there are no rules for us, we’re not in a method of looking for riffs like a rock band. We find an idea, we put it aside, then we rework it in detail, and the boil it down to the essentials because we’re in a fantasy of “less is more.”

We got a bit older. POP UP was written 5 years ago, we’ve evolved visually as well – we try to refine things. We have another fantasy, which is to mix fun and elegance, that’s what we’re aiming towards… That’s also why we worked with Jean-Paul Lespagnard, we share that with him.

That leads to my next question – I’m tempted to call YELLE a project more than a group — so what is essential to the Yelle project ?

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: It’s funny because actually it’s something that comes up a lot – we don’t really like the word “project” because everything in Yelle is built on top of the music, afterwards. Never did we think “we’re going to make music in this style: colorful”…

T-shirt from the Recreation Center webshop.

With a friend of mine, years ago, we had decided to make a band but went about it all wrong, we spent tons of time choosing the name, then thinking of the music video… we were out of ideas before we even got to the music.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: It’s a bit risky to begin this way, in fact everything that accompanies the music was done by excitement:
because when you have songs it’s nice to make cool things to go along,
when you’re on tour people you want to give tshirts that people are asking,
when you make a video, you want to learn something, not just make a video for the sake of it,
and the implication in all these elements which revolve around the music, they’re not things that are planned from the beginning, they come as the music develops.

We ‘re all musicians without being purists, we’re from an advertising generation, so we’re open to proposals for branding. Pop culture, logos… it’s our generation.

That makes me think of the opposite of PORTISHEAD  – Geoff Barrow announcing the next album by saying THERE WILL BE NO SINGLE THERE WILL BE NO EXCLUSIVES THERE WILL BE NO TSHIRTS THERE WILL BE NO REMIXES THERE WON’T BE, THERE WON’T BE, THERE WON’T BE…JUST THE ALBUM, AND THAT’S IT.”

JEAN-FRANÇOIS: That I can understand a bit, especially everything concerning extras, because we like making remixes, but we like doing them our way, through our own connections. But when it’s iTunes saying “you need 5 remixes and 1 cover”, because they need “versions for countries”… it’s something else if you can’t synchronize it with real connections. On this album we were lucky to do that with the 2 covers, “Low Fi Funk” and “Fortune”, who are friends, but on the first album we didn’t know anyone, and it felt bit random to go knocking on doors: “knock knock, could I get a remix please?”

When it’s forced it’s a real drag, but it’s no reason to become so reactionary…

La Musique (Discodeine remix) by YELLE

JULIE: Especially since fans usually love these small extras, the goodies…

It really depends on your audience — I’m guessing the Portishead audience loves it when they hear YOU WON’T GET ANYTHING. (laughs)

…our new light installation for our  live show.

3-part interview and exclusive photo shoot coming soon.