One year later, it was fellow Frenchmen and sonic progenies Justice that brought a larger than life spectacle of digitized beats and interstellar imagery to assault the senses of Coachella 2007. Behind a large glowing cross (the band’s logo and the “title” of their eagerly anticipated and Internet-leaked debut full-length), the two bobbing heads of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay were flanked by massive stacks of Marshall amplifiers, the kind of excessive display of power you’d expect from Metallica or Van Halen, not the oft-cited “saviors of dance music.” Dropping distorted, metallic disco anthems like “D.A.N.C.E.” and their eternally huge remix of Simian’s “We Are Your Friends,” Justice emphatically solidified their status as the current vanguard of electronic music heroism, genre salvation be damned.
The first time I interviewed you, you said that the album would be “lots of disco, given the Justice touch.” Do you still feel like that is the case?
Xavier de Rosnay: Totally. We stick to our original idea to make a 2007 opera disco album, even if we are conscious that some tracks don’t sound like proper disco at first listening. The best example is the song “Waters of Nazareth,” which does not sound disco when you listen to it for the first time. But if you forget that everything is distorted, the basslines are just really basic disco patterns.
How would you respond to Justice being called “heavy metal techno”?
XdR: We understand why people can think about this, and it’s kind of a cool description so we accept it. But the disco and pop parts of our music are as important as the metal part of Justice.
What are your feelings on the term "blog house"?
Gaspard Augé: We just discovered it on Wikipedia. We don’t take it too seriously.
XdR: [Laughs] We were flattered that “Waters of Nazareth” is considered the definitive “blog house” track. I still don’t know if it’s a proper style of music, but the name is quite smart and appropriate. It’s also true that this music is living now mostly through blogs.
It’s been said that dance music is a singles medium. Do you agree?
GA: Yes, and that’s why we didn’t do a dance record. We never aimed to do proper dance music. Some of our tracks are being played in clubs by DJs and that’s great. But we wanted do an album that you could listen to at home, not just a collection of bangers.
“Valentine” is very melancholy, a definite departure from the signature Justice sound.
GA: We waned to pay a tribute to French soundtracks and composers of the ’70s and ’80s like François de Roubaix, Vladimir Cosma and Francis Lai.
XdR: It was one of the first tracks we did for the album. We’ve explored mellower sounds before, like at the end of “Let There Be Light,” or even in the break of our remix of “We Are Your Friends.” This is a pure and sincere romantic piece.
About “The Party”—what led you to feature Uffie on the album?
XdR: The first time we heard Uffie sing, I think it was two years ago or something, Gaspard and I said to her that we wanted to make her first proper pop song. It didn’t matter if it was for her album or for ours. We love her voice and the fact [that] it sounds really childish.
GA: We thought it might funny to do a very mellow track with her bitchy vocals on it.
Who are some of your influences musically? You say you’re not big into techno or dance music in general.
XdR: They’re too many to be listed completely, but for example we are hardcore fans of Sparks, the Beatles, Parliament, Snoop Dogg and Steely Dan amongst others. I don't know how our music ended up sounding the way it does. But when we make tracks, what comes out sounds like the guys from Chic getting their asses kicked by Slayer.
What kinds of records do you like to spin as a DJ?
GA: The DJ side of Justice is more physical than emotional, so it goes from Donna Summer to Lil’ Louis, Smith and Hack to ’90s rave tracks.
XdR: We play mainly electronic stuff. There are some tracks it’s hard for us to not play, but sometimes we have to give them a break for a while. I think the track we’ve played the most is the Fatboy Slim remix of Wildchild’s “Renegade Master” or “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes.
GA: I also like to play new stuff from friends like Boys Noize, SebastiAn, Mr. Oizo, Feadz and Soulwax. The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” is the one record I always carry with me.
