Phoenix

Wed 16th Feb, 2011 in Features

With the band’s triumphant fourth LP Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix nearing two years on the stereo, beloved Frenchmen Phoenix are back in Australia for a victory-lap tour of sorts with the Good Vibrations festival and some recording sessions here and there. Before arriving in the country Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars booked some time with FL to talk about relocating to New York with Sofia Coppola, the changing landscape of the music industry and what’s next for Phoenix in 2011.

Hey Thomas, how are you?
Very good! I’m in New York and it has been snowing so it’s a nice, chaotic city right now.

So how does it work with you in New York? Is it difficult to get everyone together when you need to?
Yeah, it is difficult. But I go back there and they come over here…it’s basically a lot of trans-Atlantic flights. They are all coming here in the spring and then we’ll go to France again.

Speaking of very long flights, you guys are coming back to Australia for some shows during our summer. Phoenix has a huge following here but apart from that what is it that brings you back to Australia so regularly?
It’s just so nice to play live shows there. You feel appreciated by the people and you’re not scared of the crowd. Sometimes you play in front of a crowd and you feel like you can’t relate to them, or something, but in Australia there is always a nice feeling with everyone. It’s weird that you have to go to the opposite end of the globe to find that. For us, growing up in Paris, Australia was the complete opposite for us. And it is also nice to come back because everything started for us in Australia and the US. Those countries seemed to pick us up before other places.

It’s been really interesting to see how every tour you’ve done here has grown. I remember seeing you in a small-ish venue several years ago and then when you came back with the latest record you played a bigger space, and then again an even bigger one and now you’re headlining this big festival. It must be very satisfying to see that new people are still discovering your music.
Yeah, it’s a very nice feeling for us. We’ve been doing this for more than 10 years…the first record came out 10 years ago and people want to hear all the new stuff that we are doing. They still like to hear things from the first record but what they want to hear the most is the new songs and that’s what we want to play the most.

So it feels like it’s not just about one song. If it was just about one or two hits that we had in the past then it would be impossible to do this, it would be disgusting. I’ve been to some shows recently where people only want to hear one song and then they boo or leave during anything else. I’m just so glad that it’s not like that for us and that we never had one huge hit.