PRO Profile - Jamaica
About
In 2007, the three-piece Poney Poney outfit posted a series of powerful and playful electro hits on the web. After becoming a two-piece outfit (Antoine Hilaire and Florent Lyonnet), the band changed its name too and has been known as Jamaica for a year and a half. And just to make it clear from the outset: Jamaica don’t play reggae.
Because they’ve got an English name and are into guitars and electro big-time, these Parisians are of course described by many as the cousins of Justice or the heirs of Phoenix. And they are in fact with the same record label - Cooperative. A blood-line which the duo sees as a blessing. ‘Because they’re bands which we admire. We recorded the album in Philippe Zdar’s studios (Cassius) in Paris, where Phoenix had just completed Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. We admire their approach and their integrity.’ Inspired by Phoenix, Jamaica has also retained its edgy side. ’Before the big hit and the Grammy, remember that the band was on its own, that it had to believe in itself and take risks. So it’s reassuring and encouraging to see how things have turned out for them.’
Two years ago, to really make a go of Jamaica, the two friends left the companies where they were then working: a record company in the case of Antoine and a centre for the ongoing training of psychiatric care-providers (‘can you believe it’) in the case of Florent. ‘I’d always wanted to write,’ says Antoine, the singer and guitarist of the band. ‘My father had two dreams – to be a pilot and to play guitar. He got a birth premium when I was born and used it to buy a guitar. That’s the one I learnt to play on. When I was thirteen, I had a Swedish pen-pal who came to Paris. I asked my father to teach me a track by the Shadows to impress her. It didn’t work, but it put me on the right road.’ A road he’s been travelling ever since on a daily basis – a busy music ambassador who also finds the time to play guitar for the flamboyant Tahiti Boy and The Palmtree Family. The career path of Florent, the bassist, was less classic: ‘born and raised in Barcelonette, in the Alpes de Haute-Provence’, he moved to Paris when he was fifteen and had one temporary job after another – sound engineer, opera actor (one of his passions) and ‘that other thing (laughter) – oh, yeah, model agencies... Basically, one day you realize that you’re spending your days with people whose life is about making ads for Nutella’. In the end, he took Antoine’s advice (who wanted him to play in Poney Poney) and took up the bass for the first time. ‘But it happened like that for Paul Simonon from the Clash, so it was okay.’
Beyond their friendship, a shared love of well-honed pop and of American-style hits united the two friends at a time when experimental song-writing and three-day ukulele marathons, kitted out in cardigans, were all the rage. ‘To generalize, there are two schools: the Stooges-Libertines school, where it goes over the top, and the ACDC-Prince school, where it’s really tight and precise. We opted for the second one. It was a different approach because we started out at a period when everyone was pretending to be pretty much off the wall. The fashion was for crazy, all-over-the-place music. We enjoyed doing something more clinical. Managing to take from the Police or Dire Straits, in other words bands whose aesthetic approach was virtually indefensible, what we liked in spite of ourselves. And insert it into our projects in all sincerity, without any irony intended.’ An approach perfectly illustrated by the title of their first single, the appropriately named I Think I Like U 2, for which the band, plundering all the known clichés of rock mythology, produced a very amusing video recounting the dizzying ascent and fall of Jamaica, created by the graphic designer So-Me and Thomas Jumin from Machine Molle. There was another collaboration with Ed Banger. The band asked their old accomplice Xavier de Rosnay to produce its first album. He in turn enlisted the American Peter Franco, who had worked with Daft Punk and was a huge U2 fan. ‘To begin with, we were very French about it all – we said that we’d record some very complex tracks (laughter). But after a few weeks of using the word ‘man’ at the end of every sentence, you no longer have a problem. You can stop trying to be dark and mysterious and you can talk about Billy Idol’s music – and say that it’s both cheesy and really great.’
Their approach is sincere. But it’s also resolutely hedonistic. ‘We might also be huge fans of Elliott Smith, but that’s not the point.’ Which is not to say that the band approached the album lightly – they selected tracks on the hoof, having dissected them thoroughly beforehand. ‘It was all about getting the voices and guitars right – we didn’t want to be slaves to the production.’ The fruit of all these efforts was No Problem, for which they have reworked some tracks from Poney Poney, reacquainted themselves with the traditions of American-style hits, dared to bring off the killer riff (Jericho, tailor-made for FM radio), and produced bubble-gum melodies (Short and Entertaining) and a groove straight out of Prince’s songbook (Secrets). The record is both sincere and playful, radiant and full of hope. It defies the laws of mathematics by combining pop songs with a universal appeal and a rounded production in terms of the groove and very tight arrangements and playing.
Two good pieces of news to finish off on. Jamaica is the supporting act for the 2010 Champions Two Door Cinema Club tour. And Antoine’s dad has just got his pilot licence.
