Interview: Jamaica live @ Alhambra, Paris

Concert information

During their world tour, Jamaica landed in Paris to spread the good rock& roll words taken from their first album "No Problem". We met Antoine Hilaire, singer and guitarist and the bass player Florent Lyonnet just before their show, talking about mainstream music, name changing, itching pigeonhole, campfires and a strange theory about bands ending in "A".

Artist

Jamaica

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.

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Label

V2 Records

V2 Records (or V2 Music) is a record label that is owned by Universal Music Group as of October 2007. The label was founded in 1996 by Richard Branson, five years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI.
Ultimately, the label was owned 95% by Morgan Stanley and 5% by Branson because Morgan Stanley was the chief financier of the company. Over the years V2 acquired Gee Street Records, Junior Boy's Own, Blue Dog Records, and Big Cat Records. The label also distributed many labels, such as Wichita, Luaka Bop, City Slang, and Modular.
V2 now operates in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States. It was distributed in the US by BMG; however it left for WEA shortly after the formation of Sony BMG. Its headquarters were located at 14 East 4th Street in Manhattan, the former US home of Island Records, which was in the same building as the former Greenwich Village branch of Tower Records.
In April 2005, Cooperative Music was set up as by the V2 Music Group as a transnational marketing and distribution operation which licenses independent labels, as opposed to individual artist companies which is the standard industry practice, for release in Europe, Australia and Japan. This in-house licensing division has an exclusive international marketing team with representation in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Australia and Japan.
In 2006 Branson sold V2 Records North America to Sheridan Square Entertainment for $15 million. They then merged V2 North America with its label Artemis Records. The new label was effectively divested from the Virgin Group.
In May 2006, much of V2's catalogue, including multiplatinum artists Moby and The White Stripes, was added to eMusic, making the label one of the most high-profile featured on the online music site, which mostly sells DRM-free independent music at a cost considerably lower than many of its competitors.
On 12 January 2007, V2's United States and Canada branches announced that they were undergoing restructuring to focus on its back catalogue and digital distribution.[1] As a result, their employees were let go and their roster of artists left as free agents.
In August 2007, the company was sold for £7 million to Universal Music Group. Subsequently in October 2007, UMG partnered the US operations of its independent distribution arm Fontana Distribution, known as Fontana International, with London-based Cooperative Music of V2 Music. The intent was to enhance expansion through international agreements, and so independent labels from Europe under Cooperative Music would gain access to the independent American marketplace through Fontana International's diverse connections in independent marketing, promotion and distribution support. Cooperative Music is now an established label group headed up by Vincent Clery-Melin, with both UK and International marketing teams. Cooperative Music UK has had significant success with various acts such as Fleet Foxes, Phoenix and The Black Keys, headed up by Head Of Marketing Jason Rackham with support of Product Managers Craig Penney, Ed Pearson and Johnny Brocklehurst.
After Sheridan Square's liquidation, V2 Records North America was sold to IndieBlu Music Holdings. IndieBlu was acquired by E1 Entertainment in 2010; now, V2 Records North America is presently owned and distributed by E1, and is no longer affiliated with its former parent label.

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Venue

Alhambra

The original Alhambra was a mythical music-hall from the 1950's. The place where the concert hall stands today is not the same as the original location, it is a building from the 30's belonging to the french national Railway company that required 6 mâ‚¬ to renovate... but the name was kept, in memory of the place where such acts as Sydney Bechet, Jacques Hélian, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington performed in the heyday of jazz. Today the Alhambra offers an eclectic selection of concerts in a unique space.

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Promoter

The Talent Boutique

The Talent Boutique is part of the CORIDA group
Bands: Rammstein, Manu Chao, Daft Punk, Radiohead, Justice, Kap Bambino, Klaxons, Emilie Simon, Cat Power, Phoenix ...
Venues : La Cigale, La Boule Noire, Le Trabendo

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Styles