Nouvelle Vague is Dancing With Themselves

If you’re like most people, the thought of 80s new wave makes you cringe in that slightly-guilty-mostly-pleasurable kind of way. You know, that uncomfortable kind of happy feeling you get every time “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division or “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club comes on at whatever hipster-shit club you’re in at last call on a Sunday night. Let’s face it, most people write off 80s new wave and post-punk as being a bunch of bullshit that reminds you of fingerless gloves and leotards. But my friends, that era is over.

Nouvelle Vague is ushering a new kind of love for the a genre we love to hate. It all starts with a revolving door of cute female French singers, a bossa nova backing, and a sweet kind of nostalgia for 80s music you don’t see much of these days.

Hailing from France, the boys behind Nouvelle Vague (Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux) started the collective to pay homage to their favourite artists from the era. Starting with favourites like “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and “Too Drunk To Fuck”, the band initially wanted to grab people’s attention by taking new, distinctly bossa nova stylings to songs that inspired them as musicians.

As their popularity has grown, so has the collective’s decent into obscurity. Originally seen as a cover band who focused on “one-hit wonders” their newest album, NV3 focuses on less well known songs that they feel should be back in the spotlight.

In an interview with Olivier just two weeks before their anticipated return to T.O, we talked obscurity, popular culture and the cultural mish-mash Nouvelle Vague seems to represent.

Nouvelle Vague's latest album (and iPhone app) was released in 2009

Pink Mafia: What’s the process that you go about recording your songs? I’ve read that often your singers have never heard the songs you are asking them to cover–how does that work?

Olivier:We started Nouvelle Vague with the idea to (try to) record some of our punk/new wave favourite songs in a bossa nova style. One purpose behind the Nouvelle Vague concept was to reveal the quality of songwriting in 80′s music – even if most of the times, nobody had never really talked about “songs” when refering to 80′s music. We wanted to deliver some surprising versions of songs that had been very important for us.. When we then called some female singers to perform the songs in the studio with us, we realised that these girls’ generation was not involved into punk and new wave music. It was their parents’ music! The first female singer we ever worked with was brasilian, and she had never heard about “Love will tear us apart” nor Joy Division!  We thought it was absolutely great, as these kind of singers could perform the songs without any fear – because of the “myth” behind some bands – and could bring a huge freshness into our covers.

Pink Mafia: As you’ve grown in popularity, your song choices have become more obscure. Can you shed some light on the decision to choose what may be considered “lesser” known songs?

Olivier: As soon as we started Nouvelle Vague, our idea was not to cover “hit singles” of the 80s, but rather good songs created by important bands. Obviously when covering “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, “A Forest” by The Cure, or “Teenage Kicks” we know that everybody would recognise these songs, which had been very important songs of their era. Our plan was to reveal songs, sometimes famous, sometimes completely forgotten, and to deliver interesting new versions.

Pink Mafia: You were once quoted saying that “a band is not just one song”–do you think Nouvelle Vague has made a career of helping these forgotten bands and songs come back into the limelight?

Olivier: We are certainly trying to give an accurate view of what has really been the 80′s punk and new wave music – an explosion of hundreds of creative new bands, happening right after the punk movement. In our ears, the 1978-1983 period in music is one of the most creative ever. It seems that all the new bands of this time were trying to sound the most creative and new they could. It was also a period of improvements in terms of technology, so each band could bring new sounds, new effects, new rythms, new synths in their sounds. Listening back to Human League first albums, even The Cure’s first albums, you can really check how unique these bands were, and innovative. Our idea in Nouvelle Vague was certainly to bring (especially younger) people into that quality and creativity again.

Pink Mafia: Your latest album features a lot of guests including Martin Gore (Depeche Mode), Barry Adamson (Magazine, Visage), and Ian McCulloch (Echo and the Bunnymen): what was it like to work with them? Is this the first time working with the very people you’re covering?

Olivier: We would have never thought about working with these prestigious people when we started Nouvelle Vague! We were not even sure they would hear one day what we were doing, or trying to do. Thing is that, since 2004, we’ve heard that many original bands and people happened to hear Nouvelle Vague, and were appreciating what we were doing.We were really honoured. We then thought, starting the recording of our 3rd album, that we could maybe be able to ask some of these original people if they would be interested in performing with us a NV version of their song – which could sound a bit strange and risky to them!

Pink Mafia: Lastly, let’s talk about your new album. NV3 is a much different effort than your previous records. Why the change?

Olivier: Our last album is a bit different to the 2 previous ones. We have moved into a less bossa nova/latin background and brought some northern american influences, as well as making covers who were sounding creative in our ears (without refering to a special music genre or the other). ”NV3″ is special to us, as we are welcoming some original artists on the album. It’s also special as we have covered some songs and bands – like Magazine, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, The Psychedelic Furs – which are important for us, and that we had not covered yet. We hope that people will be happy with this album.

Nouvelle Vague will be playing in Toronto, January 27th at The Opera House.