Nouvelle Vague On Tour…
Lauded as “The coolest thing to happen to New Wave since New Wave,” Nouvelle Vague breathes new life into beloved tracks by Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Cure, The Clash, Depeche Mode, XTC, The Dead Kennedys and more, transforming them into hypnotic and intoxicating chanson. Their sound is unmistakably French, effortlessly chic, and refreshingly modern.
Formed in 2003 by Marc Collin and the late Olivier Libaux, Nouvelle Vague redefined the art of the cover song. What began as a daring concept, reimagining post-punk and new wave classics through the sultry rhythms of bossa nova, quickly became a worldwide sensation. Their self-titled first album, originally intended as a one-off homage, struck a chord with audiences across the globe, launching a musical journey that has spanned two decades, multiple albums and countless sold-out shows.
Turning punk anthems into gorgeous daydreams with alchemic genius, Nouvelle Vague has cultivated an ever-evolving sound by hosting a rotating cast of talented female vocalists, including the likes of Camille, Elodie Frégé, Mélanie Pain, Phoebe Killdeer along with American actress, singer and musician Juliette Lewis and actress, model, and singer Vanessa Paradis. Nouvelle Vague do not just perform music; they reimagine it with a French twist. They continue to enchant listeners reminding us of the eternal joys of music. Marc Collin talks to Rob Lyon about the tour.
Great to be talking to you, it’s been a minute since you were last here in Australia, nearly six years. You must be looking forward to getting back?
Really? Six years? Oh… yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe, wow, yeah. Yeah, I’m very happy to come back. I don’t know why we couldn’t do a tour with the twenty‑year anniversary of the first album. I don’t know why, but yeah, it’s good to come back and to present this new album.
What is it that you’ve missed about touring Australia?
As French people, Australia is a kind of little paradise island, very far, and when you talk about Australia with French people, even maybe not only French people, they always talk about the nature. They always say, “Oh, but you know, they have huge spiders, huge things,” and I say, come on, no! After, you’ve got Sydney and Byron Bay, all these places where it’s always sunny, people doing surf, you know. I think Australia’s got a really strong, cool image for French people. But it’s far. It’s far to go. That’s the problem.
Only three shows this time around, a bit of a whirlwind. Is it just logistics and trying to fit everything in?
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s always better to play more shows, because once you are there, it’s good to stay a bit longer. But I don’t know, I think it’s the cities that are the most easy to do. I think we have played in Perth. We have played in Tasmania, I remember, for a festival, and Adelaide a few times as well. But mainly we are playing in the East Coast cities. I think I came to play maybe in Australia six times, maybe more, maybe eight times, maybe? But I never got the chance to go to the north of the country, Darwin. So this time I will stay and visit the north, yeah.
How do you go about choosing which songs you’re going to play each night? The setlist must have so many possibilities.
It’s not that difficult, because the last tour was chosen to celebrate the twenty years of the first album, and we had a new album called Should I Stay or Should I Go? So I did a mix of the two albums. This time it will be a bit the same, but I will take a lot of songs from the second album, Bande à Part people really like — Blue Monday, Killing Moon, Ever Fallen in Love, Dance With Me, Don’t Go — all these songs and I will mix them with some songs from the new album that are focused on the Depeche Mode repertoire.
What drew you into doing a whole album of Depeche Mode songs?
It’s a long time that I was thinking it would be great now to focus on one band. I did an album focused on The Cure, called The Strange as Angels, not with Nouvelle Vague but under my name with Christa Belle, the singer. Now I thought, okay, we can do something on Depeche Mode because there are so many amazing songs, and they are still active. So I thought, okay, let’s do a real tribute to one of the most iconic and great bands from the post‑punk, new wave era. The selection of songs was… I tried to put the classics — Personal Jesus, Enjoy the Silence, Just Can’t Get Enough, and also less popular songs like Halo, Leave in Silence, for example.
It must have been tough, Depeche Mode have an outstanding catalogue?
Yes, exactly. I tried not to be focused only on the 80s, because they have written beautiful songs even on the last albums. So I tried to be more like 80s, 90s, even 2000s, to select a variety of song writing. It’s interesting because the first album was almost entirely written by Vince Clarke. After he left, Martin Gore wrote most of the songs. So there are two repertoires. I think I picked two or three songs from the first album, Ice Machine and Just Can’t Get Enough, I guess and then after… well, you’ve got so many choices.
What do you look for specifically in a song to cover?
Sometimes, you know… for example, Photographic from Depeche Mode, I think it’s the first single, the first song they released. So it was symbolic to do a cover of this one, but honestly, it’s not the best song. If you take it on piano or guitar, it’s difficult to really create something. So sometimes you just play some chords, change harmonies, change some things, and you have something very interesting. I’m a big fan of soundtracks, so a lot of times I try to put some soundtrack elements in the cover. Sometimes you need to be more imaginative to find a good way to cover a song. Mainly, it’s the songs that touch me, songs I have a special relationship with, songs I listened to when I was young, or even now.
Is there another artist you’re looking to do something similar with for a future album?
If it happens well, and I think it will happen well, it can be a collection. Like A Date with Depeche Mode, then A Date with The Clash, A Date with The Cure, maybe A Date with New Order or Joy Division. I don’t know… but yes, I can do a collection like that. It can be interesting.
Do you improvise a lot with the shows? If the vibe isn’t quite up, do you change things around or bring in different songs to make it more unique depending on the crowd?
Not too much, because I’m trying to do it like a theatre. When you are performing a play in theatre, you perform it no matter if it’s one hundred thousand people, really hot, really warm, or just ten people, very cold. You play it the same, you follow the direction.
I’m trying to be more like that, because otherwise it’s very easy to play faster, with more power and energy, if you feel people want to move and dance. But is it really what you propose? That’s the main idea of art and divertissement, to divert, to make people happy. We are trying to propose something we have worked on. Of course, the encore can change, we can play more songs, we can adapt. But mainly, we try to do what we have prepared.
In a live sense, do the songs evolve much compared to how they were originally recorded?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But for example, in Nouvelle Vague, it’s not a band in the studio, it’s a band for the live show. In the studio, I’m asking a double‑bass player, an accordion player, I’m putting a lot of percussion, violins… live, you can’t do everything like that. So we have to adapt it. It’s another work to try to make it happen live while keeping the spirit of the arrangement. On the new album, A Date with Depeche Mode, we can’t perform every song. Some were recorded in Brazil with a lot of percussion, one has an amazing brass arrangement, and of course we’re not going to have brass on tour. So we adapt.
But I like this as well, giving a new life to the songs we have recorded.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Nouvelle Vague on the following dates, tickets from Metropolis Touring…
