[Interview] Hyphen Hyphen: "What characterizes us is excess"

A few minutes after their concert at the Chorus festival on April 7th, we found the three Niçois of Hyphen Hyphen. The opportunity to learn a little more about their upcoming album and their new tour.

Just Focus: Hello all three of you! So Santa, during the concert, you said you had stage fright. In the end, did it go well?

Santa: A lot, it was a disaster but yes, it went very well. We managed to overcome stage fright. Yesterday, we did a first residency release date in Bobigny and there was our real big date with people staging our songs not yet released, from the album HH which will be released on May 25th. I'm super happy!

Line: It's true that we did it very quickly, we only had 3 weeks to set everything up.

JF: During the concert, apart from Just Need Your Love to finish, you only did songs from the new album…

Adam: It's to test them!

Santa: Yes, to see if it works, which ones we're going to put on the album, how we're going to organize them…

JF: You haven't decided which ones to put on the album yet?

Line: We've always operated like that. We prefer to test them live to see which ones the public reacts with the most.

JF: So, verdict?

Santa: There's one that jumps, all the others stay.

Line: It went very well!

Santa: We are rarely proud but here, we are very proud of the album that will be released. The more scenes happen, the bigger it's going to be. Zoé, our new thresher is amazing. I think we're going to create a pretty crazy show! We try to grow in the staging, both light and sound. The songs of the album will also be adapted for the live.

JF: Speaking of the album, what can we expect? Like Boys is even more electric and strong than your previous hits…

Santa: It will be even more so, we are in excess. What characterizes us is excess. Excess of emotions: we will go from a great melancholy to a great dance.

Line: From an electro groove to an acoustic folk song.

Santa: That's what we like about all these American icons like Kanye West, Madonna or Lady Gaga, is to manage to make big gaps in emotions and always propose a character.

Adam : We don't like albums where there is the same recipe and all the songs are a variation of the single.

Santa: We tried to expand and become producers as well.

JF: Yes, you produced this album yourself. How was it?

Line: Oh, we didn't sleep much! (laughs)

Santa: I think today you can't conceive of music without the production side now that DJs and rap dominate the market. To want to give an emotion is to want to give a sound and create something. It is assembling references and production to create an identity. We try to link vocal identity to melodies. We remain lovers of the melody, it is lost enormously but there will always remain the love of the melody in the world.

JF: Are there any collaborations?

Santa: In the album, no.

Adam: Maybe for a reissue.

Santa : I don't like albums full of featurings.

Adam: The three of us compose, so we already had a lot to say to the three of us.

JF: During the concert, you talked about a song "Gay Pride". Is that really the title?

Adam: No, no! (laughs)

Santa: Really, it's a bit like Gay Pride…

Line: Me, this song, I see it a bit like that with the lights.

Adam: Actually, it's called Be High With Me and when we wrote it, we imagined this scene from Sense8 where they're in a huge Gay Pride.

Santa: Extraordinary, this scene!

Line: We took the video, we put our song on it, we were like "but that's it!" (laughs) We'd love to make a clip like that anyway.

Santa: I'd love to tour gay Prides around the world.

JF: You did a DJ set at the Gay Pride in Paris last year.

Santa: Yes, we did the Grand Podium, it was great, it's a very good memory! 40,000 people dancing, we had done a lot of remixes of Britney Spears. (laughs)

Line: It's very uninhibited, it's nice.

Santa: We understood the impact that DJs could have.

Adam : Precisely, it has an influence on the composition of the album and on the live.

Line : There is a song where we drop everything and we go on stage every 3 at the microphone with Zoé on drums.

"We're friends for life with Zac!"

JF : On drums, Zoé replaces Zacharie, who left the band… How did you react to his decision?

Line: Great! We're friends for life with Zac!

Santa: Actually, we started the band right out of high school. This is the moment when it happens to you and you don't really have a choice. He wanted to play drums more, he was told there was no problem. It went in the best possible way.

JF: It's already the end! But we will have the opportunity to see you again for your tour that passes by the prestigious stage of the Olympia this fall…

Line: We can't wait! The Olympia is a check in life.

The album HH will be available on May 25, on the Parlophone label.

Hyphen Hyphen will play live throughout the France, passing through the Olympia on October 12.