Justice Want To "Feed Off The Rock Energy"
Friday March 14, 2008 @ 01:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Justice

During last year's tour in support of their debut album †, French electronic duo Justice noticed that North American crowds, not unlike those on their native side of the pond, were surprisingly diverse in their make-up and unanimous in their desire to dance. Perhaps this isn't too shocking, since the band's music is a diverse array of electronic, rock, rap and pop music.

"We get as many indie kids as we get people who are into going to clubs," says Gaspard Auge, one half of the duo, whose debut album spawned the unlikely mainstream hit "D.A.N.C.E." Both the album and song garnered Grammy nominations earlier this year, in the best electronic/dance album and best dance recording categories, respectively.

"Something that we like doing is to be able to step away from the club circuit and do something a little more pop in a sense of variety. It's a lot more fun to do a show when your crowd is made up of people with different tastes and styles," Auge says.

Electronic music tends to appeal to a certain clientele, but Justice are bucking the trend. Like their French forefathers Daft Punk, they make more traditional pop music (albeit with computers) and play Metallica for a concert encore instead of reaching for the more obscure records in their collection.

Auge admits he and fellow member Xavier de Rosnay are more inclined to follow the latest MTV and radio hits than delve deep into the world of underground electronic music. Their contribution to the popular Fabric series of compilation CDs, where a different artist records their own mix every month, was rejected late last year because they refused to pack enough filler to make the 70-plus minute time requirement. This further proves Justice don't think like a typical electronic group. It may just be Justice are better suited to rock out in a concert hall than a dark club.

"I think that's why our music is connecting with a lot of people," says Auge. "We're electronic musicians, but we don't have the attitude of purists. We'll make rock songs, pop songs — the kinds of songs we would want to listen to."

Even the way Justice write songs sounds different than their electronic contemporaries. Auge says he and de Rosnay start with a simple piano and bass arrangement before switching to their computers. For those who saw their live shows in Canada last year, Auge says the group have altered their kits for the live set-up, which will make it easier to mess around with the album tracks on the fly. The stage should look largely the same beyond a more elaborate light show — the band will still be stacking Marshall amps on the stage and their giant cross shall remain lit.

"[The amps] were almost in response to all the electronic groups pushing things forward with technology." Auge says. "We wanted to do the opposite, we wanted something more raw. We wanted to feed off the rock energy."

Do some D.A.N.C.I.N.G. at one of these Justice Canadian dates:

• March 16 Montreal, QC @ CEPSUM
• March 17 Toronto, ON @ Sound Academy
• March 25 Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom

—Erik Leijon