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Fancy reinvent glam rock
Kings of the World?
Paris
25/09/2007 -
The problem with interviewing Fancy’s lead singer, Jesse Chaton, is that it’s not always easy to separate truth from fantasy. "I spent a night hanging out backstage with The Rolling Stones,” Chaton brags, “Mick Jagger was trying to give me a bit of advice, but I was only half listening because he’s a bit over the hill these days, isn’t he?" Chaton also claims, "I co-wrote Justice’s hit D.A.N.C.E.!" (Incidentally, the first claim here is false, the second actually true).
With his flamboyant Afro and his oversized sideburns, slim-cut jeans, high-cut baseball boots and his slinky vest emblazoned with the word ‘Cinderella’, Chaton dresses in the same crazy, off-beat style off-stage as well as on. But he is adamant that there’s a lot more to his band Fancy than their provocative look. "We’re not a bunch of clowns!” he insists, “And it can get a bit hurtful sometimes when people come up and say, 'Yeah, we saw you in concert the other night and you were really funny!’… When Mick Jagger gets up there shaking his arse around on stage, it makes you smile, but that doesn’t make him a comedian. I’m telling you Fancy are 50% image, 50% good music!"
Fancy’s iconoclastic attitude has not always gone down well in France. Indeed, the band had more than a few problems getting a recording contract. "At the end of the day, the guys who work at record companies are all pretty much the same," complains Chaton, "Even when they liked the band, they weren’t prepared to stick their necks out and take a risk because there was always someone above them threatening that if things didn’t work out they’d be fired! There was always something people got stuck on - they didn’t like my voice, they said we wore too much make-up or that we were going over the top. But all I have to say is, take a listen to our album, it’s chock-a-block with hits!"
Chaton does have a point here. Focussing overmuch on Fancy’s appearance means the music inevitably gets overlooked. And Kings Of The World deserves an attentive listen, if only for the compelling mix of Mom’s heavy guitar riffs, Rae Mone’s ample bass and Chaton’s glammed-up vocals. This improbable fusion really comes into its own on tracks such as the cynical Seventeen or the ultra-funky What’s Your Name Again?Wanting it all
We want to be Conquerors of the Universe. We want to have it all! So obviously Van Halen, Madonna and The Rolling Stones are all role models for us. I’ve never wanted to go round doing all that tortured, misunderstood artist stuff. What I want is loads of cash and everyone to fancy me – I want men, women and every single housewife out there under fifty to want to sleep with me! I want to be rich, famous, successful and make a stack of brilliant albums and brilliant songs along the way. I want to go down in music history like Mozart, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson!"
Interestingly enough, for a band with such unbounded ambition, Fancy’s career did not take off overnight. The band’s debut album, Kings Of The World, has been released a full four years after they first created an initial buzz at the ‘Transmusicales’ festival in Rennes. And the handful of maxi-singles Fancy brought out on cutting-edge labels in the meantime were limited to a small audience of connoisseurs. Questioned as to whether the band are playing a slow, long-term game, Chaton almost snorts with impatience. "We’re totally ready for fame!” he cries, “But we need people out there to believe in us, to love what we’re doing."
Electro shock
Luckily for Fancy one of the biggest fans and first supporters of their work was Pédro, the manager of hip French electro duo Daft Punk. "We’re really flattered that the guys from the Paris electro scene have taken such an interest in us,” says Chaton, “It’s a big compliment because it proves we’re mainstream!" And not only that, it gave Fancy the opportunity to support the famous masked duo in concert. "Things happened pretty fast,” admits Chaton, “We played at the ‘Eurockéennes’ festival last year and Daft Punk were there, too. Pédro was with them and what happened was they came along to see us, liked what they saw, and instantly offered to help us. We ended up having to reschedule our appearance at the ‘Rock en Seine’ festival and fly off to play in front of thousands of people in Dublin instead. It was like ‘Oh, don’t worry, you can use the private jet to get back to Paris on time!"
It is, perhaps, no surprise that Fancy’s offbeat style seems to appeal to audiences way beyond the traditional rock scene. The group’s ambiguous sexual energy, so typical of glam bands, combined with Chaton’s extraordinary frontman style (it’s hard to believe that it’s a man delivering the make-the-hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-stand-up vocals on Morning and Xiomara) put Fancy in a league of their own. "We don’t really have much competition out there right now,” laughs Chaton, “It’s hard for a lot of other French bands because they’re just lacking in ambition. But now we’re here and, let’s not be overmodest about this, we’re about to change the course of history!" Fanciful imagining or weird premonition? Take a listen to Kings of the World and make up your own mind!
In concert at La Boule Noire, in Paris, on 11 October 2007.
Ludovic Basque
Translation : Julie Street
12/01/2005 -
