Yelle and the boys

New album

Paris 

11/04/2011 - 

Internet revelation Yelle and her two partners form one of the rare French-singing bands to be a hit overseas. Their recipe: naïve, raw lyrics, some skilful electro pop, and a whole load of energy on stage. We look back over their career so far.

Yelle is the young Julie Budet from the Breton town of Saint-Brieuc, who first made an appearance jumping on the cover of the 2006 album Pop-up. “Yelle” is derived from “you enjoy life” and a contraction of “yeah” and “elle”, explains Julie: “It’s kind of our life philosophy – enjoy yourself and have fun. We feminised the word “Yel” and now it’s my nickname!” Yelle also includes the two young men who accompany Jullie Budet in the studio and on stage: Jean-François Perrier, alias GrandMarnier, and Tanguy Destable, alias Tepr, a former member of Abstrackt Keal Agram.

GrandMarnier comes from the same town as Julie, and plays drums and composes. He featured in the quintet Sitronapoo before leaving the group in 2005 to work with Julie, a theatre administrator at the time. On evenings and weekends, the pair composed Je veux te voir, a defiant electro track directed at one of the members of the rap group TTC, whom they judged chauvinist (“Cuizinier, with your little dick surrounded by ginger pubes / I can’t believe you think anyone fancies you”).

For their second album, Yelle worked with the German producer Siriusmo. Like the trio, the techno producer is from the Internet generation, and it was natural for them to work together through the network. “Although we’re inspired by club music, we stick to a pop format,” explains Tepr. GrandMarnier adds, “Pop music has a lot of restrictions in the way it’s put together. You need something strong, like instrumentation, a chorus line or rhythm. You have to refine it, there’s a lot more to it than adding tracks. The title Drop it like it’s hot by Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams is so refined it’s genius!

Tepr and GrandMarnier mainly grew up on American rock, but Tepr also listened to labels like Warp and Ninja Tune, and GrandMarner has recently got into Caribbean music, Étienne Daho and Chagrin d’Amour. Julie reminisces, “I listened to a lot of French chanson, rock, and traditional Breton music when I was a kid. I remember the first Daft Punk album my brother bought and how it knocked me out.”

Baffling

How do they explain the big success abroad? “Maybe it’s because we came up with spontaneous songs and a lot of live energy. This type of music, sung in French by a fairly high woman’s voice, wasn’t around much at the time the first album came out,” Julie explains.

In France, Yelle seems harder to figure out. The (explicit) lyrics could be aimed directly at teenagers, with a more ironic layer for adults. With their naïve lyrics and trendy music, a track thought up by the comic Michaël Youn (Parle à ma main), and maxi records brought out on the fashionable label Kitsuné, things can get a bit baffling. “The lyrics sometimes have double meanings with the naïve side being just an appearance, like on the songs Unillusion about the reality of human bonds, or S’éteint le soleil, which is about the end of the world,” stipulates GrandMarnier

Nevertheless, the three almost-thirty-year-olds claim they are still teenagers at heart. “When you’re a teenager you discover freedom, but you retain the security of your parents, it’s a real time of awakening. But rather than a teen band, I’d say we’re a girls band,” sums up GrandMarnier.

Yelle Safari Disco Club (Barclay/Universal) 2011

Nicolas  Dambre

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper