Electro Deluxe are revolutionaries. They took the liquid sound of jazz and opened it to a whole new world of electronica, funk and hip-hop. “We are jazz musicians, but a purist may not take too kindly to what we call jazz,” confesses James, the only American and the vocalist of the band. In his words music is a big tree with countless branches and they are just a single leaf.
“We just want to play good music and that's what we strive to do,” says James, while on the band's first tour in the country, performing at Bangalore's BFlat. They were on a three-city tour in the country and had just come in to Bangalore from Mumbai.
No overnight fame
When the band came together eight years ago, they never imagined that they would grow so big that they would be on tour in foreign countries. “I couldn't imagine then, but it did not happen overnight either. We started off as a four member band and little by little we expanded,” says Jereme, the bassist in the band and one of the members who has been a part of Electro Deluxe since the beginning. Today the line up includes, Thomas Faure on saxophone and programming, Jereme Coke on bass, Gael Cadoux on keyboards, Arnaud Renaville on the drums, Thomas Mayade on trumpet and James Copely on vocals.
James compares their progress as a band to driving in Mumbai. “We are just moving, and we have no idea how we are going to get there, but eventually we do.” As a band their growth has been more realistic as compared to other bands that have found phenomenal success, “Not everyone can be a Herbie Hancock or a U2, that doesn't happen too much. As a band we practise, we tour individually as well, and somehow keep it all together,” says James.
According to the band, in this industry, it's never about what a person knows, but who one knows. While the band has no misconception of their product exploding, they do enough to make them happy about their work.
While they are a French band, all their songs are in English. “It is not authentic to the soul culture and even rhythmically it is much more difficult to sing in French,” says Jereme. The band is used to glitches on stage, “This is not the movies nor are we DJs, and mistakes are bound to happen when it is live. Besides we aren't very rigid and we don't take ourselves too seriously. We do take our work very seriously,” he quickly adds.
