November 3rd was one of the first truly cold autumn days in the city, and as I walked down the street from my SoHo dorm to the historic Bowery Ballroom, I bundled up tightly and winced at the wind blowing harshly against my face. Three hours before doors were scheduled to open, a line of twenty or so teenagers had already begun to form down the block, despite the inclement weather. The night’s show consisted of headliners julie, the mysterious art rock trio from Los Angeles, and newcomers Deux Visages hailing from Miami, who I’d come to interview. When I reached the door I was quickly shuttled by the group’s manager into the dark bar at the entrance of the venue. After brief introductions with the band, I followed them up three flights of stairs and past the stage where julie was soundchecking. When we finally got to the green room, I got to hear about their first tour experiences, songwriting process, and all about their matching tattoos. Here’s what went down:
[Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Could everyone go around and introduce themselves? Tell me your name and what instrument you play.
Antoine: Hi, I’m Antoine Lappin, I play drums.
Daphney: Hi I’m Daphney, I sing!
Tony: Hello I’m Tony Jouvin, I play bass.
Jack: I’m Jack Chiu, I play guitar.
Perfect. As you all were just saying, tonight is the last stop on your tour. How are you all feeling, what are the emotions like tonight?
Antoine: I’m feeling great! I’m a little bit nervous, but I’m just excited to end off our leg of the tour on a banger at Bowery Ballroom, such a historic venue.
Is this your first time touring?
Daphney: Yeah! It’s our first tour.
What’s something you wished you had known before you left? Something you’ve learned so far?
Daphney: Merch! Bring enough merch.
Antoine: Merchandise! Yeah, we sold out on like, the first day!
Oh my goodness! But that’s exciting! Is this your first time playing outside of Florida?
Tony: Pretty much! We’ve gone to Savannah before, but besides that, no.
So how has it felt to play your music to completely new audiences?
Jack: Amazing! I think I can speak for all of us, they’re super receptive. Like, I don’t think we expected any of this. All of the shows have been super, super awesome.
Tony: Yeah, really interesting too because the shows back at Miami don’t compare whatsoever.
How do the shows look in Miami?
Jack: Uh, pfft. Okay.
Antoine: They’re okay.
Jack: It’s nice having like, the homies, you know, that pull up to the shows…
Antoine: True!
Jack: …But the energy here is just different.
Tony: Unmatched!
That was something else that I wanted to ask you all about. I feel like a lot of bands right now are moving to L.A. or New York or to Philly in order to be a part of the scene. But do you feel like where you are in Miami is a good place for you?
Jack: It serves its purpose for us, but I wouldn’t consider Miami specifically a hub like that. And that’s in our case…
Daphney: Yeah…
Jack: … It’s like, people that tour, I don’t know if… Well, I guess we are the only people that know this place ‘cause we live there. But a lot of bands can’t come down and tour Miami because it’s like a nine hour drive to get all the way down. Florida is something a lot of people skip.
Daphney: Yeah, I would say we kind of fall into one of those bands that wants to move, unfortunately.
Antoine: Yeah…
Where do you see yourselves going?
Daphney: Anywhere that makes the most sense!
When it comes to writing songs, are there any particular aspects of your lives or themes that you like to draw upon the most?
Daphney: Right now, I would say our songs have been “coming of age” but kind of tied into something bigger.
What’s the dynamic like when writing songs? Does someone come in with lyrics or a riff? How does it work for you guys?
Jack: I usually come in with a guitar riff and we’ll play around with it and maybe they have some notes for me. Then from there, we’ll get onto some singing and a little melody. Antoine will hop on the drums and put something down and as a team we’ll slowly put together a structure and kind of a theme and what we want it to sound like, what we want it to be.
Right now, do you think you’re mostly working on songs? Or is there an album in the works? What do you have going on?
Antoine: There’s something longer coming along next year…
Daphney: I don’t know what we’re allowed to say!
Oh okay! Well, with that in mind… something else I noticed about your songs was that they draw upon a lot of 90s alternative rock influences. But there’s also a lot of modern influence. Like, I heard a little bit of Momma in there…which newer artists are you drawing the most inspiration from?
Daphney: Yeah! We listen to a lot of Momma!… I put Jack onto the new Momma album, Household Name.
Jack: Sweet Pill! We actually met them the other day. They were amazing. It was so awesome! And I like Raue, but that’s me personally.
Daphney: Sweet Pill… I like a lot of Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Beabadoobee, all of them are fucking killing it.
Antoine: For me? I like a lot of Remo. Lately I’ve been getting into Movements. I’ve been listening to a lot of midwest emo stuff lately too.
Like what bands?
Antoine: I was listening to American… what the fuck is that? American Football! I almost said American Baseball. American Football!
Daphney: Modern Baseball?
Antoine: No. Not Modern Baseball. I don’t listen to Modern Baseball that often. Not often!… But yeah, shit like that! Things that I can’t really play as a drummer, but still scratches an itch in my brain drumming-wise.
I see you all over social media and I know that you do a lot of your own promotion. Like, you made the artwork for your latest single cover and do a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff yourself. Would you say that since signing to a major label, has that changed? Or is the D.I.Y. ethos still very much a part of your band dynamic? If anything has changed, what has improved?
Daphney: I would say that we hold all the ideas still, but we just have a way better–
Jack: –Our execution of those ideas is a lot smoother now. Because, as a band, we don’t really have much.
Daphney: Anything that we think up, they will execute it perfectly exceeding our expectations, which is amazing.
Antoine: I think for a while, it’s still like a lot of ideas and a lot of things are still going to come from us, but the label just does a great job at providing resources to be able to carry out those ideas. Which before we didn’t have. Before, we had great ideas but not enough resources or money to be able to carry them out how we’d like to.
I read that you all got matching tattoos the day that you signed to Atlantic! I was wondering what they were and what the meaning of the design was.
Antoine: They’re stars!
Jack: Brought to you by… should I say?
Antoine: Yeah!
Jack: Brought to you by Matt Zingler! He egged us on a little bit.
Daphney: Yeah! We all got matching stars just because it’s our logo.
Tony: I got mine behind my ear!
Antoine: Yeah, we all got matching stars but he (Jack) got a hand with a star.
My last question is, I don’t know if you can answer it but, what are you doing since tonight’s the last night of your tour? What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you get home? And what will you all be working on next?
Tony: Writing! And the second that we get the opportunity to, we’re gonna go record. It’s first on the list, really. The first Monday we get back it’s just straight to it, straight to the studio. We have a studio waiting for us! We’ve been recording in a rap studio which was… an experience. Just, straight to work!
Jack: Yeah, we’re lucky to even have that honestly! The first thing I’m personally gonna do is I’m going to cry about having to leave julie and having to go back home (laughs). We’re all good, all jokes though…
Daphney: Yeah, that’s the first thing I’m going to do too, cry!
Jack: Yeah, we have a lot to write! A lot of writing to do! But, recording is definitely first on the list. Recording the songs that we do already have written.
