French band Nouvelle Vague has been recreating old and popular songs of the new wave genre by rearranging music. Its founder member Marc Collin tells Shrabasti Mallik how the band started as a project and gained much adoration through the years
They began with Depeche Mode’s 1984 hit Master and Servant and moved on to Joy Division’s 1979 chartbuster love Will Tear Us Apart. Although the songs were old, French band Nouvelle Vague added a new wave spin to it and turned them into peppy, sensuous fast tracks and mesmerised the audience at the new le Meridien Hotel which recently opened in Gurgaon. Since its inception in 2004, the band has created a niche for itself as one of the greatest cover bands of the world. Their forte lies in selecting songs from the new wave genre from Brazil, london and France.
The band started off as a project between French musicians Marc Collins and Olivier libaux when they started to learn and understand the genre. “What interested us was the fact that new wave has no specific style. Many call it post punk because it is very less aggressive in tone,” said Collins.
The music of the band is a combination of the swooping elegance of Bossa Nova (musical movement of Brazil in late 80s), the melancholic melodies of new wave and the distanced approach of the films of the Nouvelle Vague. “Nouvelle Vague was a revolution in French cinema in the 60s when film-makers stepped out of the studio to shoot in real settings. That in a way is the base of the band — to play something real. Our modus operandi is to help people rediscover obscure new wave tracks with a fresh take, decidedly modern,” he added.
As musicians and producers they recorded their strange versions of popular songs like XTC’s Making Plans for Nigel and Windows by the Radio in 2004. People started loving the different sound and the word of mouth spread and within a few months artistes like Ian McCulloch and Martin Gore started appreciating the project and the band was born. “In fact, McCulloch was very happy with our version of The Killing Moon, so we started to know that the original people were happy with our version of their songs,” said Collins.
The band draws inspiration from many musical groups, individual artistes and musicians. Indie band Phoenix and English musician Jarvis Cocker are two of their favourites. Collins added, “Once we played at a fest in Newcastle and we watched a live performance of The Maccabees, an English band of a few 17-year-old boys and we loved them.
They reminded us of The Undertones back in the day.” Although they make their own kind of music, they are occasionally influenced by blues, French music, reggae and the Bossa Nova, which is a lyrical fusion of samba and jazz.
Being a cover band one might expect them to face issues like copyright and infringement of creative matter but when Nouvelle Vague started its journey they had the privilege to get the support of the original artistes. They decided not to ask for permission because the process took ages. So they recorded the label without permission, released it and left 100 per cent of the rights to the original artistes.
“We were not intending to get any money from this avenue. And it worked very well because musicians were helpful with Nouvelle Vague because it was interesting for everybody. According to the French law, you can record a cover without asking for permission as long as you are respectful of the original song. That helped a lot,” he explained.
The unique factor of the band, however,is that it has no fixed vocalists. The band boasts of former members like Phoebe Killdeer, Mélanie Pain, Marina Céleste, Nadeah Miranda, Gerald Toto and Mareva Galanter. “We believe in giving opportunity to young artistes and liset Alea, Zula and Clara luciani are with us right now. The vocalists keep changing from time to time,” Collins rounded up.