Babylon Circus are a French nine piece band currently on their fourth Australian tour after releasing their latest album Never Stop last year. Their sound, although difficult to define, may be best described as a combination of ska, reggae, punk, rock with a few other genres thrown in to the mix. In 2010 their Australian tour included a performance at WOMADelaide, where they were one of the most energetic bands to take the stage. I interviewed David Baruchel, one of the band’ singers, where he spoke from France very late one evening, during which he displayed their characteristic energy, explaining that “you know I’m a musician, for me its the beginning of the afternoon.” David’ tours of Australia seem to have left an impression, including a friendly “hi mate” to welcome me to the start of the interview.
I began by asking David about their energetic live show that blurs the lines between a musical performance and a work of theatre. Babylon Circus are prolific performers, relentlessly touring the world, and having seen them several times live, their exuberance is surprisingly consistent. “You know, the energy that we give and we take on stage is really from the heart and it is really important for us to send energy,” offers David. “But it is something we do not really control because we love what we do and we love to share a really important moment with the audience. It’s kind of an engine, the energy is our engine”.
Some of the current members of the band have played together since childhood, and like most performers hoping to grow and evolve with their music, they’ve always looked forward to the attainment of the next goal.”I like where we are now with the band, it’s a dream that came from childhood,†David says. “It’s been the dream which is concretised more or less, because with Manuel (Nectoux, the other singer in the band) we are really dreamers and as soon as we come close to one of our dreams, we try to find another dream. In 1995 when we began, actually we began before with another band when we were in high school, and the first thing was yeh we are going to go out of our little city and that is why we went to Lyon… and we would like to do gigs all over Lyon, then all over France, then all over Europe then all over the world and so on and so on. Every time that we reach a dream or a goal we find another goal.”
Their songs are often written in French, though there are also some occasional English lyrics throughout their albums. David explains this is not a conscious choice “because it’s something natural, it’s not something that we try to do really, it’s like something we used to do a lot of time ago, we’re gonna write a song in English, we’re gonna write something in French, but I don’t know why, we let the pen write, the words came to us in French naturally. That’s how it came.”
Over their career their sound has expanded to create a unique style from an eclectic mix of genres. It’s unmistakeably their own sound, yet continuously evolving. For David, this progression is just a natural part of their growth as a band, and their development. “For us it is obvious, that we have, not really to change, but it is a perpetual evolution, on each album there is something new which is coming to us actually, I am not sure we are looking for something, I think we are very curious people and then we always have open ears and then there are so many influence coming day after day and that is how each album is different because we feel like doing something new and the first people who have to be surprised is ourselves. We need to surprise the people, but the first people who have to be surprised is ourselves, if we are not surprised we are a bit disappointed because we don’ want to do the same thing every time.”
David believes the current album is a truer expression of who they are emotionally, with a certain rawness they hadn’ achieved on previous albums. As he explains “this album is a little bit more rough, a little bit more rock, it’s a little bit more emotional. I don’t know if you get the lyrics, but even if you do not get the lyrics, I think it is the most important its to feel the emotion that the artist wants to share with the audience” When I see a foreign artist coming from America or England, or even Australia, sometimes I don’ try to get the words, it’s the emotion which is the most important. That is how our lyrics are coming from the heart, the thing that we have in our body, in our heart and our brain, and the sound yeah, is a little bit more rough because that is where we come from actually. I think that is something that we fail to do like many times but, I don’ know why we couldn’t do it, maybe we were a little bit shy, or afraid of something that we cannot name but this album is I think the best work and the first really organic.”
Babylon Circus has a multitude of members and I wondered how this aided or hindered the creative process, and how they even go about writing songs with so many members. Their album liner notes refer to the Fab 5 as the songwriters in most songs. According to David, “the process was that we worked with, I mean Manuel and me were talking a lot about what we want to say what we want to make the people feel and so on and we are the base, and then we worked with two other people of the band, and one more and so on because we are the earth of the process.”
Babylon Circus have been known to collaborate with other artists both in the writing and performing of their songs. On 2009’s La Belle Etoile, the song “marions- nous au soleil” includes vocals by Brazillian singer Karina Zeviani adding a feminine element to the band populated solely by men. The current album, 2013’s Never Stop features no vocals by other artists, however David informed me collaboration with external musicians did occur in the songwriting. “Actually we don’t have any featuring vocals on the album. We worked with a lot of artists, we didn’t write it only by ourselves. Because we needed exterior people to help us to write this kind of thing. Something really emotional, really organic. For example there is a song on the last album called “demain dehors’ which means tomorrow outside, which is a song talking about a prisoner and a prison guard, and the story is both of them are going out from prison at the same time and the main meaning is the fear that we can have of the outside, the prison, the jail, is just an example, and that can be the fear of I don’t know, getting married, or becoming a father, leaving his parents, or whatever, you know what I mean.”
The symbolism of this song also reflected in the album is quite personal, but David believes the experience can be universal no matter the culture or experience, and also enriched by collaborating with others, as David goes on to reveal “it’s something really important because it is the kind of the theme of the album, moreover this song is especially important for me because my father spent a lot of time in prison, that is why I did really feel like doing this kind of song because everybody can recognise themselves in this song. This subject, the prisoner and the prison guard is something so important to me. When we work with other people, for example with this song we work with a guy from hip hop, different universe within exactly the same culture, but one and one is three more.”
The theme of finding ones’ personal freedom is embedded in Never Stop, and David believes that it is important for the band to use their music to encourage others to do the same. Watching a performance by Babylon Circus is more than attending a live show, it is an emotional experience that allows you to feel the expression of these artists, and to participate in an opportunity to begin to free ourselves from our own particular prisons, whatever they may be. “Because its actually our weapon is the music and we are lucky to do this job to have this opportunity to express ourselves through music and what we want is that the people find their own way to do the same as we what we are doing. To find their own freedom.”
Australian Tour 2014
Fri 10th Adelaide Festival Centre
Sat 11th Corner Hotel Melbourne
Sun 12th So Frenchy So Chic in The Park, Werribee
Wed 15th Heritage Hotel, Bulli
Thurs 16th The Cambridge, Newcastle
Fri 17th The Standard, Sydney
Sat 18th So Frenchy So Chic in The Park, Sydney
