When one of your favorite music blogs is I Guess I’m Floating it’s hard not to be a fan of M83. I had the chance to sit down with Anthony Gonzalez and Morgan Kibby prior to their solo show at the Fillmore on Saturday night and discuss their 80s inspired album Saturdays = Youth. After I’d cut through the preliminary chat about how their tour with The Killers was fairing and whether or not they were nervous about playing Madison Square Garden yesterday (answer: a little considering the size of the venue) we got down to business.
mtvU: Tell me about how you two met and decided to collaborate.
Morgan: Well originally we met through a friend of mine, a French director. She had asked Anthony to score a soundtrack she was working on and introduced us.
mtvU: And then Anthony was immediately attracted to your voice?
Anthony: Morgan’s voice has that Kate Bush quality to it, which I love. Basically, Morgan’s voice was perfect for this album. It can do so many things. Morgan can do anything you ask of her.
Morgan: I had been a big fan of M83 prior to meeting him. When I got the email asking if I would like to work with him… I thought it was a joke at first. But Anthony was very specific about what he wanted from this album, so I had a clear direction.
mtvU: I’d like to ask you about individual songs on this album and if you have any particular favorites. For instance, Anthony you had said previously that “Too Late” was your favorite.
Anthony: (laughing) Not anymore!
Morgan: (also laughing) It changes everyday!
Anthony: I do like that song because it is closer to the previous albums. I think it is the link to the previous albums and I like the mood and the atmosphere of the song.
mtvU: I also noticed that your songs are very character-orientated, it seems as if you always start out with a character in mind.
Anthony: Well I love watching movies so that is the connection. I am watching the movies and starting out with a picture in my head.
mtvU: What picture did you start out with a picture for “We Own the Sky?” That’s my favorite track on the album.
Anthony: I wrote the music for that song first and then Morgan came in and helped write the lyrics. It’s the most eloquent song.
Morgan: That is actually my favorite song to perform. Well that and “Guitar and a Heart” off the older album and also “Couleurs.”
mtvU: I heard there was an interesting story about the percussion in “Couleurs”.
Morgan: I have pictures of that! Of us running around and trying to find stuff!
Anthony: One of the producers, Ewan Pearson, was responsible for the percussion.
mtvU: Something about a gravy boat?
Morgan: Yes! There was a gravy boat… and a can of beans… all sorts of stuff.
[Editor's Note: Go back and take a listen. That cowbell you think you hear is Loic Maurin banging on a gravy boat.]
mtvU: Do I get to see that on stage tonight?! Will you recreate that?
Morgan: You’ll definitely see some interesting stuff.
Anthony: That song is very dancey. It was a stretch for me.
mtvU: Do you plan on doing more of that type of song in the future?
Anthony: Maybe, yes. It is difficult because I do not write music when I am on tour. I need to be somewhere comfortable, quiet, with my instruments. I need to be back at my house in France.
mtvU: Just to backtrack for a second, is it difficult to play this album considering its depth and the amount of instruments it takes to create the sound?
Morgan: There are so many layers. We definitely have to be careful. It’s a complicated set-up.
Anthony: When I am making the album, I am not focused on playing live…
Morgan: So therefore it’s definitely a challenge.
mtvU: But do you think the music is enhanced in anyway by that challenge?
Anthony: Yes. It is more electric. It is more direct and powerful.
Morgan: It’s a more organic experience because nothing is ever the same when we play it live and we’re always changing it. “Couleurs” has become a completely different animal now. But the more pop-orientated songs like “Kim & Jessie” we kept pretty similar.
At this point, Subterranean needed to steal my guests away for a shoot. Check it out for an earful of Anthony’s sexy French accent. I was also shocked and pleasantly surprised when Morgan broke off to explain something to her bandmate in his first language. Seeing the two of them chat away a la francais gave me a better understanding of how they collaborated so well together and was especially endearing.
As for the show later on that evening, Anthony started off with an ambient set: picture the stage overflowing with cool blue light and music streaming through that made you want to sit down and meditate. The vibe changed completely when Morgan walked on and they begin to play the new album pretty much in its entirety. She carried a more intense energy with her that Anthony just seemed to feed off of immediately. I found it difficult to compose a set list when I was busy dancing but obvious highlights were the two poppish singles “Graveyard Girl” and “Kim and Jessie,” which seemed to gather the most frantic attention from the audience. For me personally, my stand-outs of the evening were obviously the aforementioned fave track “We Own the Night” and surprisingly enough “Highway of Endless Dreams.” I have to admit this is not necessarily my go-to song on the album but the way it was staged with dusty green lights eventually interspersed with red… all of the sudden it was possible to imagine whipping through a desert highway after you’d staged a hit on someone and needed to get the hell out of dodge. Not that I would know in anyway what that feels like, but the visuals most certainly permeated through the listening experience. I was disappointed, however, that there was not a single gravy boat in sight.
Need to throw out a huge thank you to both Anthony and Morgan for gracefully sustaining my nervous first interview jitters. What can I say? I kept getting distracted by Morgan’s perfect bangs. (Seriously. They were AMAZINGLY perfect.) Also need to thank Steve Gottlieb of Video Static, Stephanie from Mute, and Laura from the MTV promos team for attending the show with me.
