Justice - Interviews - This Is Fake DIY

Interviews:
Justice
by Emma Swann

Artist: Justice
'In France it made the front page of the newspapers. Which is bullshit, because there are things which are much more important to write about than a music video. When that happened we were like 'shit, did we go too far?'.'

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French electro duo Justice are still touring 2007's '', from which the Simian-sampling 'We Are Your Friends', 'D.A.N.C.E.', and most recent effort, 'DVNO' were all taken. They recently received criticism for the video to 'Stress', which featured a gang in Justice-branded clothing causing riot on a housing estate. You can see it here.

Ahead of their recent headline show at London's Somerset House, we got a few minutes with one half of Justice, Xavier de Rosnay.

Were you surprised at the reaction to your video for 'Stress'?
No. At first we were not surprised because when we made it we knew it was going to be controversial, but then we were surprised that people spoke that much about it. We knew that people would talk about it, but not that much. I don't know what it was like in the UK, but in France it made the front page of the newspapers. Which is bullshit, because there are things which are much more important to write about than a music video. When that happened we were like 'shit, did we go too far?'.

Did you go out deliberately to shock people, then?
We knew that it would shock people, but we didn't make it to shock people. Our proposal was to make what we thought could be the best video to represent that track, 'Stress', and then we knew that it would shock people, but we didn't treat the video like, 'yeah we have to shock people with this'.

Do you think it's raised your profile, especially in France?
I wouldn't expect the effect to be immediate, I think the re-issue of the video will be in one year, or two years, or ten years, when seen out of the context people will go 'it's one of the best videos', that might sound a bit pretentious, but... [trails off]

It's currently the midst of the festival season. What are the main differences between playing festivals and playing your own gigs?
I guess the main difference is, that at a festival, people don't come just to see you, which is more challenging.

Do you find you have to work at it a bit more, as a consequence?
No. We just do the same thing.

What can we expect from your show tonight?
We don't tend to do anything special for particular shows, what you see is our continual show. As for what to expect, expect to have fun.

Justice Official Site

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