Smoking Guns

With a dyed-in-the-wool Francophile such as this writer, there was never much chance he was not going to adore the new album, Let Go, from French pop three-piece Revolver. What's surprising here, though, is the level of the sophistication and adventurousness this trio of young Parisians has brought to the follow-up to their phenomenally successful 2009 debut, Music For A While. Talking to singer/ songwriter Ambroise Willaume, the band's willingness to embrace change becomes the hot topic. Willaume is more than forthcoming, speaks better English than your correspondent, and does so in the coolest accent this side of Gerard Depardieu.

“I think it's what we do all the time, we're a band who likes change,” Willaume enthuses. “When we went on tour with the first album, we discovered so many new things and had so many new experiences. When the first album came out, we had no idea about touring or being on stage, and we learned so much as a band and as people. We couldn't do the same sort of record again because we were not the same people.”

And this is not the only reason Let Go is a very different record to the band's first. According to Willaume, it's also a matter of influences, the producer and a desire to mix things up. “We kind of have more imagination on the second album. We wanted it be a whole new canvas. When you're playing, you're also discovering new bands every night and listening to a lot of music when you're not playing. So we now have a lot more ideas about colours and textures in music. We also gave more space to the producer. We wanted him to be more experimental and to explore.”

As stated above, this writer is completely smitten by Let Go, and one of the things that's most notable about the record is an enormous sense of life in the music. Interestingly, Willaume knows exactly what this scribe is talking about, even if the readers might not. “When we first went into the studio, it was really frightening,” he admits. “None of the songs were finished and many of them died in there. On the other hand, though, the ones that did survive came to life in a kind of really beautiful way. We wanted to try and have some living sounds, like, literally sounds that are not the same through the songs.”

This is Revolver's first time visiting Australia, and Willaume's attitude to exactly how lucky he is to be making a living as a musician is testament not just to the fact he's a lovely young man, but more importantly, also speaks eloquently to the nature of the music his band makes. “I remember the first time I ever left France to do a support show,” he reminisces. “I was on a plane about to fly out to Denmark and I was 19 or 20 years old. I was like, 'Oh my god, I'm taking a plane to go and play the songs I wrote'. That was just amazing. And it's important to keep this in mind. We are blessed to be able to take our music to the world. It's even more special when it happens in a country you've never been to. I've never been to Australia, so it's just incredible.”

In closing, Inpress attempts to ask Willaume about the So Frenchy, So Chic In The Park show he'll be playing at Werribee Mansion early next year, but it's fair to say he hasn't been briefed, so we move on to Melbourne music scene in general. Inpress is confident in claiming that the Revolver boys will be seen at a lot of the city's venues in 2013. “I've heard that Melbourne is a great music city, so we'll definitely be checking that out. I'm very depressed about the Paris music scene lately, so it will be great to go somewhere with good music.”