We Were Evergreen
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We Were Evergreen

Rugby, England, United Kingdom | Established. Jan 01, 2006 | INDIE

Rugby, England, United Kingdom | INDIE
Established on Jan, 2006
Band Pop Folk

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"We Were Evergreen - Live At Village Underground, London Bringing summer to Shoreditch CLASHLIVE / REVIEWS / 13 · 03 · 2013 0"

We Were Evergreen - Live At Village Underground, London
Bringing summer to Shoreditch
CLASHLIVE / REVIEWS / 13 · 03 · 2013 0


Achingly twee and beautiful in equal measures, Parisian electro-indie-pop band We Were Evergreen opened their sold out Village Underground show with perfect three-part harmony, ukulele (Michael Liot), xylophone (Fabienne Débarre) and guitar (William Serfass). Suddenly Shoreditch was full of summer.

In their varying levels of adorable and attractive indie the band wove together pop-folk and heavy electro Euro-beats to create a completely original and exhilarating sound. Once we were able to tear ourselves away from just looking at their three beautiful faces, we noticed that the live performance was musically almost unbelievable; the harmonies were faultless (and seemingly effortless), as were the range of sounds they created between them - all multi-instrumentalists. Even with Débarre’s synthesizers adding a pleasing dissonance the songs were relentlessly upbeat.

Serfass’s riff-based electric guitar work inspired the crowd into a clap-along, highlighting the Paul Simon, 'Graceland', characteristics in the rhythm, with the percussion taking on steel drum elements at times. By this point he was also playing parts of a drumkit with his feet, which he then looped so that Débarre (who also had parts of a drum kit) and himself created a backing track for the song to continue over. The distribution of responsibility appeared to be even between the trio, each of them working hard to create the huge electro drops that then swept back to tiny pop melodies. Third song in the set ‘Summer Flings’ demonstrated Débarre as a talented percussionist far beyond the standard indie-cute addition of xylophone. Serfass also played bass or percussion to create and loop the lower frequency lines, while central Liot took up the acoustic guitar.

The newer material they played had strong reggae influences that they transformed somehow into discordant lamenting pop. The use of cross-rhythms and bittersweet joy and melancholia was addictive and the heavier drops were pure Parisian synth-pop. Liot (on trumpet now) juxtaposed new melody lines over the dance (almost garage) beats in unexpected but totally appropriate ways.

They were part Bird and The Bee, with almost Wham! levels of ridiculousness and something between worldbeat combined with Paul McCartney’s 'Rupert and the Frog Song'. There were Arcade Fire-esque repeated lines leading to shattering crescendos and Mumford & Sons foot-stomping moments.

Their recorded material doesn’t do the power or variation in their music justice at all, and when they had opportunities to move away from their stations they danced and spun around each other onstage with infectious joy. From country harmonies to calypso beats, to the Belle & Sebastian influenced ‘Vintage Car’ in which Serfass beat-boxed bass and drum lines before looping them so that they were all dancing around once more, all playing percussion until the music built to trance proportions.

As the crowd’s woops and cheers bounced off the ceiling they returned to the stage for Débarre to come centre and perform a slower song, ‘Eighteen’. Her voice and the electric guitar were joined eventually by Liot’s trumpet, before he changed back to the ukulele while she took up the harmonica for a solo (keeping up?). Finally ‘Penguins & Moonboots’ brought the energy levels soaring back, not leaving one single stationary listener.

They completely turned all preconceptions upside-down while simultaneously charming everyone in the room. We cannot stress enough how important it is that you see this band live before you decide whether or not they are your cup of tea.



Words by Finn D'Albert

We Were Evergreenlive reviewVillage UndergroundLondon - Clash Magazine


"A Conversation With.."

A conversation with the delightful French trio in the recording studio as they wrestle with translating their exceptional live shows into a unique debut album and working out how to mimic the sound of a pigeon.

WORDS / Michael C. Lewin
PHOTOGRAPHY / Rio-Romaine
STYLING / Aaron Francis Walker
GROOMING / Cathy Ennis using Bumble & Bumble and Mac Pro

French trio We Were Evergreen innately understand life’s messy magic: a democratic trio, Fabienne, William and Michael do that most important thing a band can do – create a world at once deep and resonant that we all want a part of. Their music, a strange folk-pop-dance-world hybrid that must be experienced to be understood, transports you through a combination of joyful harmonies and rich beats into this strange visual world of myths and literature.

They’re noted for their incredible live shows: their chic Gallic charm worn lightly and giddily, completely winning. Currently holed up in a south London studio with Alt-J producer Charlie Andrews, they’re in the process of completely reimagining their music for their debut record.

In conversation revealing their wonderful three-headed egalitarianism, discussing the process of finding that photograph of where they are right now: drawing a line against the past, looking forward, running towards it; not knowing what’s there, but excited to find it and all the more excited by that mystery of the creative process.

++++++++

NOTION: Do you notice anything different about the songs you’re writing now that you’re trying to construct a full album in the studio at once? Does that change your process of writing?

MICHAEL: The fact that we’re now at this point in our life – let’s say ‘our path’, as ‘We Were Evergreen’ – means that there are things that we want and things that we don’t want anymore. We’re going in some directions that we like, and I think the studio right now is for trying out those directions. Often we’re surprised about where we’re going, and sometimes we’ll find ideas, and they’ll push the ideas that we have altogether, and then Charlie will push us in one direction that we weren’t possibly expecting… So I think the key idea in there is that we’re letting ourselves be surprised a bit, and finding really cool sounds that we like, that we find original, and that we want to keep. It’s basically about trying to find what defines us right now

NOTION: What choices have you made? Can you tell me specifically those choices? What aren’t We Were Evergreen? We can think in the abstract, or we can think in very specific terms. What have you actively decided against?



FABIENNE: What we don’t want is to be invaded by gimmicks, or ideas as to why we were doing the songs for a live purpose. There’s always a way to arrange it all together and to make it interesting, extended in a live version so that the audience is enjoying it. What we want to do is to go for simplicity. I would say what WWE is not now is this chaotic thing that we had before; we don’t want to be like psychopaths, but we want to go for the right melodies or the right moments and just to balance each other more.

WILLIAM: What WWE is not is the work of one person. It’s definitely the work of different people and of different things. Different things and different people working on one thing, trying not to make a mess of ideas.

F: It was already the aim when we recorded Leeway to restrict ourselves, but in a good, positive way. We still don’t know if it’s going to be on the album or not; we need to think about it. We’re still really happy with the song, but it’s something we need to-

M: -but it definitely feels like it was more of a stepping stone towards what we’re doing now, and I think we’re going towards an even more exciting direction, because we’re taking more choices. I think now we’re trying to get rid of more and more, even though it’s not an easy job, because there’s so much behind us. There’s five years of songs, and I think we’re really going for ‘now’, and not ‘now plus yesterday’.

F: And also because we want to – it’s a big word – but we want to stay honest. We don’t want to change just for the sake of changing; we try to stay true to what we really believe in. It’s just like how we evolve as people. If anyone thinks back to what he was five years ago… We want to keep something ‘essential’ in the songs, avoiding ‘fake images’, because that’s something that we can fall into.

NOTION: So what’s the big picture for the album?

F: we all grew up with a love of the proper album, being really interested in an album as a sort of coherent piece of work. So it’s a big task to have all the songs in perspective and to see how everything fits together in a nice, developing way, but that’s not too repetitive or… in the theme. It’s something that’s really important for us.

W: we were going to do a blend, but then when we arrived in the studio, we were like ‘no, we’ll just make the choice’ – not deleting the past, but letting go.

F: It was quite easy. We all agreed quite quickly on that.



W: It was really frustrating in a way, because you kind of think ‘maybe I’ve grown, so I know better; the sound that I want to use, the lyrics that I want to say… but I could take my old work and make it happen like I want it now’. But in fact, maybe not! So you’re just guessing that what you’ve done had to be done like that at this point, and you have to let it go this way…

M: The thing is, you need to have ambition. If there’s something you really feel strongly about, and you think ‘I need to do these 25 songs on an album’, because otherwise there’s no other way that I could see this record; that may be a different thing. For us, we felt that it was time to let it go, and it was really the right thing to do

NOTION: So now that you’ve moved away from ‘live’ constructions of songs, what happens when you go back to gigging?

W: What’s definitely going to happen is when we go to play these songs live, we’re going to take the ideas of the album and develop it as much as possible, because you can’t put everything you’d like to put in a song on an album, so you have to express it live.

NOTION: What’s inspiring the lyrics? Michael, are you still primarily writing those?

M: Yeah. I think in the choices that we made with the songs, sometimes the choices are not lyric-based, but I think the songs that we’ve now done all fit together thematically. There’s also…

W: The question of territories.

M: Territories, places

W: we’ve moved. Before it was about being French in London, trying to do an English job – which is music – in a character sort of way. England is a music country compared to France, which is more of a food country, if I can summarise things. It’s interesting to try to live somewhere else and to dream about moving and travelling



M: And the question of moving forwards, backwards, memory… that kind of stuff. What I’m trying to do – this sounds very pretentious, but it’s the only time I can talk about it – but what I’d like to create with all this is to have a sort of personalised mythology; what is the essence of mythologies, the common point between all the mythologies of the world, and I think what I’d like to create with the lyrics of these songs is to find those key elements and create our own little mythology around it, in the sense that we’re taking the same elements, but personalising them to us and to our times… All the themes and characters… every song has a theme that is linked to a myth – some known myths, and some lesser-known myths.. but they’re all linked

NOTION: You told me about your music having a visual edge; is that true of the music you’re making now? A cinematic approach, being about a lot of images coming at you in the way it sounds…

W: We keep imitating our own sounds during our recording. If you have a strange sound, we’re going to find something that the sound could belong to.

F: Sadly this afternoon it was a pigeon.

M: Something that sounds like a pigeon.

W: It could be a monkey or whatever. Anyway, so we kind of figure out the sound in the music we’re doing. Also, each time we’re mixing, we kind of ‘direct’; like ‘hmm what would be the video for this?’ It’s kind of obvious sometimes.

F: And also we have – this sounds a bit mystical – but sort of like when you have colours that you associate with songs. It’s funny because sometimes we don’t share the same thing, but it’s really something that can make you feel how the song could be as one, because if some kinds of sounds or a part doesn’t fit the colour, like ‘this is not orange’… It sounds a bit stupid, but I think it’s a kind of a synaesthesia; we see it as having a visual aspect. Not on all the songs – sometimes it doesn’t happen – but it’s a good way of being.

W: If you give everything to the listener, he doesn’t listen. It’s the difference between cinema and theatre. In cinema, you give everything. In theatre, you suggest, and people think ‘hmm I think it could be like that’. We don’t want to fix it. We want to let anyone (read into it/decide the meaning?)… like for example if we play a silence, if we play nothing, but you can hear the silence, we just want to let people imagine whatever they want. - Notion


"We Were Evergreen Topshop Festival Diary"

WE WERE EVERGREEN FESTIVAL DIARY
Posted on August 11, 2014


With V Festival coming up this weekend, it’s time to get outfit planning! Need inspiration? We’re having a fabulous throwback to London’s Lovebox with the ever-chic Fabienne from Parisian indie band We Were Evergreen – read on as she gives us the skinny on her festival-ready looks.



“This outfit is great for the summer festivals – the cut-out shoes are practical but keep me cool when I’m out and about.”



“Trying on some co-ordinating hats in the dressing room to keep up the summer feel of my ensemble!”



“I love this palm print, and the cut of the top. My metallic nails also add that little bit extra!”



“I like to keep my hair simple and low maintenance so when Elle offered to do my make-up, I went for neutral tones with a touch of glitter.”



“I wanted to add some more colour to my stage outfit, so I changed to this cut-out maxi dress, which is ideal to perform in.”



“And here we are, We Were Evergreen performing live onstage at Lovebox!”



Like Fabienne’s festival style? Get her looks and more right here and buy We Were Evergreen’s album ‘Towards’ here. - Topshop Inside Out


Discography

EP 18 Dec 2009
Waiter Waiter
Eighteen
Vintage Car
The Sea in Between
Way Back Home
Penguins and Moonboots

Available on itunes and Spotify
New EP out early 2012

Photos

Bio

We Were Evergreen

The Fly magazine: “We Were Evergreen are like the Michael Cera of the French music world. There’s no denying it’s a summer-styled sound to fall in love with when life is indeed ‘belle”

We Were Evergreen are an alternative indie-electro-pop band from France. The Parisian trio were born in 2008, after a new year's resolution that, for once, actually stuck. Brought together by a shared fondness for all kinds of pop music and nursery rhymes, they tell stories of small trees growing too fast, of yodelling yaks and children flying south for the winter: stories of adolescence, of things lost, then found –then lost again. There's a naïve freshness to their toy-like instruments, and their mellow-yet-uplifting choruses will inevitably get caught in your brain – just throw in some live sampling, a lot of percussions and a dash of electro, and you'll find your hands and feet joining in too.
We Were Evergreen are back in the UK as the main support for Charlie Simpson, Ed Sheeran at The Q Awards and Michael Kiwanuka.
The band is going from strength to strength securing a sync on a Louis Vuitton advert soon to be released and airplay on the Radio Nova ‘Playlist A’ in France.
We Were Evergreen have also been on BBC national news and had articles in The Sunday Times as well as videos on SB.TV and Fly TV.

We Were Evergreen have recently supported Little Dragon at The Great Escape, The Wombats at Lovebox, The Guillemots busking for War Child, Soko as well as playing Wilderness ,Vintage, Secret Garden Party and Green Man Festivals over the summer season. They sold out their 2 debut UK headline shows.