Gabrielle, Joseph & Louis wear full looks GIVENCHY

Words REUBEN HENRY-FELLOWS

“The most relevant thing is not trying to repeat yourself” Joseph, Keep Dancing Inc.’s bass player, divulges whilst discussing the band's creative process. “It’s dangerous to force,” Louis, the band’s lead vocalist, adds, “it’s not possible to quantify, it’s about exploring new territories.” They might be hailed as guards of a resurgent new-wave of French Touch house, however quantifying the Parisian trio’s music catalogue under a singular theme, other than a drive to push the needle forward, is a tall order.

Formed on the heart of the French capital’s dancefloor during a chance meeting at a gig, Joseph, Louis – and Gabrielle, the band’s drummer and third and final member – embody the fluid nature of the synth indie-pop fusion that saturates their every record.

Gabrielle wears jacket, trousers MM6, vest AMI Paris, Joseph wears full look ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, Louis wears full look LOUIS VUITTON

Self-described pop writers with an indie rock ethos, the band’s signature blend of achingly melancholic lyrics drizzled over infectious euro-disco beats draws inspiration from an assortment of the genre’s greatest, including Change, Delegation and pre-eminent American disco heavyweights, Chic.

Ahead of their first self-produced album release, A Taste Of Possibility, out today, Keep Dancing Inc. sit down with Man About Town, talking their take on the dancing spirit, Brittany recording sessions, performing for Saint Laurent... and human implosion at The Grammys?

Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us today! Let’s start at the beginning – can you tell us how you met?
Louis: I started the band with [Charles] maybe 10 years ago. We were looking for someone to join the band who had some experience in recording or could play bass and synth and Joseph met Charles.

Joseph: I met him and then he said to me like, ‘Oh I have a band with Louis would you be interested?’ And so I joined Keep Dancing Inc. in late 2015. We were a three-piece for three years, and then Gabby joined us on the drums. After our first record, Charles left the band and so we were back to being three, just Louis, Gabby and I.

It may sound like an obvious question, but how did you come up with the name?
Joseph:It was just like ‘keep dancing through the hard times’. The songs at the beginning [of our career] sometimes and still do have sad lyrics over joyful music. That was the idea – being sad but being on the dancefloor.

Louis: At the time we were listening to a lot of disco funk music, bands like Change or Delegation and Chic. The ‘keep dancing’ part of the name resonated with the music we were discovering at the time.

Your music has gained recognition through its blend of synth-pop and electronic elements, how do you balance all those influences to create your distinct sound?
Louis:Let's say I have a post-punk basis. I add elements that make the song, not pure post-punk and try to go as far as possible from what I have at the beginning [to create our songs].

Joseph:When we begin jamming together on something that we [create], we don't tend to think about it too much. We go through after and add references to things that we are going through until we have our song.

Gabrielle wears jacket, trousers MM6, vest AMI Paris, Joseph wears full look ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, Louis wears full look LOUIS VUITTON

What or who have been your musical inspirations?
Louis:Thefunny thing is that usually I'm not consciously influenced [by other songs], but I find out after listening to [the song] what influenced me or what might have influenced me.

Joseph:Bands that mix rock and electronic music, like Arcade Fire, New Order, LCD Soundsystem. Bands that have a big presence on stage. Keep Dancing Inc. has always been about mixing rock and electronic music with pop songwriting.

Louis:We’ve got pop songwriting with an indie rock ethos.

In 2021 you played a closed-set gig for Saint Laurent’s Rive Droite, talk us through that experience.
Joseph: It was cool because it was during COVID and so we didn't have many opportunities to play at the time.

Louis: It proved to be quite instrumental in making the second album because we had to make stripped-down versions of our songs. I was just playing the guitar, Joseph would play one bass or one synth and Gabi would play the drums. Without that concert, we wouldn't have had that many harmonies in the album or that many backing vocals – it was quite an important element for the evolution of the band.

Taste of Possibilityis your first self-produced album. Why did you decide to go in that direction?
Joseph: It was a reaction to the first album that we did with a producer, the amazing Tom Carmichael. For the second one, we thought to ourselves, ‘Let's see what we’re capable of’. There were ups and downs, but it was great to challenge ourselves, to see if we were capable of doing it. That’s what we had in mind when we began the whole process for this record. It was two and a half years in total with a lot of back and forth between studios.

With musical experimentation being an important facet of your creative process, did you have a particular theme you wanted to explore going into this album?
Joseph: When we began demo-ing for the second record, we got together in my family house in Brittany, and we just jammed stripped-back tracks for a month there. Just the guitar, the bass and the drums, with a lot of added vocal harmonies.

 
Louis:The goal was to make it more efficient than the first one but with fewer elements, and we managed to do that. We wrote maybe three or four songs [on the album] with the same mindset, which is what makes them so coherent together. It’s more eclectic in terms of lyrics in that core group of songs. They share the same theme. Gabby also had a song in that spirit, "Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind".
 
The track “GPS”, in the middle of the album, is an interesting departure from the rest of the album sonically, can you tell us about that artistic choice?
Louis: It was a demo on my computer for easily four years. I didn’t know what to do with it, I was just in a unique mindset after Brittany and I found lyrics to [accompany it]. It's pretty peculiar in the album process because it's the only one that was made on the computer whereas all the other ones were made jamming.

Joseph: On our first record, we had this one song, “Silent & Satisfied”, which has the same feeling. “GPS” is the same as “Silent & Satisfied” as the one song that stands out for providing that freshness in the middle of the record, to drastically change the sound. It’s intentional, like a breath of fresh air.

What would be your dream venue to play in the future?
Louis:Madison Square Garden. In the near future? Electric Brixton. It’s big, it’s mythical, I mean – it’s legendary.

Joseph:For me, Brooklyn Steel. It’s just a great venue.

Where’s your next concert being held?
Louis: We can’t tell you right now unfortunately but it’s in the making. We’re having a release party in a bar or record store in Paris in the next few days.

If you had to look into the future, how would you like Keeping Dance Inc. to be remembered?
Louis: As a group that spontaneously exploded on stage at the climax of the show. The band who imploded while receiving the Grammy for the best album of the year all over the person who presented us with the award.

Quite the climax to what will undoubtedly be a stellar career.
Louis:Yeah, not a bad way to go.

Photography David Reiss
Styling Olga Timofejeva at The ONLY Agency
Styling Assistant Olivia Laghi
Make up Katie Mooreusing Hourglass Cosmetics
Hair Sven Bayerbach at Carol Hayes Managementusing Maria Nila