Kero Kero Bonito and Tapeworms Are Coming From the Same Place

Gus Lobban is a London-based multi-instrumentalist who plays in the indie pop band Kero Kero Bonito; Théo and Elliott Poyer and Margot Magnière form the Lille-born, Tokyo-based band Tapeworms. The newest Tapeworms record, Grand Voyage, was just released earlier this month, so to celebrate, the band sat down with Gus to catch up about how it came to be.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music

Gus Lobban: Welcome to the Gus Lobban journalism experience. I relistened to both records, Funtastic and Grand Voyage, in anticipation of this, and I think it might be nice to start with a bit of context. Funtastic came out in 2020, right? 

Théo Poyer: Yeah. 

Gus: What happened between Funtastic and Grand Voyage? What was the journey from that record to this one? 

Théo: A long journey. Honestly, it’s difficult to summarize. Funtastic was released in September 2020. It was supposed to come out in April, but with COVID, the record label thought we should push it back. But a bit before, in March 2020, it was our very first trip in Japan that we did with Margot. We went to Japan for a month, but we cut our trip short because of COVID, and we went back to France. 

At the time, [Margot and I] were living in a community — it’s a bit complicated, but we’ve got some friends that are architects, and they had a project to renovate a big convent in the north of France, in a city called Roubaix close to Lille. We hadn’t any jobs at the time, so we started working on new songs, even though Funtastic wasn’t released yet. We knew that we wanted to add some electronic pop elements in our music, but the challenge was that we relied too much on instruments and rock music in a way. 

Gus: What triggered that desire to move away from just rock music? 

Théo: Maybe to feel even more like outsiders in the French scene than we were at the time. [Laughs.] No, I don’t know. I guess we were already a bit tired of the sound we had on [Funtastic].

Margot Magnière: I think also because of COVID, and the fact that Funstatic had to live in the world without us being able to play live shows, we started to work on remaking some songs in a way we could perform to make videos on internet. It was basically just backing tracks and us singing or playing synths, and I think it was the first step for us to realize that it was fun and we can work together remotely in this way, too. 

Théo: Yeah. And I think the fact that each of us were in different places and it was a bit difficult at the time to practice instruments, a few days before lockdown, each of us bought some synths or sequencers or drum machines to have fun at home. So we realized that we could put some more electronic stuff in our music, and that it wasn’t that complicated. Because I think we wanted to do it for Funtastic, but we weren’t skilled enough to do it. Being in front of the instruments, it forced us to put that in our music, and we started being more confident about it. It took some time, but I guess it was for the better.

Gus: Do you think [Grand Voyage] would be a particularly different record if COVID had never happened?

Elliott Poyer: Maybe. I think that’s mainly a question about technical issues. We weren’t good enough to record a drums or anything like that, so it was easier to create it on a DigiTech, or else a computer or something. So yeah, the album may be different if COVID didn’t happen.

Théo: Yeah, on the technical side, that’s definitely true. Thematically, I don’t know. COVID happened at a time in our life where we wanted some change, so it just accelerated that. But I think that was a common feeling. The theme of travel or of searching for joy in other places — I think it’s also because we were feeling a bit stuck in our life at the time and so we wanted something else. 

Gus: How do you think the themes on the album are connected with how you guys were feeling while you were making it?

Margot: It’s complex because, yeah, it was a long process — four years almost. And I feel like everything we do with Tapeworms is always hyper connected to what we live in real life. Because, especially with Théo, we get to see each other a lot, so we talk a lot about what we are going through, and I think it is a big source of inspiration for us. And because it was almost four years of work, I think it just changed over time.

Théo: But through each time period, we could feel some connection with what we had written before. So I guess the theme of Grand Voyage is really deeply connected to us because it speaks to the many [versions of] us that helped construct those songs. 

Only speaking for me, [part of that was] to be aware of what I’m able to achieve and also what I want from life — because professionally, I was a graphic designer before COVID, and while working on the album, I just had to accept the fact that maybe I’m not made to do that job. It’s a bit too hard for me. I’m much more happy having a really simple job and having time to play music and see my friends. But I had to accept the fact that I was not the perfect picture of the creator that I pictured in high school. And that [theme] is all over Grand Voyage. 

Margot: I think during these years, we learned with the band to stop waiting for something very big, and to do what we like to do, how we want to make it, and maybe just be kinder to ourselves. Which is not easy, to give up on some dreams.

Théo: But it’s OK, because some dreams are completely not your dreams at all. It’s a bit fake. And I think through social media and stuff, you start creating some pictures of what your dreams are, but it’s not what actually makes you happy. So I guess it was just coming to the fact that, yeah, we are simple people. 

Gus: Well, that’s really interesting because I think a lot of good things are born from this situation of an artist’s back being against the wall. And I think the irony of it all is the fact that this is surely your biggest release to date. While it is related to your feelings about being grounded, basically, nonetheless you produced something which I think is worthy of dreaming. So maybe there’s a lesson in there for creators in general: If you bring it back to ground and to reality a bit, that’s actually where you can start to make interesting things happen. 

Who were your main musical inspirations for this record?

Théo: One obvious pick for me would be Sonic Coaster Pop. I was obsessed with achieving that sound — that you definitely cannot redo, but I was obsessed. And when Funtastic came out, a few people told us about the Cardigans, and we never had listened to The Cardigans before. Or, not that much; the main singles, I would say. So we started listening to the albums, and it was really inspiring at the time. Also, a bit of club music. That something that wasn’t really part of the Tapeworms sound before. And we’re not nerds about that, we don’t know that much, but I started listening to house music through the lens of video games, in a way, because we were big players of Jet Set Radio at the time. It features a lot of house music, really sexy club music, and through that we started listening to a bit of club music. What about you, Elliott?

Elliott: It was kind of the same for Funtastic, but lots of Sweet Trip. And I’m not gonna lie, lots of KKB, too.

Gus: Oh, that’s cool!

Théo: I think the switch from Bonito Generation to TOTEP actually made us feel a bit more confident about what we were doing at the time. And you switching from the more instrument-based indie sound from Time ‘n’ Place to Civilisation was also inspiring, because at the time, that was a move we were doing also. 

Gus: Well, thank you very much. That’s very sweet of you to say. This is something I think about a lot; I think that there is this conscious effort by KKB to stake new territory and to reinvent in the way that most of the the pop acts who have had really sustainable careers have tried to do, whether that’s Björk or Bowie or the Beatles. But that being said, there is something about the way we’ve done it in KKB — there is a kind of aesthetic logic to it that I think only makes sense to people who are coming from the same place. And one of the things that’s interesting about Tapeworms is I think that you guys are coming from a similar place. I think even if you if we’d never met and KKB and Tapeworms had never heard each other, there would still be some kind of shared attitude.

I have this theory that there is a kind of “future rock” canon that our generation has codified some understanding of that other people wouldn’t understand. And it’s really come through a very organic process of music listeners sharing recommendations, and kind of networked recommendations on things like Rate Your Music, but also access to the internet. So it’s things like Sonic Coaster Pop being in the same sphere as Sweet Trip, and then I think you can extend it to acts like Takako Minekawa, or more recent things like Crying and Cende. It’s all what I call the “future rock continuum,” where it demonstrates the connection between something like My Bloody Valentine and a GRRL x Made of Oak 12”. And Supercar, of course, Highvision. I think that’s a good example.

Théo: The best example of that, actually.

Gus: I’m kind of stating my own manifesto on this a bit, but I am curious about what your take is on, what is the deal with this so-called “future rock”? Why does it exist? What is it?

Théo: I think there’s a common feeling for us that, everyone told us that after 2000, the world we were about to live in was futuristic and exciting, a bit cyberpunk in a way. When we were young, the future seemed like it was about to be amazing. Movies were taking place in the future, and flip phones… We were prepared to live something awesome. And it was not the case at all. I think many of many of the people our age are a bit disappointed in what was our existence after those times, and [“future rock”] is maybe a way of us wanting to get something better, or get that feeling back. I think it’s definitely nostalgia, but it’s also seeing the world not getting better in many points.

Gus: I think there’s something in that, this idea of trying to pick up the pieces of this optimist wreck.

Théo: Yeah, that’s definitely the word, “optimist.” And I think it was a time where the blend between rock music and electronic music and club music was still a bit exciting because it was new, and it was done very naively. Stuff like Supercar…

Gus: I think Sweet Trip fits into that as well.

Théo: Yeah. It’s more a bit more nerdy, but it fits. 

Margot: I remember us listening a lot to Madonna albums.

Théo: That is true. Madonna is one of the biggest inspirations for the album. Music and Ray of Light, of course. When you see those albums and the music videos, that there is the optimistic feeling about the future, and the kind of weird blend between trip hop, electronic music, rock music.

Gus: Yeah, that’s actually a really interesting example, because while Madonna — obviously, corporate pop star — the connection between her and someone like Sweet Trip might not be that obvious, but they are both undoubtedly touched by this kind of end of the ‘90s, start of the noughties, tech optimism. Why does this micro-canon exist, of music that is guitar-oriented, and often specifically shoegaze-oriented, but with this sort of technological aspect? As you were saying earlier, it ties into other worlds, like video game music. Even though on the surface, it’s not an obvious combination, I think it has a lot to do with the mixture of things that were happening at the time. We were conceiving our notions of these aesthetics. Maybe this is a thing just because this was all the stuff that was floating around our heads when we were 10. And we spit it out again looking for the meaning of our lives now, in this weird, mashed up way. You know, the Smashing Pumpkins probably weren’t listening to the Katamari Damacy soundtrack, but we were listening to both. 

While it was made before Margot and Théo had moved to Tokyo, how are you approaching releasing the album with you guys in different continents?

Margot: The fact that we were leaving inspired us in thinking about the visuals of the album. Actually, being here could be read as the end of the process of the album. It is our grand voyage. 

Théo: Yeah. We get questions in interviews like, “Did Tokyo help you add the final touch on the album?” I think a lot of people [ think that] we did a big part of the album while being in Tokyo, and it’s not the case at all. And that’s pretty funny, the clash between the storytelling of the album and the life of the album itself and how it was constructed. But I think we were super excited about, like you said, the visual possibilities of Tokyo for promotional images and videos and stuff. 

Gus: Did you know you were going to move to Japan while you were finishing the album?

Théo: Yeah. It’s a long process to get the visa. It was something we had in mind since we came back from Japan, actually. It was cut short, so we wanted to spend more time there. So we took a Japanese class. Our level is still super shit, but we did take some Japanese.

Gus: Hey, you gotta give it a go.

Théo: For a year or so, we were thinking about, “What can we do? Maybe just holidays…” But it’s not that satisfying. We wanted to experience common life in Japan. That was the thing that was the most appealing for us, just day-to-day life in Japan.

Gus: Yeah. Not riding the Shibuya go-karts.

Théo: [Laughs.] No! 

Gus: I mean, I guess it’s easy for us to try and be the good gaijin when we’re in Japan, but I don’t know. I’d be annoyed if I saw it in London, I can say that.

Théo: I would feel super good with that if those people were enjoying their time on the go-kart. But they are not.

Gus: [Laughs.] They never do.

Théo: But we had to make a big file of why we wanted to get that visa, what we wanted to do in Japan. We worked on it, like, for six months, so it was completely related to the writing process of the album. I think we had the answer about the fact that we could come to Japan approximately at the same time that we finished writing the album, and it was going into the mixing part.

Gus: It does seem to me like your travels are related to this record, even though it was made in France. I think that it’s quite interesting that there’s this funny background narrative of you guys anticipating Margot and Théo’s movement to Japan, and I do think that’s reflected in the record. Maybe I’m just projecting, but I do feel like the fact that you literally were about to go on this grand voyage, and now you’re in Japan while you’re releasing this record that has this kind of aspirational, internationalist theme — I think it’s quite cool. 

I’m going to ask one last question. What, if anything, do you want this album to give to the world?

Elliott: I hope the album can speak the same way to an adult as to an a child. I just want people to feel a sense of wonder listening to the album, the same wonder I felt listening to The Go! Team — because it was maybe the first entry for me into what, I guess we could call, niche music.

Théo: I definitely feel you about that. I think something that we have in mind when working on music is to produce something that is not only appealing for adults, but also younger audiences. Because that’s the experience we had, listening to those bands that are still inspiring to us. 

Gus: Amazing answer. I always think of the way I felt as a youngster listening to a band like Late of the Pier — same era as The Go! Team, really — and how there was something very essential about that kind of personal codification that happens at that age. That is also obviously such an important aspect of pop music, being still a youth-oriented medium. Margot, do you feel that?

Margot: I completely see things the same way. I think the point with Tapeworms, at first anyway, was to make music that makes you feel good. I hope that listening to the album, people feel that. Our music, it’s not going to change the world the way we would like. [Laughs.] But if it gives a bit of that feeling we all have when we listen to music sometimes, then it’s good.

Gus: I’m sure that there will be lots of youngsters and people going through all kinds of things who will get a lot out of Grand Voyage. I’m excited for the world to get into it. Thank you for your time, and for letting me interview you.

Théo: Thank you. We couldn’t have a better person to do it than you!

(Photo Credit: left, Matilda Hill-Jenkins)