Chromeo: No laughing at ’80s electro-funk

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This article was published 24/09/2011 (5175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I just can’t believe how relaxing it is to be in Montreal. It’s completely crazy how no one is stressed here.”

Chromeo’s lead singer David Macklovitch, in town doing media for the band’s upcoming tour, looked around the cafe in The Village in wonder. He has lived in New York City for nearly 10 years, though he grew up in Outremont. He doesn’t come home often. His bandmate Patrick Gemayel remains a Montrealer who refuses to live anywhere else. Theirs is a long-distance collaboration.

“New York is just a really hard place to function,” Gemayel (stage name: P-Thugg) explains.

Macklovitch (stage name: Dave 1) sat down and immediately brought up the subject of Jack Layton. Just a few days after the politician died, Macklovitch arrived in Montreal to find himself in the midst of a massive outpouring of grief. As an outsider, he said he didn’t feel personally affected, but he started on an eloquent and well-informed discourse on what Layton meant to Quebecers.

Where were we? Right, this was supposed to be an interview about music. If Macklovitch sounds like a professor, that’s because he is: a PhD candidate in French literature at Columbia University who is defending his thesis in May, he has taught French classes at Barnard College. He’s taking a break from teaching this fall for Chromeo’s tour, which takes the band to Metropolis on Saturday as part of the Pop Montreal festival.

Chromeo’s music is lighthearted and always fun to dance to, but behind the occasionally silly veneer, everything from the song production to the duo’s image is very carefully thought out. They call their music an ode to ‘80s electro-funk- a forgotten genre of music, laughed at and dismissed by many critics, they said.

“When we came out with our first album (in 2004), no one would criticize a group like New Order, but everyone made fun of Rick James,” said Macklovitch. “We were like, ‘Why this bias?’ They’re contemporaries and they are just as interesting. Sure, one happens to wear leather pants, but who cares?”

The contrast between the two members is a hallmark of the band: Macklovitch, the tall, smooth crooner vs. Gemayel, the shorter guy with the long beard and crucifix around his neck. Gemayel is the quieter counterpart to Macklovitch’s expansiveness, the businessman of the band who just likes to fiddle with machines in his studio in easygoing Montreal.

Friends since high school at College Stanislas, they learned to play music together, along with Macklovitch’s younger brother Alain (better known as the superstar DJ A-Trak). Gemayel was the class clown, throwing spitballs; Macklovitch the smartass — but both were straight-A students, they said.

“My adolescent rebellion was bringing hip hop into an Outremont Jewish household,” Macklovitch said. “But my parents love all music. They know who Daft Punk is, they know who Jay-Z is — it’s amazing. My mom’s going to see Jay-Z on the Watch the Throne tour.”

Jay-Z comes up again and again, as does Kanye West, even though very little hip-hop influence can be heard in Chromeo’s music. Macklovitch calls hip hop the “last great American art form” and is a huge fan. Gemayel sounds like he could take or leave it. Their burning ambition is to have the kind of careers those two rappers do, to have an impact on culture and create a concert that is a lifetime experience for a fan. That’s the particular spot Macklovitch is trying to hit.

“There are so many people that are killing it today. What Kanye does, James Murphy, Bon Iver, what Hot Chip did — all these guys of our generation. We know all of them, but they’re so inspiring to us. They make me want to work harder to get to that spot.”

In the years since Macklovitch and Gemayel started playing music together, they’ve learned how to play their instruments, produce, sing, perform, and still keep the hunger to keep working at it. They will come right out and say they feel their music could still be so much better, that the band hasn’t reached its full potential, even though they’re playing large venues like Metropolis and festivals like Coachella.

“We’re essentially providing a service — like when you open a restaurant, you want to serve the best coffee or the best pasta in town. That’s Chez Chromeo,” Macklovitch said. That also means taking the business side of being in a band very seriously. They don’t do any heavy-duty partying like rock stars of yore and are proud of their professionalism. Gemayel does the band’s accounting himself. They are active on Twitter, they blog, they’re on YouTube, and they tour like crazy.

“That’s the modern-day rock star — a social-media savvy, self-promoting machine,” Macklovitch said.