Thomas Mars doesn’t say it outright, but he knows Phoenix just made a dance‑floor record. The kind that erupts in your living room on a random Tuesday, uninvited but very welcome. “Yeah… it’s a joyful record.”
Joyful, sure—but Phoenix joy always has a wink. A sideways grin. A little existential squint baked in under the glitter. And this time around, it’s wearing Italian disco shoes and running laps around a museum.
They famously secured a room above a museum to write the album, turning it into a long-term playground—a three‑year residency of jamming, tinkering, and ignoring the outside world. Mars shrugs at the mythology. “A lot of it is unconscious,” he says. “We don’t come in with material. The only decision we really make is picking our color palette—our favorite instruments we think we can use.” After that, it’s chaos. Happy chaos. “Sometimes the keyboard is a foot away and the guitar is closer and that’s why there’s more guitar. It’s that simple.”
If you’re looking for a deeply romantic, intentional origin story, Phoenix will politely decline. Their charms are more accidental. “When we started, limits were everywhere—money, time, equipment,” Mars explains. “Now we have everything on one computer. It’s overwhelming. So we have to give ourselves restrictions.” In other words, they fake the constraints of 1999 so they can survive 2017.
Lyrically, Mars leans heavily into love—but not in the greeting‑card sense. More like a Lucho Battisti song filtered through a French‑American telescope and refracted again by a band that likes things just a little off. “I don’t mind it’s the same story over and over,” Mars says. “I just want to tell it in a new way each time.”
He cites Battisti’s lyricist Mogol—masters of “simple idea, one twist”—as a guiding compass. Phoenix songs often hinge on that twist: a perspective shift so slight you barely notice it until the song hits the chorus and your brain goes, Wait… what?
It helps that English isn’t Mars’ native language. “When we started singing in English, people in France thought it was a betrayal. Like we wanted to be American,” he laughs. “It’s the opposite. We’re trying to create our own language.” The mispronunciations, the unconventional phrasing, the cryptic expressions that sound like metaphors even when they’re not—those are features, not bugs. “I’m glad it’s still cryptic,” he says. “There’s more charm in confusion.”
Mars cites Fellini—who famously shot movies on studio lots instead of the Rome streets they portrayed—as a kindred spirit. “He needed distance. He needed things to look slightly wrong,” Mars says. “Kubrick too. Full Metal Jacket was shot in a studio. Eyes Wide Shut. He wanted that fantasy, that fake‑real look.” Phoenix approaches music the same way: guitars that sound like synths, synths that sound like horns, voices that sound like characters instead of singers.
About that voice—“J‑Boy,” especially—Mars admits he was bored with his natural tone. “The more records we do, the more I try to change it. Get into character.” Bowie and Prince helped give him permission, he says—especially after their deaths flooded the internet with previously unseen performances. “They were always in character. Always messing with their voices.”
The band egged him on. “I could see my bandmates’ eyes light up when I changed my voice,” he says. “They encouraged me.” Guitarist Christian Mazzalai even developed a pedal that makes the guitar sound like someone speaking Japanese. “It’s awkward,” Mars admits, “but suddenly your instrument becomes something else.”
Their time at the museum brought unexpected perks too. They were scoring a Sofia Coppola film at the same time, often retreating to a tiny onsite movie theater where Coppola sent over fresh clips. “She knew exactly what she wanted. Very few instruments. Very fast decisions,” Mars says. “It was like recess for us.”
Actual recess also existed. When afternoon studio fatigue hit, the band wandered down to the venue inside the museum complex and watched whatever band happened to be sound‑checking. “It felt like being backstage at a festival,” Mars says. “Just peeking in, imagining tour life again.”
All that playfulness—real and manufactured—found its way onto the record. The album feels loose, sweaty, stylishly sloppy, the sonic equivalent of a Fellini street parade wandering into a discotheque.
“I’m glad you had a dance party,” Mars tells me at the end. “That’s the best reaction.”
The record practically begs for it—awkward moves welcome, cryptic lyrics encouraged, and joy absolutely required.
Listen to the interview above and then check out "J-Boy" below!
