The group Deluxe unveils its new album Mustache Gracias on March 18. On the occasion of the release of this 6th opus, we spoke with Lily Boy, the singer and electric battery of the group.
Deluxe is now an essential band in the French electro pop scene. The merry band from Aix en Provence has reigned over the genre for several years thanks to its punchy titles and catchy melodies (try not to dance while hearing Superman Where pony). Deluxe is made up of 5 mustached boys (Kaya, Kilo, Pépé, Pietre, Soubri) and a girl, Lily Boy. This nickname was given to her because she fit perfectly into this 100% testosterone group.
The singer, who joined the group 12 years ago, is today probably the best known face. On stage or in the clips of their songs, she catches the eye with the energy she releases. Almost in perpetual motion, she shakes the sequins of her colorful costumes and mustache skirt. Place in the group, creative desires, life as an artist… Lily Boy confided in aufeminin on the occasion of the release of the album Mustache Gracias on March 18, 2022.
Lily Boy, Deluxe’s Electric Battery
Being the only girl in the group, you get used to it after 12 years?
I think it has become commonplace, I have no element of comparison in fact in my life. We listen to each other more and more and better and better, like a long relationship as a couple. We are a “group” in fact (laughs), and that’s the main thing about communication, but personally I feel totally listened to and extended. After our concern sometimes, it is to agree. We have billions of ideas, we must agree to focus on a single idea, even if it is not his. A lot of times, I come out with the argument that I’m a girl and that I represent half of the world’s population, so my opinion should count more. But it doesn’t work, I don’t have a double vote.
Precisely being the only girl, is it an advantage or a disadvantage?
I’m one of the girls who woke up really late. Because being a girl was more of a privilege experience, being the only one in the middle of a group of boys. I am always offered to pamper myself, I am offered a dressing room all by myself, when they are all crammed into the same one. I am clearly part of a privileged minority who do not realize this. But maybe also because of my position as the only girl, I’m used to always speaking loudly and saying what I don’t like. An artist with whom we collaborated and who wanted to play something on stage for example, I immediately told him “No, my character is not into seduction, that does not interest me.”
Do you have a favorite song in this new album?
Personally, the song I’m very proud of is Gorilla. It’s about addiction, it’s an allegory of a toxic relationship between a person and drugs. This song, I’ve had it in me for a long time, it’s a personal piece, which was not mature enough for the previous album. I think Mustache Gracias, he’s going to surprise people, and our regular fans. We reveal ourselves more, we have tried things. Now we assume stripping, to indulge in the personal. And musically, we explored the fact of also being different individuals, and not just a group of 6. It’s maturity yes, but above all letting go, we now say to ourselves “Well, it’s good guys, now we do what we want”.
After 12 years in a band, do you want to make a solo career?
We all inevitably ask ourselves the question, the Covid crisis pushed us to question ourselves when we didn’t really have a job. But I realize that I think I won’t have the shoulders. We have this crazy chance after 12 years of experience to be a tight-knit family. When there is one who is slack, there is always one to support him. Alone, I think I would have been so exhausted.
What do you prefer in the life of an artist?
Without hesitation: being on stage. All the above, the composition, the construction, the production, the recording, it’s just a pretext to join the scene. It’s as if we were doing our homework, we revise for a long time, and once on stage, it’s the end, the release of balloons we have nothing more to think about. We no longer need to agree, the discussions are over, we just enjoy the public. My first feeling is to say to myself “Ah, that’s why I’m doing all this.”
Loïse is addicted to current events, to TV series which she consumes whenever she has the time, to comics, to running which she practices whether it rains or snows, and…