Gojira is touring this summer and I thought it would be the perfect time to try to meet them. I’ve been working on the Art of Dying project for over a year now, and I really wanted to try to show them my work – even though it’s not finished yet - and see what they thought.
So last Friday morning (July 16), I got on the 6:30 AM train from Nice, and traveled 9 hours to Blois, a small town about 2 hours from Paris. The show was scheduled in a small club, the Chato’do.
I was a bit nervous. I talked to the girl running the merch stand, to see if possibly there was some way of meeting them. I wasn’t too sure if anything would happen – especially since I knocked a full cup of water all over the merch table! But she texted me later on, told me to come back and wait after the show.
Gojira à Blois, Flying Whales
I had a great time at the show. They played well, and the ambiance was really great. It was a full house, with kids crowdsurfing and stagediving all over the place. There were feet in the air everywhere, it was a bit funny even.
Gojira à Blois, fin de concert
After the show, I waited around for about 2 hours, talking to a couple of really wasted and aboslutely hilarious guys.
Around 1:30 AM, most of the club had cleared out, and the guys from the band came out.
I was able to meet the Mario Duplantier (drums) first. I started talking about the project and pulled out the little moleskine notebook I’ve been working in. I think at first he didn’t expect much of anything other than random fan art.
And then I unfolded the whole moleskine notebook (the accordion is several feet long!) and talked about the idea behind it… and he said, oh we’ve got to get Joe over here to see this. Joe Duplantier is his brother and the singer/guitar player. From what I understand, they do the primary song-writing in the band.
The whole experience was quite surreal. They were very friendly and seemed very genuine, and it was quite different from meeting an American group: it didn’t seem as superficial, and was much less intimidating because of that.
It seemed like they were taken aback by the complexity and depth of the work – and mentioned several times that it was the first time anyone had shown them anything like that.
One of the things Joe said was that the project captured the basis of their creative thought-process – strings of sequences looping around each other. Mario talked about about how their songs are percussion-based, because the guitar, bass and voice also function as essentially percussive elements.
We talked a little about visualizing music, and Joe mentioned how they often talk together about the color of their songs and that they coordinate the lighting with those colors! And of course I was spacey and forgot to ask what their colors for the songs were. I regret not asking what color the “Art of Dying” is for them.
I would have loved to be able to talk with them more about their creative process and the way that they see things, composition-wise and creatively.
But just meeting and talking with the Duplantier brothers and showing them my artwork was an experience I'll never forget.
With Joe Duplantier:
