"I like romantic movies with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant."

Justice discuss their poor taste in films, and their interest in working with Will Smith…

With Daft Punk enjoying their time in the back seat, 2007 has seen Justice take their place as the French elec­tronic duo of choice, with an amazing album and sell-out live shows.

Not letting the unmit­ig­ated failure of their 'DANCE' single put them off, Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé (you'd never know they were 'from the continent') are full of plans for the future – and those mostly involve a techno version of Mary Poppins…

Questions: Peter Robinson
Answers: Justice (obviously)

Hello, Justice. How much do you need to drink to fully enjoy a Justice live show?
Gaspard: For the audience or for us? We need to drink way too much to enjoy a show.
Xavier: We started to drink rum and began thinking that we wouldn't be able to enjoy our own shows if we didn't drink rum. At our last gig in New York City we didn't have any, so I drank a wine glass of vodka instead and it made me so sick. I went on stage and was about to puke so that night I had to stay sober. I couldn't even smoke because the vodka had made me so sick but it was the best gig we had ever done in the US. After that we carried on drinking at every show and it was still good. I think it's an illusion that we are alco­hol­ics though.
Gaspard: I think our show is good if the audience is drunk too.

Would Jesus enjoy your shows or would he need to be drunk too?
Xavier: He enjoys it. He told us this.
Gaspard: Jesus speaks to us every night.
Xavier: He is with us every night. He is in charge of all the lights.

Have you ever played any shows with anyone totally unsuitable?
Xavier: We played a festival in France recently with a singer who just sings songs for grannies. He was a singer who had hits in France in the 1960s and only the elderly knew who he was, after that was some French hip-hop and then finally us. It was a family festival.
Gaspard: It was more like a village fete than a festival.
Xavier: We didn't go down very well. By the time we came on the only people left were too drunk to even move.
Gaspard: We would have done better if we'd be selling hot dogs.

Did you submit anything for the Kylie album?
Xavier: It was in the pipes for us to do something a year ago but we were too busy finishing our own album and the plan just dis­ap­peared. We lost Kylie but we don't feel sad not to be on her album and if we had to produce an artist we would be more likely to produce a new artist than someone who is already famous. It is good to start adven­tures and not just jump on the train of someone already famous. I say that, and if Will Smith called us up tomorrow and asked us to produce the album, would I say yes? Of course. But if we had the choice between Will Smith and another guy who was starting out and releasing his first album then we'd choose the guy no one knew.

Do you mind licensing your music to films when the films in question turn out to be rubbish? For example, your track 'DVNO' is in the Timothy Olyphant thriller 'Hitman'.
Xavier: Unless we are aware things are going to be really bad, as artists you can never refuse. Plus, you can hear good music in bad movies. I always do, but then I'm easily pleased when it comes to movies. I like romantic movies with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. For me a bad movie doesn't really exist.

As a French elec­tronic band, is it the law that you must make a movie next?
Xavier: We would really like to make a film but it is such a cliché of the elec­tronic band making films that we couldn't, even though we have discussed it a lot.

What did you have in mind?
Xavier: We really want to make a musical comedy like Mary Poppins. We will try to make some more record­ings first though.

Is your second album going to be a high concept record paving the way for an impen­et­rable and dis­ap­point­ing third?
Xavier: Our first album was a concept album, even if it wasn't a great concept. It was just a disco record with all the tracks linked together with some gimmicks. We're just waiting for a new idea before we start working on a new album. I'm not sure we're looking for anything com­plic­ated, just a simple idea to make an album, not just a com­pil­a­tion of songs.

Is there anyone you would like to col­lab­or­ate with on the next album?
Gaspard: No, not really. The only col­lab­or­a­tions we ever make are with friends, we avoid getting famous people involved on the album.
Xavier: We could get Thom Yorke and the guy from Franz Ferdinand on the album and make them sing on some technopop but it sounds like a nightmare to us. Even if we like the artists sep­ar­ately, too many elec­tronic artists have made similar records and we don’t feel like it is such a great move.
Gaspard: And nothing really good ever came out of it.

We are sure you are right. Thank you very much Xaiver and Gaspard.