Splendid: How is Twilight Delirium significant to the band?

DJ: It is our reason for living. It is a holy time. Now the Delirium has become this yearly event that goes hand in hand with the bike race. For the past few years The France has decided to play a considerable amount of bizarre covers during this show which makes it fun and interesting. However, we don't have a filter when it comes to good or bad covers, so we can go from playing "Spacetruckin" by Deep Purple or "Outdoor Miner" by Wire to "I Love LA" by Randy Newman and "Ignition" by R Kelly. I think one year we even played "Sabotage" so it's obviously a zany evening. For the past three years we have had it at a club instead of a house due to its size and we try to invite a very diverse bunch of bands to play with us.

Splendid: Any outrageous stories you can share from this year's incarnation?

DJ: This year was The France, the Summer Hymns, Triple Velcro (amazing raunch stand up humor), King Shit and the Golden Boys (a GBV tribute we threw together) played. Loud music and a fair share of crazed fans. This year was the best by far. We have reworked one of our old songs, "I Can't Believe It I Can Fly", into this reggae styled song that the crowd just loves. It's called "Still Flyin'" and has a sing along chorus. Well, in-between every song, the crowd sang the chorus over and over...it was amazing. Ice also got yanked into the crowd during "Ice Age" and we looked out and he was crowd surfing on his back, still singing the song all throughout the crowd. The people were going crazy and tearing his clothes. He was thrust back onto the stage just as we kicked into the song again. We were also told that there was a Je Suis France cover band in Athens, and we tried to get them to open our show for us, but we couldn't find them. Someone told us they were too drunk and nervous. It would have been a surreal experience -- surreal and righteous.

Splendid: Like the Butthole Surfers, you went through several band names before settling on Je Suis France. What were some of the earlier names?

Darkness: Before our first show we didn't really have a name. We made fliers with about six different names on them, and then decided the day of the show to go by Je Suis France, which wasn't one of the names we advertised. I no longer remember the other names, unfortunately. I think one might have been Fortress America.

DJ: Oh, man, there were some bad ones. The one that sticks out in my mind as being the worst was Korea. I really liked some of the ones Darkness and Crog suggested, though...Fortress America, Shark Attack, What's The Frequency Kenneth?, and Awesome Riff. We made tons of different fliers for that show with all the different names on there but none of us ever really liked them or latched on to them.

Splendid: What inspired "Je Suis France"?

DJ: Our friend Matt Billings (from noise juggernauts Nipples For Days) sat next to this guy in one of his French classes at the University of Georgia who used to chant "Je Suis France" over and over before his tests to get pumped up and psyche out the test. Matt said he would just look down at the test and start chanting. Chanting is awesome, don't get us wrong. The night of our first show he came to us and said "I've got it!". And so it was. We didn't know how it was going to stick at first, but it has become everything that is our being since. Its so damn easy to name check it in our songs too...you just feel like yelling "The France!" all the time. And hey, that's cool. One of the best parts of the name is how it gets butchered when we play out of town. Some of the best: Juice De France, Jesus France, and Je Suispants. Damn, I really wish we would have thought of some of those.

Darkness: It's a quote from Charles de Gaulle. We were enchanted by his arrogance.

Splendid: What compelled you to keep the name?

Darkness: We wanted a name that people would always misunderstand and/or mispronounce. We probably should have changed names after Jeff, the drummer, joined in 1999. We were disgustingly horrible before he signed up. A lot of people who saw us before he joined still refuse to give us a second chance today.

Splendid: While you were making Fantastic Area there was a lot of anti-France sentiment going around. French fries were being called freedom fries, French wine was being poured down drains, people stopped buying Renaults, and then you guys drop an album with a picture of the Statue of Liberty and French writing on the cover. Was this a reminder that France is a friend?

Darkness: I wouldn't say that. We personally don't feel any bonds of friendship between us and France. There's something of an uneasy respect between the two of us. We did play a couple shows as Je Suis Freedom last spring, but apparently there's already a band called that in Tampa.

DJ: To be honest, the last thing you will ever see is the France getting down with a political rap. I promise you that will never happen. Unless we wrote a song about Bob Marley going to the White House for a party, inviting a lion, and getting Colin Powell so stoned that he rapped. Shit, that would be a great song. The cover was an idea we had while recording, and originally we wanted to have a drunken Statue of Liberty fighting a bear. The simplistic image and absurdity of it made us laugh so hard we were crying. Seriously, it all boils down to the fact that we thought it would be an insanely funny cover to have, so we called a friend of ours who is a great painter and told him the idea. A few months later the painting arrived at our doorstep. We were floored, it was so perfect.

Splendid: Of course, the Statue of Liberty is being devoured by the bear. Is this some sort of political statement? Is the bear Russia? The bear market devouring American liberties?

Darkness: Hey, that's good stuff. Would you like to write for us?

DJ: Hmmm, more like the Statue of Liberty drank all of the Bear's vodka, then all his beer. So the Bear wakes up from hibernation and is pissed, I mean pissed. So he swims the Atlantic with the fervor of a thousand ancestors and heads straight for Ellis Island. He had also heard that little Miss Priss had called him a "dumb shit", so he was ready to thunderdown. She wasn't there on her perch, so he just started running towards the Midwest where she was hanging at a killer keg party. She is still drunk and is ready to fight as well, so it's on. As the first blows find their respective faces, the Earth is engulfed in flames. THIS WAS THE EPIC BATTLE MOTHER EARTH HAD BEEN WAITING FOR! The picture that was taken for the cover happened right as the Statue flipped the bear over her shoulder. They fought for hours, but ended up making friends and heading to Los Angeles together. There they had fun hanging out in the various boutiques and celebrity hot spots.

Splendid: So you are not a political band?

DJ: Absolutely not. About as close as we will ever come to being political is Darkness talking about The France releasing another one of our CD-R EPs on the day George W. Bush wins the election. The title, We're Fucked!. We just think it's silly to incorporate topics like this in our songs. We tend to have more fun writing songs about Fantasy Courts and the Masons.

Darkness: For us it's not really a question of politics or ideology. We're interested, primarily, in the spiritual development and reawakening of man. And in restoring Jesus' bloodline to the thrones of Europe.

Splendid: "Release of the Tucson Killers" from the first album seems like a Rage Against the Machine-type plea for the release of a political prisoner.

DJ: I got that title from the book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. I thought it was such an interesting phrase and left a lot to the imagination. Plus, Indians are pretty cool and I had been listening to a ton of Rage around that time. Anyways, my dad went to school at the University of Arizona in Tucson. So I rapped the lyrics about his antics out there in the desert. They used to hike out and find ghost towns do crazy shit that involved a friend of his named "Test Tube". Who I think got arrested one day for hiding in some ivy after crashing his prototype Corvette. So looking back on the song, yes, "Free Test Tube!"

Splendid: Then there's "Memorial Day", which comes across as a satire of Army recruitment ads.

Darkness: "Memorial Day" is the theme song to a full-length motion picture made by our friend Chris Alender. I think it might be out on video, but I'm not sure.

DJ: Chris Alender lives in LA and is making a go at being a big timer out there. A few years ago he made a crazy B-Horror movie with the same title and wanted us to write a song for the soundtrack. He showed us clips and told us the premise of the movie and we went from there. Dark did an amazing job with the lyrics; "Shouldn't have killed that handicapped boy, last summer / The dead autistic brother is going to take revenge" and "Take my hand / to a magic land / where the dead can walk / and the trees have eyes!" Way to go dark! The first version we recorded (for the movie) was terrible. It was one of the first things we ever recorded, ever. However, Chris put it in the make out scene where the main girl in the movie gets topless. Thanks buddy! Once Jeff Griggs joined the band we really gave that song an overhaul and changed it a bunch. We rerecorded it for Fantastic Area, and now it's one of our live favorites and seems to get the crowd pretty wound up.

Splendid: There's also a bit a social commentary on "Outdoor Industry", including such lines "all my friends are white and disease free / we share a fashion sense and perfect teeth".

DJ: If you listen very carefully to those lyrics you will get the meaning. As a matter of fact, I think Dark explains it in one of the bridges of the song. I would say it's more of us looking at something in the sky. Dark would be mad if I gave any more hints.

Splendid: Of course, all of these themes are under the surface. When you (at least when I) listen to The France, the first thing that strikes me is raucous insolence, driving rhythms and a general fuck-all attitude. Is that the feeling you guys have when you're playing?

Darkness: Yes. We would like to fuck everything.

DJ: That's more like it. We have never taken ourselves too seriously, and I think that's what draws people to us -- and what pushes people away. For instance, a lot of people love to come see us play because they know that no matter what it will be fun, absurd and probably drunken. However there are certain bands, namely one instrumental Athens band, who have refused to play with us over the years because they say that we are not serious enough. So go figure, to each their own I guess. We play because we are lucky enough to be able to play music with five of our closest friends and have so much fun doing it. To be honest, we could really care less if people don't like us because we are goofballs or don't get it. A lot of people have also complained that they don't like us because they think there are too many inside jokes involved with the France. We do have a fucked up sense of humor, yes, but it's weird to think that those people don't know how to have fun. Joke's on you, sucker!

Splendid: Do you want people to pay more attention to the lyrics or the energy of the songs?

DJ: If they are paying attention at all, that's good enough for us. We tend to write songs that we are happy with, if someone else likes them that is an extra bonus. I don't think we ever thought that anyone would give a crap about our band, and still don't, so when we get emails to our account from Poland or see our reviews in national magazines, it genuinely shocks us. In a weird way we still have this mindset that our only fans are our friends. Hopefully we can call all our fans friends, because we are thankful that they took the time to listen to us. Impressing people is just not something we think about, ever. We have pride in our songs, but that comes more from being happy with how it sounds after a few beers. I think the energy our songs have comes from us being excited about playing. It's as simple as that.

Darkness: One of the things that, I believe, has hindered us, in a sense, is that we never even think about any sort of audience, real or imaginary, when writing or recording our music. We are astoundingly self-indulgent, and are concerned primarily with our own satisfaction.

DJ: I think one of the only people that we have ever tried to impress is Laura Carter (the owner of Orange Twin) in hopes she would put out our next record. Still keeping our fingers crossed.

Splendid: When comparing your albums, I noticed an obvious difference between them -- there are a large number of instrumentals on the first one, while there are only two on Fantastic Area.

Darkness: Actually, the instrumentals were due to one member's recalcitrance toward singing. He wrote three songs, didn't want to sing them, and so they were instrumental. They work well as instrumentals, though, and are easily the high points of that first album.

DJ: On the first album we figured that we had these three great songs that sounded really cool and vocals would only detract from that. Plus we were still very shaky about singing. I think that is why, to this day, the vocals are always the last thing we work on in every song. I think when all recording was done on the first record, when we listened to the playback, "Sensitive Chris" surprised us most. It was this sense of "is that us"? We had a feeling that "Sensitive Chris" would somewhat legitimize our efforts a little. Also, we just finished recording the mother of all instrumentals for our next record. That's all I will say.

Splendid: Are songs written together as a group or do you have a main songwriter or two who bring a majority of the ideas in and has everyone add to them in rehearsal/the studio? And do instrumentals follow a different course than a song with lyrics?

Darkness: Not at all. As we said, the lyrics come last, after the music has been hammered out. Those instrumentals on the first album are a bit more melodically developed, I think, than most of our songs, which is one reason why we let them remain instrumental. If the music wasn't engaging enough on its own, we would have put some probably horrible words on those songs.

DJ: I think that one of the interesting things about The France is that we all write the songs. One person will bring a song or a part of a riff or something and the rest of us will build on that with our minds and our love. So you bring a song in thinking it will sound a certain way, and after it is filtered through the five other guys in the band...it ends up sounding completely different. That makes recording very interesting. Fantastic Area has songs on there from every one of the members. And the person who sings on it is not necessarily the person who writes it, either. For example, Dark wrote "Ice Age" for Ice (aka Ryan Bergeron) and it's a perfect fit for him. It brings tears to my eyes when I see Ice hand over the bass and grab the mic. A lot of our songs also come from being in the practice space together. We tend to start practices with long jams that usually wind up recorded in some fashion down the road.

Darkness: We all contribute. DJ and I have written most of the songs we've recorded, or at least have instigated the writing of most of those songs. He and I both write on our own, bring the song into practice, and then all five (sometimes six) of us will work on it until we're satisfied with it. Sometimes a song is introduced and is almost finished, other times a song will change dramatically in practice. There are several songs, like "Fantastic Area" and "Prussia", that grew out of us jamming, more or less. Chris (Rogers, aka Crog) has written several songs, Ice and Jeff (Griggs) both brought in some songs, Sean Rawls brought in a number of songs when he joined in 2003, and all four have a lot of leeway in terms of coming up with their own parts on the songs they don't write or that we don't make up collectively. We also frequently revisit and reconfigure older songs. But so, long story short, we all contribute, and we are all equals.

Splendid: Je Suis France seems to embrace ambiguity. There's the stream of conscious liner notes on you first LP, the obscure references in your lyrics, the "Soon" tab on your website and even the names of members of the band.

Darkness: Those names are our real names.

Splendid: Do you think it's important to leave people guessing, to keep them wanting more?

DJ: This is the longest interview we have ever done.

Splendid: Darkness, you're referred to only as Darkness. Has this led to any confusion with the band The Darkness?

DJ: True story: the first time I saw The Darkness (the band) on TV, I got really pissed off. That was Darkness's name and this shit band from England had stolen it! Trust us, he is not trying to be funny, that is his nickname for a reason. Dark should sue.

Darkness: All we can say is that there is a lawsuit pending.

Splendid: Last year some members of The France formed another band, Atlanta. What was the deal with Atlanta (the band, not the city)?

DJ: During its time, Atlanta was mighty holy. Atlanta was a heavy metal band that Jeff, Ice and I started with our friend Elliot and his 17 year old brother who could shred like no fucking other. This kid is unreal. Fuck you Page, this kid has already learned every one of your songs and would scorch you in a battle. Ice and I both played bass to try and hang with his massive riffs. We learned all of Zep's "Achilles Last Stand" and brought that hammer down. We played two shows and that's all we felt like the world deserved. Also read: we didn't really know how to play metal.

Darkness: After playing two shows that are widely regarded as the greatest rock events in the history of Atlanta, they decided they had nowhere to go but down, and officially dissolved their working relationship. Supposedly they still practice and write new material, and there's a rumor that they've recorded and then immediately erased three whole albums worth of absolutely mind-blowing, revolutionary metal.

Splendid: Is that a side project, a one-off that run its course, a future outlet?

Darkness: Atlanta is a dead end.

Splendid: It seems to me that the proximity of band members is making it harder for everyone to connect. Does this mean this may turn into another Pavement situation where the band just disintegrates over geography?

DJ: I think we will still be recording and playing when we are 70. I truly can't ever imagine the France not existing. About a year ago Crog, Dark and Sean all moved out of town but to be honest this past year was probably our most prolific to date: an album with two EPs and two more ready to come out any time, and our third full length almost 60 percent done. The geography only affects us in the sense that we have to do some serious planning for our shows. As a matter of fact we know when our next one is...August 14th (with pals Oneida!). It means, too, that the shows are not as frequent, which sucks, but overall that just makes it more fun when all of us do get together and turn on the rock sticks. I miss the guys a whole bunch too. I think it has somewhat forced us to write more, though. Now we are all writing, recording and sending stuff to the other guys in the band.

Darkness: The France will never break up. We've established a very low threshold for what can constitute a France song, and not just in terms of quality; anything recorded by any individual France member can be a France song, if they so desire. Even on our albums, not every member performs on every song. Our most recent release, the Tittania EP, was actually recorded without half the band even knowing about it. DJ, Jeff, and Ice made that as a Christmas present for the three of us who have left Georgia. But so, distance only impacts us in that it makes shows fewer and farther between. We continue to play in Athens or Atlanta when possible, and continue to record. Since we've never been a touring band, and never really practiced much, the only difference between us now and before is that now we play a show once every three or four months instead of every month. And Pavement was pretty good.

Splendid: I think your first album sounds like their earlier stuff and they're one of the greatest bands ever, so it's a compliment.

DJ: Thanks, taken as a compliment. Someone else has said that, but to be honest I don't see it. Maybe the sound of the guitars? Dark, Ice and I really liked Pavement to the bitter end. They were the best hippie band ever. I think between the three of us we have probably seen them 20 times or something nuts like that.

Splendid: Je Suis France is from Athens, but make a point to distance themselves from the "Athens scene". Do you think it is beneficial or harmful for a band to get lumped into a scene or have someone say they play this type of music or they're just like that?

DJ: I never really understood the Athens "scene" label anyone in that town was slapped with. Athens' Music is as diverse as New York City's, if not more. Every band sounds different and because it is such a small college town I think we all get lumped together, which isn't what anyone probably wants. I guess there are quite a few bands from Athens that have received national attention within the last five to eight years and I definitely think they deserve attention, but I don't think they rely on being from Athens to do so. On the same token, they all don't sound similar either. The only thing we have in common is the city we were living in. Of course we are friends with a lot of the bands and we all play shows together and its great, but The France's sound is nothing like a Drive By Truckers, or an Elf Power. In a way that's what makes Athens cool. One thing that bugs me too is that Athens has an incredible hip-hop scene that nobody knows about, with artists like Ishues, Ft. Knox, and Danger Mouse. I think these guys should be getting as much attention as the Elephant Six did.

Darkness: People from outside Athens definitely put a lot more stock in all of that stuff than locals ever did. Athens is a small town, but there are probably a thousand bands there, and so there is a lot more diversity than most people would imagine. Yeah, the Elephant Six stuff was getting all the attention, but at the same time you had people like Danger Mouse, the Drive-By Truckers, the Star Room Boys, the Possibilities, Pulla Prince, The Trap, Nipples for Days, Fracture, the Radical Radiators, and many others that made great music that didn't sound like the Elephant Six / Kindercore thing.

Splendid: I spoke with the guys from Circulatory System about a year ago and they said they were dealing with some E6 backlash.

Darkness: We've been called an Elephant Six off-shoot by some people, which is amazingly ridiculous since we don't even really know those people very well. It became a very lazy and very easy shorthand to label any indie-rock or indie-pop band out of Athens as a part of the Elephant Six thing, regardless of what they sound like. But since we've never had anything to do with that, it feels real silly to even discuss it right now.

Splendid: What's your relationship with Orange Twin?

DJ: They were nice enough to release Fantastic Area. We are really good friends with Laura and Andrew (Reiger of Elf Power) who run things there. They have a great label going and an even cooler hippie commune that they run out in the woods of Athens. They are working on having it become a self-sufficient community and resting place. We were so damn happy that they decided to take us on, we just knew that it would get more of our records out there and hopefully allow us to continue to release with them.

Darkness: They put out our records, and then retire to the Riviera with the money we've earned them.

Splendid: Will your future releases be with them?

Darkness: Maybe.

DJ: We really really hope so. We have talked with them about our next record and it seems to be going in the right direction. We all respect them a lot so it's neat to have become friends with them over the years. Keep your fingers crossed.

Splendid: How does that label/community work, do you have to spend like a weekend every other month building homes and tilling fields?

Darkness: We don't. Some people do that because they want to. We spend our weekends growing fatter and even more complacent.

DJ: There are people who do a lot -- not us, though. Actually, Jeff goes out there and helps out a lot. Right now they're getting things ready for their big Summer Show on June 12. Last year they did a two-day festival/camp out we were lucky enough to be asked to play at, and this year they are keeping it to one day. Will Oldham is playing this year along with the Kingsbury Manx, so it should be a fine time. My favorite part of the land is the swimming hole, or the hot baths.

Splendid: You've also gone the self-release route with your recent God's Cake and Tittania EPs. Is that something you plan to continue?

DJ: Oh yeah. It's such a cool outlet and I'm surprised we didn't start this until recently. We're constantly coming up with good ideas for EPs or what have you, and now, instead of not getting to them, we're releasing them right on top of one another. God's Cake is a bunch of live stuff from our last show before all the guys moved out of town last summer, and a few studio songs we recorded but never released. It has our lost Christmas song on there as well. Basically we recorded this song and the label that asked us to do it refused the song because they said it was horrible. We see it in a different light. We see it as our finest song to date. Tittania was recorded by Ice, Jeff and I as a Christmas present to Crog, Sean and Dark. It is all covers and is pretty outlandish. Some of our friends came into the studio with us and it was one weekend full of incredible amounts of fun. Some of the upcoming EPs include: The Death Wish EP, We Are A Fucking Awesome Band EP, Spiritual Successors, Dark's Wedding Blowout, and Francetasy.

Splendid: You guys really plan ahead.

Darkness: There will be a steady stream of France-related material released on Nokahoma Records. It will all be cheap, and cheaply recorded.

Splendid: Does it make sense logistically/distribution-wise to self-release?

Darkness: It makes sense financially. At this point distribution is non-existent outside of direct orders or our live shows.

DJ: Well, the way we have been doing it so far is printing up 50 or so and giving them out at our live shows. Our last two shows each saw the release of a new EP, which is pretty neat. We thought about selling them for a few bucks, but in the end we just started giving them away. We usually took some of the production money out of the door money we made and that was that. We're also putting it up on our website and anyone who wants one can just email us or order them through Dark's label Nokahoma Records.

Splendid: I know Ween has an incredible fan base and they release limited edition live albums through their site, but ended up going with a bigger label like Sanctuary when they release "proper" albums. They're a bit more established than you are, but do you think that's the direction things are ultimately headed in, whether for the industry or for The France?

DJ: Man, we love Ween. Probably the best band ever. We could argue that for a while. Anyway, I think our idea is to just keep recording as much stuff as we can and keep putting it out. No label would be right in the head to release these EPs, so we decided to do so on Dark's label. That way it can look somewhat professional, i.e. not at all, and it's material that won't just be lost. Some day we would love to release a Best of the CD-R EP sessions, or something as a "proper" release. The ideas we do for these CD-Rs are more fun ideas and not as "serious" as a regular France record.

Darkness: Our next album will be released as a CD, not a CD-R.

Splendid: What does the future hold?

Darkness: Many, many babies, for all of us. And perhaps a trip to the washroom.

Splendid: Did I hear something about an energy drink you're developing?

DJ: Funny you should say that, 'cause we're working on our own Energy Drink. Kinda like Li'l Jon's "Crunk", except we're calling it Frunk. Should be on the market by Christmas. It's a mixture of Beer and Mustang blood plus some adagwanda. It will get you wild. We are also talking about starting our own Franchise where we will hold our Fantasy Court and just hang out. We will probably have a few beers and maybe watch some wrestling then invite our friends over for our own wrestling event.

Splendid: Have you begun work on a new album, is it recorded, ready, and when can we expect it?

Darkness: We've been recording sporadically over the last year. Hopefully we'll have something done and out before 2007.

DJ: Yeah, we're well under way on the new France record. It's going to be titled Afrikan Majik. We started recording it last summer and hope to have it all done within the next few months. It's going to be a doozy. I think it will definitely sound different from Fantastic Area, but it will still be raucous as per all France releases. Hopefully it can come out sometime in Fall, that might be pushing it a little, so maybe Spring. The first track on the record is our "jam" that we've been playing for a while but never had the chance to record. We booked some time over the Delirium weekend and did the basic tracking in two takes. Right now it's a little over 16 minutes long. I think people will love it, hopefully not want to claw their face off during it. Let me just say that we had our friend Drew come in with his bongos.

Splendid: Have you taken any shit for declaring (in the song, "Ice Age") "it's the year of Je Suis France"?

Darkness: Nope.

DJ: Hell no, people tell us we're right all the time. Then we take them out for dinner at CiCi's.