French nu-disco sextet L’Impératrice made a stop at Austin City Limits during both weekends of this year’s festival. This show marked the last act of their two-part international tour. In their ACL performance, the band showcased lively sets that left the crowd grooving to their psychedelic pop sounds. 

The band sat down with The Daily Texan to discuss their latest single “Everything Eventually Ends,” their experience at ACL and gaining a global audience as an independent French band. 

Daily Texan: How has your experience at ACL been? 

Flore Benguigui: It was fun to do two shows — it’s twice as (much) fun — and we could enjoy Austin also for a week in the middle. It’s really fun experience.

DT: You have experimented with a more modern disco and almost psychedelic pop sound. Branching into this genre of nu-disco, what draws you to that kind of music?

FB: We all come from different musical backgrounds, but where we gather is really groove music … that gives us why we came to disco. 

Tom Daveau: It’s a big melting pot. Everything is this dance feeling. Groove, feelings and emotions, and we try to mix those together. 

DT: Your album, Tako Tsubo, was six years in the making. What was the process of creating that body of music like, and what was it like to finally release it?

Charles de Boisseguin: Because of the pandemic, we had to postpone (the album), so we released singles after singles. It allowed us to keep the audience really close (to) us. Once the album was released, we were so happy, and we had to wait a long time before playing it on stage. Everything came at once, but once it happened, everything went so fast. We traveled all around the world, and that was crazy for us.

DT: What was it like actually being able to perform the album for an audience?

FB: When we did the first shows, we realized how much we had missed touring and how important it is for an independent band like us — we don’t have loads of money off of marketing or advertising. We spread our music around the world through our shows. We realized that it was really important for the music because that’s how we can extend our audience, and also how important it was just for us and the life of a band — to be able to perform it live. It makes our music more alive.

DT: As an independent French band, what was it like gaining a global audience?

Achille Trocellier: It feels great (to be) a French band able to tour in the U.S., there’s just a few bands doing this, for example, Phoenix. When we come here, we don’t know if there’s going to be people. When we see maybe 2,000 people growing into 10,000, that’s the best feeling in the world.

DT: Your new single, “Everything Eventually Ends,” just recently released! Can you talk about the process of creating this song?

FB: We wanted to make (a) collaboration with (Rejjie Snow) for a while, but we didn’t really know how. We have never met him, so everything was made from a distance. We did the festival together in Romania last summer, but we couldn’t even see each other. He messaged us on Instagram, and from this moment on, we’ve been talking. Last December, we had an instrumental track that we thought would be great with his voice. In the end, he loved the track and he made something beautiful.

DT: Describe yourself in a few words.

FB: A dance party, emotions, French — baguette.

AT: What I remember most from our set is seeing the smiles in the crowd. That’s the best feeling — people just feeling it and dancing. That’s why we feel it’s a dance party, (and) happiness goes with dance (parties).