Ninety’s Story bring together sunny synths and dreamy pop melodies, creating a classic sound reminiscent of the French 90s electro pop scene. They’re heavily inspired by Daft Punk, Phoenix and Metronomy.
Ninety’s Story played a fantastic set for us, showing how they’ve adapted to the current situation by performing their hits as acoustic versions. And between songs we chatted to them about what they’ve been up to since we all went inside.
And during these troubled times a little injection of sun and fun is exactly what’s needed…
Simona Martin: Hello guys! How are you? Where are you based at the moment?
Ninety’s Story: For the moment we’re based in Brussels but we’re from Nice in South East France.
Jon Himoff: We saw you play over at the Dublin Castle.
Ninety’s Story: Yeah it was great fun.
Jon Himoff: You guys put on a great show. I hadn’t heard of you before but it was a really great show. So hopefully we can get you guys back to London and it will a fun night!
Simona Martin: So have you got a place in the house where you rehearse?
Ninety’s Story: Yeah we’ve got the studio in the house – so we can rehearse and we can record here.
Simona Martin: So you’ve been making the most of this situation?
Ninety’s Story: It’s been inspiring for creating and writing stuff. We’ve been lucky. The situation is bad overall, but for us, it’s not too not bad.
Jon Himoff: It’s so great to hear these stripped back, acoustic tracks!
Ninety’s Story: Yeah it’s fun for us – we really went back to something very basic, very acoustic for this. Because- for people who may have not heard our music- it’s usually a lot more electronic, a lot more produced. Even when we play live we use drum machines and everything. So it’s great to take the piano and the guitar and just use that
Camden Live: So it must be great to take that all away and know that you still have great songs?
Ninety’s Story: Yes and maybe it’s the reason it works like that too. We never lose the fact that our songs are songs made with guitars and piano.
Jon Himoff: You guys are quite sophisticated with the electronic stuff you use?
Ninety’s Story: Yes, we love the synthesiser, we love sounds. We’re very inspired by music that uses a lot of electronic sounds but there must be a root that must work with none of that. That works with just some harmony and rhythm.
Simona Martini: How did you form the band? When did you start?
Ninety’s Story: We’ve been friends since childhood so we’ve been doing different things together, like sports and things. And one day we got bored of that. I think this was in middle school. Just before high school. And we just started to pursue music. And so we started to do concerts. And we live together – in the same apartment in Brussels. Half the time here and half the time in Nice. So we spend the summer in Nice and then the rest of the time we’re here working in our studio.
Simona Martini: So you’ve got a separate place for your creative work. So what makes you creative? What do you like?
Ninety’s Story: Lots of things- red wine for one! What makes us creative? Life and death and life. Just thinking and trying to recreate things we’ve felt or we miss somehow. So when we get to the point where we feel something then we keep that feeling and we write a song. We make something with it. So it’s about sensations and feelings.
Simona Martini: And do you find that you write more when you’re sad or when you’re happy?
Ninety’s Story: If we are really happy then it’s a good song. If we’re really sad then it’s a good song. If it’s somewhere in the middle, then it’s not very interesting. It’s necessary for the creative seed – at the beginning you need it, you need this thing or idea. And then it’s a case of working on it, just working on the song. So there’s two parts to it.
Camden Live: Could that be a challenge then- to write a song about nonchalance?
Ninety’s Story: Yeah that would a challenge! But maybe we’ve done that already.
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