Why Grammy-winning French rock band Phoenix mentions Nova Scotia on its new album

Musician Thomas Mars travels usually among his home in New York Metropolis and his indigenous France. As these flights pass above Nova Scotia, the singer of the acclaimed French indie pop-rock band Phoenix suggests he feels in exile.

“It really is a turbulent flight,” he mentioned in a modern telephone interview from New York Town. “It’s bumpy, you sense a little bit nervous, you happen to be leaving your family members behind.”

It’s these information that helped inspire Mars to generate a song called Artefact, which is on the band’s new album, Alpha Zulu.

This is the seventh studio album for the band, which won the 2009 Grammy for Finest Alternative Audio Album for Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. That album sparked indie anthems like Lisztomania and 1901.

Artefact incorporates the lyrics “In excess of Nova Scotia” followed by Mars singing “I am no Rubirosa.”

Rubirosa is a reference to the well-known 20th-century playboy, Porfirio Rubirosa.

“I’m no Rubirosa is just a extremely intricate way to say, ‘I’m stressed out appropriate now and I am entire of worry, in essence,'” stated Mars.

Four musicians pose for a group photo backstage at a concert in California.
From still left: Laurent Brancowitz, Deck d’Arcy, Mars and Christian Mazzalai of Phoenix pose backstage at The Discussion board on Dec. 10, 2017, in Inglewood, Calif. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Pictures for KROQ)

Artefact’s upbeat, catchy tone masks the vulnerabilities Mars’s lyrics categorical.

The title is also fitting due to the fact of in which the album was recorded.

Alpha Zulu was recorded in excess of two decades in Paris at the Museum of Ornamental Arts, which is element of the Louvre.

For Mars, who grew up in Versailles, France, recording the album at the Louvre complex was the fulfilment of a childhood aspiration.

A male singer performs in front of a large, enthusiastic crowd.
Mars says he has flown around Nova Scotia numerous occasions, but hasn’t frequented the province. (Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

“As a teen, I would walk alongside the museum and seem at individuals empty rooms and believed, ‘Maybe just one working day there will be place for us to produce some thing there,’ so it was definitely an extraordinary practical experience,” he reported.

What created it even “much more magical” was that the band was often on your own in the intricate as it recorded throughout COVID-19 lockdowns.

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Phoenix has by no means performed in Nova Scotia. The closest the group has performed to listed here in Canada is Quebec City.

“Most of my eyesight of Nova Scotia is through flying in excess of it and looking at it and imagining, like, ‘This is a extremely remote position that I someway can relate to,'” stated Mars.

Even though Phoenix is French, the team mostly sings in English, with some French and Italian thrown in.

Depending on in which the band is enjoying in the planet, this adds to the thrill for followers and the band.

A rock band performs outdoors at a large music festival.
Phoenix performs at the Coachella Valley New music and Arts Festival on April 18, 2010, in Indio, Calif. (Karl Walter/Getty Pictures)

“We not long ago played in Milan, and to have the group sing back again to us in Italian was a really exclusive moment,” claimed Mars.

The group lately finished the very first leg of its tour in guidance of Alpha Zulu, which involved shows in Europe, the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The band resumes touring afterwards this thirty day period and has dates booked by way of 2023, like quite a few pageant dates in Asia and Europe.

A band performs at an outdoor music festival at night against a blue stage backdrop.
Phoenix performs at the Audacy Beach front Festival on Dec. 3, 2022, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (Jason Koerner/Getty Photographs for Audacy)

Requested if the team will perform a clearly show in Nova Scotia, Mars stated he’d appreciate to occur listed here.

And the band would undoubtedly play Artefact.

“I am searching for all these special times,” claimed Mars. “But it feels like another person from a competition, they have to occur to us and say, ‘Hey! We’re doing this. Would you like to appear?’ And we will, for certain.”