France Rocks Austin: Interview with Housse de Racket

Photo Credit: Mattia Zoppellaro

This past weekend and next weekend sees numerous French bands performing at Coachella in Indio, California. One such band, Housse de Racket, spoke with France Rocks this past March prior to their performance at the Kitsuné Club Night showcase at Malverdé. Housse de Racket also performed during the Bureau Export & The Agency Group Party on Wednesday, March 14th at Mohawk, the second of two France Rocks Austin parties. After reading the interview, be sure to check out other French artists that performed on the France Rocks Austin 2012 sampler as well as photos from this year’s parties!

Is this your first year at SXSW?

Pierre Leroux: It’s the very first time that we’ve come to Texas. SXSW is a festival we’ve been hearing about for a long time. Each year we see the lineup and we’re like, “Ah! Maybe we should catch up with this, guys,” because you can’t avoid it. So we are really happy to experience it this year. We know there are 2,000 bands playing this festival. We are glad to be here even if we know that we are only a drop in a sea-but a tasty one!

Victor le Masne: I think in France we didn’t realize that it was this big. It’s huge! We have been here for three days and walked down all the streets. It’s huge. It’s amazing because each band, each style even if we don’t like it that much, all of the bands are good musicians and the minimum level is pretty cool. Today we were at South Congress and we saw a totally new neighborhood. Great vibe! Music everywhere!

What did you hear about SXSW before coming?

Pierre: From French bands who succeeded at playing here, we asked how did they come here and play this massive festival. So we were really impressed by it. We were looking each year for which French bands were picked to play here. As Victor said, we only saw that through the French eyes. We didn’t realize that Jay-Z played last week. We didn’t realize that there were really massive headlining acts, a lot of sponsors and brands as well.

You also have Coachella as well. Are you excited?

Read the rest of the interview on the artist page for Housse de Racket

Housse de Racket and bureauexport collaborated in 2010 around their album Forty Love. Housse de Racket received assistance around two tour dates including Rockness Festival as well as a PR campaign for radio, TV, online, and other press outlets in addition to interviews.