KEY POINTS:
French trio The Teenagers hit Auckland this week on their ongoing mission to avoid growing up. Joanna Hunkin reports
Dorian Dumont has forgotten about tonight's interview. As he answers the phone, the television blaring in the background, he sounds sleepy and confused as he makes a mumbled apology. He sounds like a typical teenager.
One third of the French indie rock outfit The Teenagers, Dumont is actually 26. But, as he happily admits, he has the mindset of a teenager. It's one of the reasons he and his old friends Michael Szpiner and Quentin Delafon started the band - because they weren't ready to grow up.
"When we started, we were like 23 or 24. It was the age where you have to grow up and find a real job. Be independent and be realistic about the future," he explains in his subtle French drawl. "I think all three of us wanted to stay teenagers."
The band formed three years ago in Paris, when the trio of friends were mucking around one Christmas. Celebrating the holiday together, the boys made up the song F*** Nicole. Impressed with their drunken efforts, they created a Myspace page for their new band and loaded the track for their mates to listen to and laugh at. Six months later, after another drinking session, they wrote the song Homecoming and added it to their profile page.
The song earned notoriety for its explicit lyrics, which graphically detail a holiday romance between an English boy and an American girl, and earned the ire of many Americans.
Dumont laughs as he recalls the reaction, which saw their Myspace profile inundated with abusive messages.
"Pfff, they take it really seriously," he says with an audible shrug. "I don't really understand because it's so obvious that it's a joke.
"Some American people can be weird sometimes. We don't really care."
As news of the audacious track spread, the song caught the ear of an English record label, Merok, who signed the band and put out their debut album Reality Check last year.
Despite starting as a joke, both Homecoming and F*** Nicole feature on the record, which has seen the band successfully tour the world and brings them to Auckland this week with English electro outfit Metronomy.
"When we did Homecoming, we did the whole song in one day. One day and one night ... It was really a joke. I remember the day after, we listened to it and we were like 'woah, it's shit! We shouldn't put that on MySpace'."
Fortunately, Merok Records and a host of fans disagreed with Dumont's initial instinct, allowing the Frenchmen the opportunity to live their dream of staying teenagers forever.
"When you're in a band it's like being a teenager. When you're on tour, you just get drunk and meet people and play gigs. You have a tour manager who's always taking care of you and telling you, 'You have to be there at 8'," he says, perfectly mimicking his mother-hen tour manager.
And growing old isn't a problem, says Dumont, as long as there is plenty of beer on hand to help the band revert to their silly teenage ways. "When we drink and write songs we can go back to a teenage state of mind," he explains.
"Sometimes I write the music before or I write some guitar things on the computer, and then we meet and try to sing. We drink and sing along, and write some words."
They then combine those words with their trademark lo-fi, two-chord rhythms and give it a mischievous title - like Starlett Johansson - and voila, one Teenagers' track.
It's a simple enough formula and one that seems to have found favour with listeners around the world.
Everywhere, it seems, but the boys' homeland.
"In Paris, there's nothing really happening for the music we do. We don't really play in France. There's a lot of electronic music, like avant garde, but for us it's better to be in England. They're more open-minded for new kinds of music and new bands. The press get more excited."
Strangely, Dumont says the band's strongest fanbase can be found in America - despite offending some with their initial efforts.
"Maybe it's because we're from Europe and they're more excited about European bands in the same way, in Europe, we're more excited about American bands?"
LOWDOWN
Who: Dorian Dumont, guitarist with French indie trio The Teenagers
What: The Teenagers play Auckland's King's Arms with Metronomy
When: Friday, January 9
