While getting to know the Italo indie We Were Never Being Boring collective from Pesaro/Brescia, Alessandro Paderno of Le Man Avec Les Lunettes welcomed us with the group's jovial humor and universal heart. “The name comes from the way a friend in Paris used to tease me calling me loudly,” Paderno explained to us in a recent interview, “Le garçon avec les lunettes!' French for, 'The man with the glasses.' We liked the joking-sound and changed it a bit using the English 'man' instead of 'garçon.”
Our early listen to, “Former Leader“, sent feelings of flight throughout our senses, matched by the seasonal photosynthesis and fall of leaves from a tree. Today we bring you an advance listen to Le Man Avec Les Lunettes' album, Make It Happen available March 10 from We Were Never Being Boring. From the care-free play of “spending an afternoon surrounded by trees is great”, toasts to great conversation and the demands of family life responsibility conjure up a picture of dutiful merriment. “Cookies” solidifies the band's belief in songs with more of Daniela Savoldi's cello strings to add a sweetness to keep everybody happy. On “Dancing All The Night”, the mode is experimental but playful with an assembly of effects that bubbles into the soft natural mystic about an “Island” dwelling grandmother who meets a ghost.
The melodies are grounded in the Make It Happen work ethic, like the organ and synth motivations on, “Things To Do 2” and “Things To Do 1”. From the indolent and lost years, Alessandro seeks a balance within the scales of life that makes sense with a sentimental set of songs that asserts the resolve of self-affirmation. Le Man Avec Les Lunettes rewrites the lullaby books of tradition throughout the album, as “Summer summer” is unofficially the song of summer 2014. The gorgeous six month wait for the season of sun is expressed in the joy of, “I have been dreaming of the land of endless sun…and the summer finally came…and the lakes are never wrong,” mixed with the complexity of attachments, “letting go has not really been something that I have been good at.” The push to get back in tune to nature and the world around is explicitly sung on, “Get in Touch”, to the closing ode to musical exchanges and conversational correspondence by, “Postcards”. Make It Happen makes it's exit like it's entrance, with gorgeous choral pop lullabies to soothe the aches of the world with something beautiful.
Joining up with us again, Alessandro Paderno from Le Man Avec Les Lunettes and the We Were Never Being Boring collective takes us further into the band's creative dialogues that contributed to their masterpiece, Make It Happen.
Describe the nearly six years it took to make, Make It Happen, happen.
We like to work slowly, all of us have a lot to do in life. We also really enjoy playing, talking about sounds, music… so we really enjoy the process of making an album. Beginning from writing songs and lyrics to mastering, and everything in between. By the way, during the past 6 years we released an EP called Sparkles and a documentary about our tour in Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Was the title, Make It Happen a kind of mantra when writing and recording the album?
I think it is a mantra for life. I actually grow up with the DIY mentality. Make things happen, having things to do are ways to enjoy life.
There is something joyful that is everywhere in your music, from the felicity of “Cookies”, “Dancing All the Night”, “Things To Do 1 & 2”, “Summer Summer”, “Get In Touch”, “Islands”, etc. Do you all make music as if you were making your own harmonious island in the sky type of creation?
We do pop music in a non-simple way. There are many layers in our songs, but yes, basically our music is funny and weird lyrics with dancing & romantic melodies.
How does the Le Man Avec Les Lunettes collaborative band structure works?
Well we can't tell you the secret about our music, but basically everyone can play what he/she wants on a sketch that usually I bring to the rehearsals. The mix of these different feelings drive the songs into a place where no one knows.
We have heard about the songwriting process stemming from hand-written notes of inspiration. How are these transformed and fleshed out into full songs?
More or less as I've told you before the magic thing is the people who works on the songs. From the musicians (the band) to the sound engineer (Lorenzo Caperchi who mixed the album) until who's behind the mastering (Nils Frahm). Everyone added some magic dust to each song.
The strings on “Former Leader”, “Postcards” and throughout are stunning. Describe how you worked in these layers of strings, and the importance of the kind of sentiments that strings can convey.
We are lucky enough to have Daniela in the band. She is a professional cello player with amazing taste. She worked on those string-parts, and together with Lorenzo they made it something special. Those lines add a different character to the different parts of the songs.
Some more thoughts on your upcoming world tours for spring/summer?
We will start with 12 shows in Italy between middle of March to May. We are working on some summer festivals and we have some thoughts about another European tour. We'll keep you posted!
What are the latest happenings from Brescia, and Pesaro?
Well, we have a really new band in Brescia, they are called OWNBOO. They are amazing, probably my favorite tunes from my hometown. Pesaro is the city of Be Forest, Brothers in Law and Soviet Soviet, you can't get annoyed there.
Le Man Avec Les Lunettes' new album, Make It Happen, will be available March 10 from We Were Never Being Boring.
