FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Paris & Simo’s Bal En Blanc Debut

We sat down with this Montreal duo to talk about their favourite Canadian venues, inspirations, and their upcoming releases.

Before heading off to celebrate Montreal's most popular event of the year, Bal en Blanc, Paris & Simo took some time to sit down with THUMP to chat about their debut at the all white attire party. The Montreal based duo was hand picked by David Guetta to join him on his Canadian tour. The two made sure they had time to make a quick stop in Montreal for the 13-hour marathon event, playing alongside the Revealed label team, Hardwell, Dyro and Dannic. Paris & Simo were getting excited about the night as we talked about their beginnings and working with legendary trance producer, Jochen Miller.

Advertisement

THUMP: Congrats on your North American tour with David Guetta, how has touring with him been?
Paris: It's been fun! He's very energetic. It was our first time touring with him so it's something new for us. It's definitely an honor to be part of his Canadian tour and playing in front of big crowds is always super fun. We have two more shows, Calgary and Montreal. We're looking forward to it.

Since touring across Canada, is there a favourite Canadian venue that you guys love to play at?
P: It was our first time playing at the Kool Haus in Toronto last week. And honestly it was a great time, a really crazy club. I didn't know what to expect. It was just massive. So that was a crazy venue, probably one of my favourites in Canada.

But unquestionably, our favourite venue in Canada has to be New City Gas. It's fresh. All the biggest DJs come here. Playing hometown shows are always special and the vibe at NCG is really next level, the production is insane, it's like playing a mini festival.

Since you both have been traveling and touring non-stop across the world, do you find the energy and crowds different here in North America than in Europe?
P: It depends on the venue; you have to feel it out for the vibes. Crowds always have different vibes and tastes depending on the market. A bottle service or VIP crowd is much different than playing a general admissions event for the fans, so you have to feel it out. You can try and experiment more or less, but the energy is usually great everywhere we play. We played in Japan recently and were really surprised at how amazing the vibe was. The clubbers were really up on the music and it felt a lot like playing at home.

Advertisement

Going back to the beginning of your career when you guys first met at sweet sixteen party, who was DJing the event?
Simo: Paris.

How did you guys get into listening to electronic music?
P: Through the Internet. You just download a bunch of stuff, become inspired, then you download more and more over time. When you're young like fourteen or fifteen, who actually buys music? Rarely anyone. Maybe a CD or two like Ministry of Sound back then. But it was just through downloading music online and the Internet. Not through clubbing or anything at that age.

Photograph courtesy of Johnny Martin

Was there a particular track that got you both into this genre?
P: I think for any DJ nowadays, I don't think they just started listening to house or one specific genre. They would listen to trance, or hardstyle. So for me it was trance. From there I went onto deep house. I like a bit of everything.

S: Same thing. I was into ATB, older Tiesto stuff, and then I grew into the groovier house sound. Daft Punk is really influential to our career. We look up to Axwell, too. "Feel the Vibe" was the game changer. Love that song.

You both just released the track "Flash" with Jochen Miller, how was working with a legendary trance producer?
S: It was fun. We were just coming up with some ideas. He showed us something and we wanted to complete it. It took us maybe a week to work on it. He came over to our home studio, we went back and forth with it, and then "Flash" came out.

Advertisement

And your house studio is in LA?
S: Well, we still work in our home studio, but we just moved to our brand new studio in downtown Montreal.

So Jochen came all the way to Montreal to produce this track?
S: Jochen was in Montreal for a show actually. Armin's Trancegiving show at New City Gas. This was during our Thanksgiving weekend and he had an extra day so he was like "let's get in the studio," and from there we made the track. Nothing overly formal.

Is there a particular producer that you guys want to collaborate with that you haven't yet?
P: There are so many incredible artists that have influenced us in one way or another. Everyone we name would just be legendary. Daft Punk hands down. They're the biggest inspiration.

S: One day…

And this your first performance at Bal en Blanc?
P: Yes.

Photograph courtesy of Johnny Martin

Have you been to Bal en Blanc before?
P: Yeah I've been a couple times before. It's really unique. I don't think there's anything like it in North America. You have to see it for yourself. The size really shocks you when you get in and everything is all white, which is something that adds to the atmosphere.

S: People come for the music. Montreal is very educated about the music that they listen to. There are a lot of different cultures here. It's nice to see that they've been doing this for twenty years and it gets bigger every year.

What song are you most excited to drop at your Bal en Blanc 20 set?
P: Ah, there are so many. We've prepared a bunch of stuff. We're more excited to see the reactions to our new stuff that we just finished up in the studio. We haven't really played it for anyone yet and now we get to showcase a lot of it. I think it'll be really good.

Advertisement

We recently worked with our friends Rico and Miella who sang on our upcoming track, "Get Back." It's a really cool kind of indie vibe—it's a really special track for us. We have another record called "Silent" with a vocal by Gabrielle Ross from New York. It's going to be released on June 16 on Harem Records, we're going to try that out tonight as well.

Make sure to catch Paris & Simo at:

May 17 - Beach Club, Point-Calumet

May 17 - Sotto, Ottawa

May 18 - New City Gas, Montreal

May 23 - BMO Centre, Calgary

May 24 - Celebrities, Vancouver

May 31 - Life in Color, Ecuador

June 14 - HQ Nightclub, Atlantic City