Far Out Meets: The Blaze, the mysterious duo taking over dance music
The Blaze seemingly arrived out of nowhere in 2018 when their innovative videos began notching up millions of streams on YouTube. Soon, they started appearing on festival line-ups in prominent positions. However, information about the French duo was scarce, apart from the fact they consisted of cousins Jonathan and Guillaume Alric, and the mystery surrounding the band only seemed to gather more admirers.
Since then, their success has continued to accelerate, but information about the Alrics remains slight, and that’s how they want it to stay. The pair want their music to do the talking on their behalf, and if they could be completely anonymous creators, both Jonathan and Guillaume would happily do so. They want The Blaze, and the music that goes with it, to be widely known rather than chase the illusion of fame. Despite being scheduled to headline London’s Eventim Apollo later this month, the pair could fade into the background and go unrecognised in any pub in the capital.
The electronic duo, who recently released their second album, Jungle, started releasing music in 2016. Their formation was entirely incidental, Jonathan, the younger cousin, needed to source an original piece of music for his film degree. Although he wasn’t particularly close to Guillaume, he reached out to his relative in search of a helping hand. It marked the beginning of a beautiful partnership.
Over our Zoom meeting, it’s clear that the Alrics are more comfortable in a recording studio than in an interview. For Jungle, they have not been on an intense international promotional trail and have been selective with who they choose to speak.
Due to a mix-up, The Blaze and I were left in different Zoom waiting rooms for 20 minutes waiting for the other one to join. Thankfully, after a painful wait, I was sent the correct invitation. It could have immediately brought an unwelcome atmosphere to the conversation, but they couldn’t be more relaxed, the duo exuding a nonchalance uniquely designated for electronic artists. After all, time isn’t an issue to The Blaze, who took almost five years to create Jungle.
Guillaume notes how they were “really lucky” their tour concluded briefly before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, which left The Blaze in a fortunate position. Without the need to tour a record, they could work freely on their upcoming album without rushing it out for a specific date. While the duo likely didn’t anticipate a 2023 release for their second LP, The Blaze worked at their own pace and didn’t listen to external pressure.
Dancehall was released in 2018, and The Blaze continued to tour extensively until the end of the following year, an experience that shaped their new album. After being exposed to audiences around the world, the Alrics kept the live environment in mind when they were in the studio, with Guillaume explaining this is why there are more “dancing songs” on Jungle than its predecessor. “We have three different aspects because we have the music on one side, we have the music video on another, and we are also trying to do something different with the live shows.”
Guillaume explains how they have grand plans for their forthcoming tour, using screens that utilise sections of their videos and combine them with sound to create an immersive experience. “For the audience, we want them to listen to the music but not to focus on us,” he says of their stage arrangement.
The usual trajectory for bands is to begin by playing tiny shows in pubs and clubs before slowly advancing to bigger stages. With The Blaze, they played their first live show in front of thousands at Marsatac Festival in Marseille in the summer of 2017. After only a handful of French festival performances, they played at Coachella at sunset.
The Blaze were thrown in at the deep end, and despite their experience, performing to thousands of people still feels alien to the Alrics. “It’s a strange feeling because it’s not a normal situation,” Guillaume says of performing live.
Meanwhile, Jonathan adds: “We don’t feel like we are in control of the crowd. It’s more like a communion with everybody dancing. Of course, we are on the stage, but we don’t put ourselves too much in the light and want people to enjoy the set as an experience. It’s funny because I sometimes have my eyes closed while I’m singing and then open them up to see everybody dancing.”
In the modern climate, artists seemingly have to be comedians, content creators, and musicians — the complete entertainment package. However, The Blaze have debunked that myth. Their Instagram page is their primary social network, showing only 12 posts. Instead, they let their art sell itself and prefer to use traditional craftsmanship rather than flog themselves on TikTok.
“It should be the most important thing for every artist because there are some who instead use their personality to put themselves in the light,” Jonathan says passionately. “People are artists because it’s easier for us to talk about our emotions by doing music videos or creating music and letting the art speak instead of us,” he adds.
Over the last five years, Jonathan speculates they created “100 tracks” as The Blaze for Jungle, which they painstakingly narrowed down to ten. On the deletion process, he explains some were “totally shit” and went “direct to the trash folder” without any thought, but others were tougher to let go.
Another reason Jungle has taken half a decade is their complex and thought-provoking music videos, which often take months to travel from idea to completion. For example, it took The Blaze “three to four months” to create self-directed visuals for ‘Dreamer’, shot in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, and featuring locals. They accidentally adopted a lengthy approach to video-making with their debut attempt, ‘Territory’, which Guillaume says took around “seven months”. After it became a viral success, they decided to treat every visual project with the same care and effort.
While it seems like The Blaze have meticulously planned every aspect of their career to date, one thing they didn’t anticipate was becoming an internationally renowned act. “It’s funny, at the beginning, when we were nobodies, well, we still our nobodies,” Jonathan self-deprecatingly jokes.
He continues: “We would say to each other in the studio, ‘Imagine playing this track in front of 100 people. Wouldn’t that be crazy?’ When that happens, you don’t have time to think because it’s new for your brain. It doesn’t tell you how to prepare to play for 50,000 people. It’s exciting but strange at the same time.” His elder cousin adds: “We still feel the same stress when we go on stage and still have this kind of child mentality in our mind.”
Although they’ve been around for half a decade, the Alric cousins still haven’t adjusted to being recognised in the wild. As they keep a low profile, being summoned by a fan for a selfie doesn’t happen as often as it likely does for other artists who boast other three-million unique monthly listeners on Spotify. Jonathan recalls: “Yesterday we went out to eat somewhere, and there was a guy who was staring at us, and we were confused thinking, ‘What does he want from us?’ but it was because I’m the guy from The Blaze, that idea hadn’t even come to my brain.”
The mystery surrounding The Blaze hasn’t been manufactured by a record label who have cynically decided upon an alluring marketing strategy; this is just who Jonathan and Guillaume are. In an industry full of egos vying to be the centre of attention, the Alrics defy the industry norms, and their enigmatic presence is refreshing. The duo might not hide behind literal masks, but despite their musical differences, the overwhelming similarities to French musical royalty Daft Punk are impossible to ignore.
Jungle is out now via Animal63. Visit here for tickets for The Blaze’s show at Eventim Apollo on March 28th.
