‘We Need to Feel the Audience Really Wants It’

French electronic group Air marked the 25th anniversary of its landmark debut album “Moon Safari” in Jan. 2023. But as the dreamy, mid-tempo outliers jockeying for position with Daft Punk, Bob Sinclar, Cassius and Etienne de Crecy during the dancefloor-filling French Touch movement, duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel have always moved at their own pace.

Following a series of Australian and European tour dates — including a stopover at the 2024 Summer Olympics closing ceremony — the band is set to embark on the North American leg of their first proper tour in six years. Commemorating a quarter of a century, “Air Play Moon Safari” reunites Dunckel and Godin to perform the group’s first long-player from start to finish, and perhaps unofficially, gauge whether the world wants another gulp of Air — or has had its fill.

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Just days after they joined their countrymen, Phoenix, at the Stade de France to perform “Playground Love” in front of the biggest audience of their careers, Godin and Dunckel spoke to Variety via Zoom. In addition to offering their short-term reflections on that experience (“I saw Tom Cruise rehearsing his jump,” Godin revealed), the duo talked about the inspirations for their tour (which hits Los Angeles Sept. 29 and 30), and the cobwebs that needed dusting off to work together again after a lengthy hiatus to pursue a variety of solo projects. Finally, they reflected on the tour’s impact on their collaborations — past, present and future — and speculated about what it might take for them to reunite for a new album.

[This interview has been edited and condensed.]

How’s your week been? Relaxing, I imagine, after last weekend.

Nicolas Godin: Yeah. I never felt such pressure. The first TV show we did as Air in ’97, it was live on a show that was very famous that I used to watch when I was a teenager. So that was a lot of stage fright, but last week may have been worse.

I was annoyed to see NBC cut to a commercial when you guys started playing.

Godin: Yeah, it’s such a shame. I don’t understand why they did that just in America. You have commercials all the time everywhere — it’s a disease.

What prompted you to choose “Playground Love” in particular?

Godin: Because we wanted to do a track with Phoenix, and this is the only song where Thomas, from the band, is singing. And also, we’re still Air. We didn’t want to give up our mellow vibe.

It was, obviously, a huge spectacle, but it was also surprisingly subdued. Did you know what the whole experience was going to be like?

Godin: No. We rehearsed two or three weeks [beforehand]. We did a show at the Parisian airport, Charles de Gaulle, and we rehearsed the track there and played it live. And then when we arrived at the Olympics, we thought we would have time to rehearse the track, but it was just a briefing. And then I saw Tom Cruise rehearsing his jump. Even he rehearsed! But that was it. It was fun, because Phoenix and us grew up in the same town. We spent the afternoon with them in the dressing room, and it was a nice friendship moment.

How much did the tour make the Olympics performance a little bit more manageable?

Jean-Benoit Dunckel: At Charles de Gaulle, because we recorded the tape and we played together, we knew the song and the atmosphere of the song. But with Phoenix, we played with them when we were really young. They were sort of our backing band, when we used to play with them on TV shows. So it was a historic moment for us.

Godin: It’s once-in-a-lifetime. This is the first time we played in a stadium … I saw so many YouTube videos of the Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin, or Elton John walking in the hallways of a stadium. I thought, “I did the same walk!”

Was it tough to be present in the moment?

Godin: Yeah, it went too fast to enjoy really.

Dunckel: Yeah. It doesn’t make any sense to be in the stadium, because you can’t hear anything, you don’t know where the cameras are, so you just do your thing. I was definitely trying to enjoy the moment. The noise of the audience is really something because it comes from everywhere. You feel being like you’re in the Olympic circus, like in the Romans’ time. You are waiting to be eaten by lions, actually.

Godin: The fact that it was the Olympics, a big symbol of fraternity and humankind, I thought it was so warm — the energy of all these athletes from all around the world, and everybody was nice and happy. It was unbelievable. In the middle of the mess that’s the world right now, I think that was the most impressive thing for me. That’s the most precious gift of that day, to be in the middle of so much beautiful spirit. I will remember it all my life, that I feel surrounded by people from all over the world. It was a nice parenthesis, like a bubble — a strange version of the world where nobody hates each other.

The tour you’re doing commemorates the 25th anniversary of “Moon Safari.” When and how did you first conceive it?

Godin: It’s the first time we’ve decided to do a tour, because since ’97, when we went on tour, it was automatic. Every couple of years, that was our lifestyle. And then we finished the last tour in 2018, and when it was time to go back on tour, it was the COVID situation, and everything stopped — and then we stopped even having things to do together. So, for the first time, we asked that question, “Should we do a tour, or not?” So, it’s unique in our career, and it’s a good thing, because now, sometimes when it’s hard, or when I’m tired, I think, “I wanted that” — and it’s a big difference, compared to the other tours.

Dunckel: But also, I was thinking that it’s better to play your best stuff because it sounds better on stage, but performing one album on stage delivers a certain unique atmosphere to the audience. They really like that special, unique, childlike atmosphere of “Moon Safari.” And I think it works because we do “Moon Safari,” and then we do four or five of our best songs, and it gives a unique show.

Godin: Also, it brings freshness to the tour, because on an album, you put your best song at the beginning, but when you do a concert, you put your best song at the end. And we play songs we never play live, like, “Ce matin là.” It’s like a time capsule. Everywhere I go, there’s “Moon Safari” posters, “Moon Safari” albums. It’s like a big loop. You know “Quantum Leap,” the TV show? It’s the same thing — suddenly, you wake up, and you’re back in ’98.

Was the album always going to be played sequentially, or was there ever a discussion of shuffling tracks around?

Godin: No. We wanted to be honest, because the people who lived with this album when it was released, it’s imprinted in their minds. At the end of each song, you know what song is next. It’s like the B-side of “Abbey Road” — I’m not comparing “Moon Safari” to “Abbey Road,” because The Beatles are way better than us — but when one song finishes, you know what’s next. And we didn’t want to break that sensation. It’s a sacred experience people had with the album, and performing the songs in order is a trademark for fans from our generation.

Were certain songs uniquely difficult to adapt to perform them live? You said “Ce matin là” was one that you had not performed before.

Godin: We didn’t want to fake things. “Ce matin là” has a horn melody, and so we replaced the horn melody with a Moog, but the Minimoog is even better because it makes the song much more cheesy — in a good way. It fits the spirit of the track even better.

Dunckel: What we had to adapt is ourselves, because the songs are all right. I think that songs are like little animals — they live by themselves, and they need humans to exist. The instrumentation works on the album, so there is no reason that it doesn’t work onstage. It’s just us, we have to be open, and to play it right. It took a few shows to find the right energy with the audience, because “Ce matin là,” as Nicolas said, they like it as it is.

What preparation did it take for the two of you to settle back into playing together?

Dunckel: Maybe we are still adapting. I don’t know. The songs are under the fingers, they are ready to be played.

Godin: When we play together, there’s a chemistry. When we were in rehearsals, “La femme d’argent” was the first song we played, and I got goosebumps. I think a good band is when the right people play together. You could play with someone else who’s even better, but it will not work. There’s a mystery in that.

The last time I interviewed you individually, you both declined to say, “We’re breaking up.” How much has the tour given you a middle path to keep working together without having to go through the combustible circumstances of creating new music?

Dunckel: We don’t know. The tour just started, so we have to wait for the energy to come back. Because now, every day, we are in a hurry — there is always something going on. So, we don’t have the time to think about recording together. This is the difficulty of being on tour. Suddenly, you wake up one morning, and two years have passed, and nothing really changed. It’s really strange.

Godin: Yeah, I forgot how much the tour kept us from the rest of our everyday life.

Do you see the North American leg as different from the previous ones?

Godin: I think the U.S. run will be more close to the concerts we had at the beginning. When we started, the idea was to do a Stanley Kubrick vision of an object — a very pure, white rectangle in beautiful theaters. The fact that the American tour would be indoors in some venues, it’s going to be much closer to the idea we had at the beginning. Also, we play “Moon Safari” in order, so at festivals, sometimes it’s just strange, but in a venue, in a concert hall, it makes more sense.

Has this process prompted you two to reminisce, or do you typically stay in contact enough that it’s not so much of a nostalgic exercise?

Dunckel: We are much more in contact now, and we have so much time to kill, so sometimes we speak about the past, and we have some funny stories. It brings a bit of fun to the tour.

Godin: When you have a career, it’s very violent, there is stress, but now when we think of our career, we think more of the good moments. It’s very strange. Everything is more positive right now. I think we finally understand the luck we have to have Air in our life, and this tour helped us consider that in a much more profound way.

What told you when you were making “Moon Safari” that you were onto something really special?

Godin: While we were doing “Moon Safari,” we could feel suddenly something was strong about what we were doing as a whole, like you have a creature in front of you, and it’s very impressive. I think when you do a record, obviously you need to be able to compose a good song, but you need to put inside the song a piece of energy that’s unique. Being an artist is about building a box to welcome a piece of life, whether it’s a song, a painting, a book. It can be sometimes a very complex song, and sometimes a very simple song, as long as there’s a piece of life in it. But because we were a witness to that, when it’s not there, we know — and that’s hard. It’s hard when you go in the studio and you create something, and that piece of life is not in it. That’s the way we can check if we are doing a good record or a bad record, because we know when this piece of life is in the track, or when it’s not. And we don’t lie to ourself. And I think if we make music together again, it’s only if we can feel that we put this life is in the songs.

Dunckel: We’re able to compose shitty music too. We have to admit it.

Godin: And the paradox is that the worse the song, the more you work on it to make it good. So being a musician sometimes is really depressing, because you spend your whole day working on a bad song, because the good songs are good so you don’t need to work on them.

Nicolas, you described “Moon Safari,” “Virgin Suicides” and “Talkie Walkie” as classic albums, or your favorites. JB, do you agree with that assessment, and what catapults those records to the ranks of classics?

Dunckel: The definition of classic is when [an album] never finishes what it has to tell to people, because it’s full of emotion. There is a mysterious component, but something really necessary. Maybe because it has the magic of capturing the right atmosphere at the right time. Or maybe it’s because there was not any album like that before.

Has this process put you guys in the mind frame of beginning to consider creating new music together?

Godin: Yeah. Personally, I would not mind, but you have to go with the flow, and also, we need a good launching pad — not an excuse, but something more. It needs to come naturally. My position in terms of making new music, whether it is with Air or with me, is that I feel like we’ve done what we had to do. Making “Moon Safari” and “Talkie Walkie,” I think I really did what I was meant to be on Earth. I’m not doing music because it’s a job, so it needs to be amazing. And that’s very complex. But I don’t know. It’s like the Olympics — we will be ready, but we will not provoke it.

Dunckel: For me, it’s a matter of mood. The mood has to be right, the environment has to be right, and I don’t know how it’s going to be.It’s not only a matter of vision about a new album, I have to believe if it’s necessary or not. Maybe I need also to feel the audience really wants it. Maybe there are fans who say they’re interested by [new music from] Air, but maybe they will be not actually because they are pleased with what we have done already.

Godin: Yeah, because all the old bands that we used to love, when they make new albums, do we like them? It’s a question. I don’t want to do that for Air — it would be sad. If you make an album and everybody prefer the ones you did in the past, why are you doing this? I’m such a big fan of some bands, and I didn’t even listen to the last album they released, and the history of music business is like that. I don’t think one person in the audience [at a Rolling Stones concert] wants them to play one of their last album’s songs. I think they would all prefer them to play “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Satisfaction.”

Or, maybe we could do something completely different than we did in the past, so fans will not be able to compare it to our old albums. In a way, when we did “Virgin Suicides” after “Moon Safari,” when we did the soundtrack that was a way for us to escape the problem. Maybe we need this kind of project to avoid the comeback.

Dunckel: The question is, is a band able to do something fresh and unique again, or is it going to be trying to imitate what they did before? Because when I was young, I hated old musicians’ music. When you were over 35, for me, it was shitty music. I said to myself, “I can feel what people think when they see old guys doing music together.” Again, so, it has to be really strong, and unique, and fresh. And maybe it will happen, because when we stopped the band for 10 years, it can give us something unique. Because we tour and because we study music, and we still record, we’ve learned a lot. We are not beginners any more, and there are so many other things to say. But the thing with music is that when you lie, you can hear this lie. So you have to be honest all of the time. Otherwise, people can feel dishonesty in the note, and in the sound.