Alex Gopher is a celebrated member of the tight-knit Parisian dance music set. He’s enjoying a pint with friends and members of his live band at the Slipped Disco night in Shoreditch’s Bar Music Hall. They’re about to introduce Londoners to the gritty live version of old classics such as ‘The Child’ and of his new album ‘Alex Gopher’; a grown-up affair with ‘proper’ songs featuring guitars, dreamy Air moments, ‘80s pop and indie references.
His history is interwoven with the small but perfectly formed Paris music scene. At college he invited Nicolas Godin to join his band Orange which also happened to feature Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Xavier Jamaux who later became Bang-Bang. “Our main influence was David Bowie,” recalls Gopher with a smile. “We were recording a lot of demos and going to see all the record companies and nobody wanted to sign us! We were singing in English and they said if you want to sign with us you have to sing in French. It was impossible for record companies to imagine selling records abroad then. We decided to split. We were sure we were the best rock n roll band in the world. We were self-confident and that’s the reason why we did not stop. It’s the reason we are all still here to day.” As history shows, “Nicolas wanted to go with a lounge thing which is Air so he went with Jean-Benoit and I wanted to do music influenced by black music. I went with Etienne de Crecy to make the label Solid.”
Together they established the influential and successful label and put together the Super Discount project in 1996 whose debut album is still seen as the definitive French filtered house record. “When we made the label Solid, it was just the idea of making really underground thing for DJs. We were the first to be surprised when Super Discount became a success because it was not the goal.” In fact, a new Super Discount 3 record is in the pipeline but “The only thing I know about it,” reveals Gopher, “is that it will be green!” (The first being yellow, the second being hot pink.)
