Name: hifiklub
Members: Jean-Loup Faurat (Guitar, Effects), Pascal Abbatucci Julien (Drums), Régis Laugier (Bass, Vocals)
Interviewee: Régis Laugier
Nationality: French
Recent release: hifiklub's Scorpklub I & II Original Soundtracks, an audiovisual collaboration with James Kerr, and featuring Iggor Cavalera, Scorpion Dagger, and Alain Johannes. is out via Electric Valley.
Recommendations: I love the new Party Dozen album, The Real Work. I might as well have quoted Messa, Russians Circles, Gilla Band, Viagra Boys, Just Mustard, black midi, Duke Garwood or Blood Incantation … there are all on our 2022 list!
Just received this book called Listen: The Stages and Studios That Shaped American Music, it looks fantastic.

If you enjoyed this interview with hifiklub and would like to find out more about their music, visit their official website. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, and Soundcloud.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started playing the guitar around 14, before switching to bass a few years later. My method of learning consisted very quickly of composing my own melodies and structures. Having my own musical language is what has always motivated me the most.

Besides, I did everything I could to get into a recording studio before I turned 20. Since then, I never got tired of being in an environment of creation, encounters and continual discovery.

Having picked up an instrument at the very beginning of the 90s, the metal and alternative rock of that era made a big impression on me. I then quickly opened up to more varied music, sometimes more demanding or instrumental. I switched from guitar to bass when I fell in love with Critters Buggin’s debut album (Guest), a fantastic band from Seattle.



Mike Watt's first solo album (Ball-Hog Or Tugboat?) made a big impression on me at the same time, especially for its collaborative aspect, which totally influenced me for Hifiklub in terms of form.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I have a very instinctive approach to music. Very frontal. If I get hooked on something, I have to dig deeper to understand the influences, the era, the ramifications. It can haunt me.

The idea of discovering new music and new artistic is fundamental for me. I spend a lot of time on these issues. It's not so much my body but rather my mind that goes into a trance-like reflection when something musically exciting comes my way. The discovery of a new artist can quickly push me to specifically imagine a new project for the group, in his company. Whatever the musical aesthetic.

This pushes us to very often shake up our schedules and constantly question our sound.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

My appetite for discovering new things is never satisfied. It's like an endless series where the end of each season always calls for more curiosity, to start a next chapter.

From an aesthetic point of view, I can listen to a very wide range of music, very wide. Nothing blocks me or stops me, as long as it's good for my ears! Being constantly faced with new guests pushes me to constantly review my limits.

The group's open formula requires open-mindedness and constant listening to others. Each new album is systematically a new challenge, on a human, musical but also technical level.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

Our identity is plural. As listeners, we like improbable projects and alliances ... this is a principle on which we rely directly for Hifiklub.

Our originality lies in our ability to multiply collaborations and build a discography of the most contrasting.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

The idea of sharing and the thirst for collaboration have been the central elements of our approach since our beginnings. Our group is made up of permanent members (today we’re 2, Jean-Loup Faurat and myself) and occasional members (more than 200 collaborations since 2006).

Our duty is to listen as much as possible to the ideas brought by our guests. We never reject guest proposals on our own compositions. Our state of mind is always open and reactive ... for the sake of the compositions and in the systematic interest of collaboration.

Open-mindedness, unknown, constant surprises, rebounds ... are our key words.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

Both notions interest us equally.

I have not stopped on principles. I like to evolve in my reasoning. We were able to record albums projecting into the future, with very current sounds, as well as albums referring to traditional music, particularly in Corsica. Our discography, made up of more than 20 albums, is deliberately quite contradictory and full of surprises.

Our working methods are constantly changing and it is difficult for us to choose between traditional or modern registration processes. I like to record an album on tapes at Steve Albini's studio in Chicago (we just got back) as much as in front of a computer without any amplifier in a small room. It is the act of creation and the human presence that interest me above all.

We had the chance to experiment with many different techniques, even outdoors in abandoned places or in the middle of the Californian desert, for example with Alain Johannes, on generators or with the means at hand.

I do not seek perfection, but experience.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

Over time, the bass is now the instrument that I have practiced the most in my life. A very personal practice that includes much more spontaneity than theory.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I remain a hard worker, from early in the morning, until late at night, 7 days a week. Each of my days is long and made up of varied actions between my family, my daily work (I am a member of the board of a very large conservatory in the South of France), my associative commitments and the life of my band, whether it is about composition, recording, concerts, promotion or the financing of our projects with the assistance from various partners, private or public.

This last part of the day is very demanding because it involves a lot of coordination and personal investment on the administrative level. But it remains a great asset to be able to steer our boat ourselves. It's a lot of work, but it gives us immense freedom.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

Our working method can vary greatly from one project to another. Sometimes we compose pieces precisely, sometimes we leave spaces favoring spontaneity, sometimes our albums are improvised.

I can tell you about the project that we are going to record in a few weeks. This is a double collaboration, with the entire orchestra of the Foreign Legion and the composer Jean-Michel Bossini. Jean-Loup Faurat and I have composed and briefly recorded in our rehearsal room several ideas for melodies. We then went through all these basic ideas in the presence of our producer Anthony Belguise, who selected parts or rejected others.

From the selected elements, we met in front of the computer at Anthony's, to develop the basic ideas, all three of us. It is at this stage there a work of creation and development very spontaneous, in the moment. Once assembled, we then sent two demos of ten minutes each to Jean-Michel Bossini, so that he could arrange the pieces according to our discussions and write the scores for the 63 musicians of the Foreign Legion.

The next step will be next March to record live, in their base in Aubagne, the musicians of the Foreign Legion, under the direction of their conductor Emile Lardeux. Then, Jean-Loup and I will re-record our parts on the takes of the foreign legion. It will be easier that way.

At the end, mixing by Anthony, mastering then broadcasting during an exhibition in our city of Toulon. Holy project!

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

Everything revolves around the idea of collaboration with us.

To be more specific, I may come into rehearsal with an idea for a melody and progression that I found sitting on my couch … but its development is always a collective process. First in the company of Jean-Loup Faurat, then with our guest(s), sometimes under the gaze of our producer.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

The role of music should be liberating. Music, like art more generally, can give meaning to life. It offers the desire to move forward and overcome the challenges. She reassures.

Music is for me a true traveling companion, not every moment of my life. It's not a hobby for me. It allows you to build yourself, because the fact of presenting yourself to others is not an easy thing.

Some artists manage to capture an era in a few notes. I have immense respect for these geniuses, but that is not my goal. That's not my talent. I just like the idea of building a modest pyramid of hundreds of encounters. These creations will outlive me, that's already something.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Music is the perfect outlet for the trials of life. It obviously accompanies our joys and our sorrows.

It is above all for me a marker of memory, as a secret notebook of intimate confidences can be for some. Contrary to other memories of the past, I have a very precise memory of the events of my life related to music or of the meetings provoked in a musical context.

On the other hand, the ups and downs of my life have no direct influence on my music. Well, I don't think so!

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

Music and science work somewhat in the same way. Assemblages imagined in somewhat isolated and intimate spaces, be it a studio or a laboratory, then unveiled to the whole world, debated, preserved in the memories to influence other works to come or forgotten at the bottom of a trash can.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

It all depends on the involvement and interest you put in mundane tasks ... and what this so-called mundane task represents for the person who performs it. If my job was to be a brewer or a barista then yes, I would put as much attention into blending flavors as I do today to imagine a sequence of notes.

If music and composition in particular are not trivial acts, let's not position it either as the ultimate creative act superior to other tasks more easily accessible to everyone. Everyday things can lose their banality to become very quickly creative, provided you want it and put interest into it. Can we talk about food, come on!?

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

Music is so plural. Everyone is benefiting. Its perpetual movement allows it to infiltrate all minds, even those for whom music is not central. This is its magic. Music comes to us, even if we don't look for it.

What is magical is that it is self-sufficient, unlike many other arts, and it is so easy to access it. Whether we like it or not, music falls on us every day, in urban areas of course, but also in secluded places where other forms of music appear. We even know that silence is musical.

The extreme diversity of music means that any composition will always find a place in someone's mind and heart, even for the most modest and wonky of compositions.