The young and
the feckless

>>Paris/London trio the Teenagers
act their age, again

OH, GROW UP: The Teenagers

By JACK OATMON

What do you say to a band whose most popular single’s chorus kicks off with a smug voice sneering the lines, “On the second day, I fucked her and it was wild. She’s such a slut. I fucked my American cunt”? Do you scorn the weak attempt at irony and the moronic message it conveys? Or do you concede it to showmanship and focus on the half-assed attempt at hammering out pop clichés to carry the smut along? Maybe you even delve into the vapidity of bubblegum ditties that address such topics as “self-love” and the adulation of actress Scarlett Johansson.

Luckily, when I spoke to France’s Dorian Dumont of London, England-based synth-pop group the Teenagers, no such admonishment was required. Dumont, who is 25 years old and a former music journalist, happily detailed the extent to which the band members are, much as the name might seem to suggest, juvenile layabouts with a lot of privilege and little ambition to do anything productive.

Mirror: Why do you think your band gained the popularity it has?

Dorian Dumont: Mostly by MySpace, I think. We created a MySpace page when we did the first songs, then we did nothing for six months. Then we did “Homecoming” in June 2006 and it started there. The labels contacted us, everybody.

M: So if you’re 25, why did you name the band the Teenagers?

DD: We just named it that because we were behaving like teenagers. And now I can act like a teenager again. I’ve been a teenager two times in my life. When you’re on tour, you always have a tour manager who is dealing with everything for you. You just think about playing and partying and drinking. It’s not like a proper job. We don’t have to get up every day and we can just drink all the time.

M: I see. Well do you take the music seriously?

DD: Not really, you know. If people pay to see you and buy your album, you can’t be totally unserious. But we don’t take it too seriously, you know.

M: As a former music journalist, how do you find the press coverage of your band?

DD: It’s okay. It’s a bit weird to have been on both sides because I understand sometimes what they want me to say. When I read it, they’ll say we’re dirty, we’re filthy. But the lyrics are just jokes, you know? For now, we’re quite lucky with the press.

M: Sure, I hear you. A lot of papers want to sensationalize something about a band to sell copies. What about the live show, how has that been going?

DD: Well, we play mostly in clubs. And I like that because someday we probably won’t be playing in clubs anymore. And that’s going to be really boring. Hey, a lot of people told me that in Montreal the girls are really easy. Is it true?

With guests at Studio Juste Pour Rire
on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 9 p.m., $16.50