Anthony Gonzalez is a busy musician. When I reached him in his hometown of Antibes, the man behind the electronic shoegaze band M83 was taking a short break from working in his home studio, which he went right into after recent tours with the Kings of Leon and the Killers. What he’s working on is unclear. It could be the follow-up to last year’s critically-acclaimed M83 tribute to teenagedom Saturdays=Youth, or more ambient solo stuff like he performed in January to open for the M83 show at Irving Plaza. Most likely he was arranging pieces to play with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the Walt Disney Concert Hall this weekend, a performance that he is excited for, but admits is a challenge. Soon the soft-spoken Frenchman will embark on a few more dates on the West Coast and Australia, including the Sasquatch music festival in Seattle, but while he had some time to take a breath he spoke to me about stargazing, John Hughes, and his special connection to Iron Maiden.

You just got back from touring with the Killers. Did you do any writing while on tour? No, I don’t really work on the new album when I’m touring. It’s difficult for me to write music when on tour. That’s the reason why I’m always waiting to come back to my house and my studio, to work on my studio. It’s difficult for me to write music on the road, actually. I don’t know why.

Well, it’s a very different situation. You’re back in Antibes now. What do you do with your days when you’re not in the studio? I do a lot of sports. So I play a lot of soccer and football. I do a lot of cycling as well. I like to go cycling, I like to go to the sea, and stuff like that. My life when I’m not making music is not really interesting.

M83 is named after the Messier 83 galaxy, and I also know you stargaze, so I wanted to ask you about that. Oh, yes. Especially during the summer. Otherwise during the winter it can be too cold. But on a really hot summer night, it’s really beautiful. And sometimes with friends of mine, we take the car and drive to the mountains to see the stars because it’s much more close to things.

Do you have a favorite constellation? Not really. I don’t really know anything about formations. I just like staring at the sky and staring at the stars. I just think when I’m watching the stars I really have the feeling that my life is meaningless, and I feel very small and little. It’s like life is much more easy.

I was listening to Saturdays=Youth this morning, and when listening to it, it puts you in a very specific mindset. I know you’ve said the goal was to evoke the feeling of your youth, but were you in love when you wrote this album? Um, yeah. I was actually. I think all my moods influence my music at some point. And yes, I was in a relationship, and yes I was in love, and also my music has always been very romantic and very melancholy, so I think it’s just a part of myself.

Can you describe what you wanted to capture in Saturdays=Youth about being a teenager? I just wanted to capture the innocence. That’s what I like about being a teenager -- that you don’t really care about anything. You believe that you can deal with everything. And you really think you are strong and powerful. You’re really confident, actually. When you’re growing up, when you’re becoming an adult, you start to lose confidence.

Do you remember the first show you saw when you were growing up? It was a heavy metal concert with Iron Maiden. It was my first real show, and it was amazing. They had Eddie, you know, this big puppet, on stage. It was incredible. It was really crazy, especially when you’re ten years old, you know? I was really young, and when you don’t know anything about music, and it’s your first show, it was spectacular.

Your live show is great as well. Not as good as Iron Maiden.

I guess it depends on your perspective. But how do you feel when you perform? Because you rarely face the audience. I like to perform. But I definitely think I’m an artist who would rather work in a studio than be on stage. Being on stage is for me very difficult because I’m really shy. I’m not very talkative. I don’t know what to say to people, you know? So that’s the reason why I don’t say anything. Because sometimes I feel so stupid when I’m talking to the audience. I’m really simple. But I feel much more confident compared to the previous live shows I used to do. So I’m sure that on the next album I’ll be more talkative.

Did you learn anything from touring with the Killers and the Kings of Leon in the UK and playing huge venues? Yeah, of course. The Kings of Leon are really big in the UK, and the Killers are really big in America. When you play big venues, you play in front of an audience that doesn't know about you, so it’s very interesting and very challenging. It was a wonderful experience. The two bands, they both were really kind and nice with us. They were really welcoming. Even if I’m not a big fan of their music, it was a big opportunity and a good way of promoting the album, you know?

Your albums at times feel like soundtracks. What is your relationship with music videos? I always choose the people that I want to work with, for the music videos and also for the covers of the albums. But yeah, I just like to have a dialogue or chat with them about the video or the cover. It’s important for me to feel close to the people I’m working with, it’s very important.

You just did a movie soundtrack as well? Yeah, I did one. Unfortunately, the movie hasn’t been released yet. I was working with Eva Husson, she’s a French director, she did the "Kim and Jessie" video. She had problems with the producers of this movie. I worked on the soundtrack like, two years ago or something like that. I was working in a studio in Paris, and it was really fun. Working on a movie and working with pictures is very exciting and very challenging. I always dreamed about making movie soundtracks because I’ve been listening to a lot of movie soundtracks since I was a kid and because I’m watching a lot of movies, it’s really important to me. I think that movies are maybe more important than music for me.

So, you have one album left on your contract right now? What are you thinking of after that? How do you know that? I think I will try to get another contract with another ... Maybe I’ll just like, stop making music and travel. Sometimes I just want to quit everything, you know? I’m really happy, I’m really very happy with my life, but sometimes I just want to change everything about it.

Photo: Anouk Bertin
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