The Best of What’s Next: Reptile Youth

Mads Damsgaard Kristiansen and Esben Valloe, known together as Reptile Youth, are in America for the first time. They are hung over. It’s the day after their first performance at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, and I can tell by their voices that their night extended well beyond the final note of their set at the Alphabet Lounge. In less than a week, their debut album will be released in the U.S., so it seems appropriate that they should pay the country a quick visit to introduce themselves before it hits shelves. “We love it here,” says Kristiansen of New York.

That’s all it is for now, though. A quick visit. They have a full slate of tour dates awaiting them in Europe, where behind the strength of their energetic electronic rock and wild live shows they’ve built up a sizable following since deciding to become rock stars in 2009. It was just that simple, too.

“We went to school together,” remembers Valloe. “Then one day Mads comes over to me and he says, ‘Hey, Esben. I want to be a rock star and I want you to do it with me.’ And from there it’s been rolling like a snowball.”

Simply to “be rock stars” may seem like a crass, ill-fated reason to form a band, but Reptile Youth is inspired by a philosophy and worldview that runs deeper than the desire to wear leather jackets, travel the world and party, although they certainly do all of those things.

“A lot of the ideas we had about this project in the very beginning, a lot of the foundation of ours was based around liberty and freedom and allowing yourself to act outside of the norm,” says Valloe.

Since deciding to play music, the duo has learned not to take artistic freedom for granted. They spent the bulk of their formative period on the road in China, where, not surprisingly, they ran into their fair share of bureaucratic obstacles despite a “progressive and punk” youth culture.

“There were festivals where we played for 10,000 people,” Kristiansen, the singer and frontman, recalls. “The army was there. There were like 100 soldiers in front of the stage. I was trying to get out into the crowd, but some people stopped me. We had to restrict ourselves sometimes. We had to send in our lyrics to the government so they could check, but we just sent them a lot of lyrics that we changed.”

Knowing what it’s like to be censored artistically, Kristiansen and Valloe expressed a profound respect for Pussy Riot, discussing their arrest and ruminating on governmental oppression with an earnestness, sincerity and eloquence that belied the fact they were still nursing the alcohol out of their systems from the night before. “Pussy Riot, they are like heros, in my mind,” Valloe told me. Kristiansen later expressed his desire to marry their leader.

Because Reptile Youth is driven more by abstract ideals and the rock star ethos than some of the more technical aspects of music making, Valloe admits that it was a “struggle translating the live language into the studio” when the time came to record their debut. To help them along, not one, but two producers—Dave Allen, known for his work with The Cure, and Mark Ralph, who had just finished producing Hot Chip’s latest album, In Our Heads—were brought in.

“The combination of the two was really nice,” says Kristiansen. “Dave was like an old punk. He did all The Cure’s albums and a lot of rock stuff, and then Mark Ralph is like more of an electronic guy. It was really nice for us because we wanted to gather those two musical worlds.”

The result is a ten-track album that does just that, equal parts arena-ready guitar rock and pulsating, dance-oriented electronica. Though certain songs stand out, the strength of the album as a whole lies in its overall diversity. Some songs, like “Dead End,” are dark and throbbing, painting the band as brooding fatalists. Others, like “Shooting Up Sunshine,” are buoyant and carefree, portraying Kristiansen and Valloe as radio-friendly pop stars. The mood varies so dramatically, it’s hard to believe a lot of the tracks even belong to the same album.

The clear standout, however, is “Speeddance,” which encapsulates what Reptile Youth actually is: a band to get down to. On top of aggressive, propulsive bass and effects, Kristiansen calls for listeners to, simply, “dance as if your hands are on fire,” “dance as if the floor is on fire” and to “shake your skirt like a hummingbird.” Performed live, Kristiansen invariably ends up lying supine on the outstretched hands of a crowd of rapid, obliging fans.

It’s on stage where Reptile Youth’s ideas of freedom and liberty truly manifest themselves, not just for Kristiansen and Valloe, but for the audience. They both lament seeing shows where “there was too little given from the guys on stage. [Where] they weren’t allowing the audience to give in to the music because they didn’t give in themselves.” To Reptile Youth, it’s the performer’s duty to behave in a way that gives the audience permission to, as they say, “act outside the norm.” It’s the performer’s responsibility to let go first.

“I think we’re doing it together, the audience and us,” says Kristiansen. “We’re doing it together, for each other. I do some of it for the audience and some of it for myself. And I also think the audience does some of it for us and some for themselves. All together you do something together to create some moments or an experience that is just special.”

So far, their approach to performing live as a kind of sacred communion between artist and audience has gotten Reptile Youth hordes of adoring fans throughout Europe and Asia, a chance to work on an album with two of the best producers in the game and, now, a trip to the United States.

“We want to come back,” says Valloe, speaking of the brevity of their current stay. “We think it’d be a good match.”

Considering the band and the country’s shared interest in liberty and freedom, I think it probably would be.