Paris Texas are nearly able to get off this planet. On ‘Mid Air’, the LA punk-rap duo’s thrill-packed debut album, they commerce bars about escaping this doomed rock by saving up sufficient money for a a method ticket to Mars. “The solar is whoopin’ all people’s ass,” they lament. “Earth lastly threw within the towel.”

On a blazingly scorching afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, it isn’t exhausting to see how the pair arrived at that apocalyptic conclusion. The solar is certainly whoopin’ all people’s ass at the moment. In a warehouse studio booked out for his or her NME cowl shoot, rapper-producer Louie Pastel has his shirt off and a weathered MTV cap pushed again on his head. He’s holding a cigarette in a single hand and DJing from his telephone with the opposite.

The sounds filling the room are as eclectic as you’d anticipate of a gaggle which have drawn comparisons with Odd Future and Demise Grips however who defy straightforward categorisation. We hear Louisiana rapper Autumn!, then Brazilian psychedelic samba from Novos Baianos and Radiohead’s acoustic model of ‘Creep’. Beside him, his comrade Felix is weighing up the professionals and cons of filming vs photograph shoots. “In movies you’re in fixed motion, so that you’re not caught on one dumb face,” he ponders. “Fashions are loopy! I don’t understand how they do it.”

In anticipation of ‘Mid Air’, Paris Texas just lately put out a string of music movies themed across the concept of blasting off to Mars – some hosted by longtime buddy Mac DeMarco. The absurd, acerbic clips showcase their boundless creativity, and a knack for storytelling that transcends music. In reality, rising up in Compton, Louie initially dreamed of changing into an actor, or a comic book e book artist. “I simply preferred creating stuff,” he explains, taking a seat on a sofa. “Music wasn’t actually on the forefront of what I needed to do.”

In close by South Central, Felix was stealing his older sister’s iPod so he might take heed to early Drake mixtapes, Lil Wayne and Kanye. ‘The Faculty Dropout’ was on repeated rotation. “For almost all of center college I used to be listening to ‘Get Em Excessive’ rather a lot,” he recollects. “At the moment, I didn’t know I needed to do music. I simply preferred it.”

The pair met whereas attending neighborhood school in 2013, bonding over a shared love of underground rapper Robb Financial institution$. By then, Louie was utilizing Ableton on his laptop computer to make beats, enjoying them for anybody who’d hear. Associates inspired him to take music, which he noticed as a interest, severely. “My final semester there, I confirmed this child Wes some beats and he was like: ‘You’re exhibiting lots of people beats, and I haven’t heard you speak about college one time!’” remembers Louie. “He was like: ‘You may simply need to stop college and do music full time.’”

Felix, in the meantime, was busy scribbling down rhymes and tentatively recording utilizing a house mic and a “shitty ass model of Professional Instruments”. Nothing he’d need to play to anybody, although. “I wasn’t telling no one,” he recollects. “I felt like I didn’t earn the title of somebody who made music, as a result of I wasn’t placing it out.”

In 2014, each Louie and Felix began enjoying small gigs at events and artwork exhibits round LA, however nonetheless thought-about themselves separate artists. It was destiny that pushed them to affix forces. “We weren’t a gaggle, however they’d all the time e book us collectively,” explains Louie. They took the trace, and determined to assist one another work on tunes. “That was the preliminary plan: Get good at no matter you need to do, really feel extra snug, after which we’d be like: ‘Do your individual factor, I’ll do my very own factor.’ However, we ended up simply continually making music collectively.”

What actually bonded the pair was their shared unwillingness to place out something they didn’t actually love. In 2018 they formally fashioned Paris Texas, taking their identify from a Wim Wenders movie, impressed by a nonetheless from the film they noticed on Tumblr. They thought the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate locations suited their broad-ranging sound. Launched that very same 12 months, debut EP ‘I’ll Get My Revenge In Hell’ picked up some buzz, however as a substitute of working in direction of the hype they disappeared, ready till they felt that they had one thing actually price saying.

That got here in 2021 with the discharge of the viral single ‘Heavy Steel’, adopted by mixtape ‘Boy Nameless’ and second EP ‘Crimson Hand Akimbo’. What as soon as was a interest had change into their lives. “While you’re chasing one thing inventive like music, that doesn’t conform, all people – dad and mom, girlfriends – deems you as lazy and thinks you don’t need to work exhausting,” says Louie. “As soon as I obtained began I used to be very very like: ‘Alright, let me work as exhausting as I presumably can.’”

In March 2022, Louie and Felix decamped to Mount Shasta, a quiet city on the northernmost fringe of California, to concentrate on a full-length mission away from the distractions of LA. Their recording classes, nevertheless, had been quickly lower quick by tragedy: Felix realized his father had died and rushed again to LA. His loss of life lurks within the shadows of ‘Mid Air’, a file which couldn’t assist however be influenced by their shock and grief. “It’s taken from actual life,” says Felix. “The extra we’ve gotten older, you realise that not all people goes to make it. It’s one thing that you just neglect, since you’re used to them and also you suppose they’re going to be there eternally.”

There’s a reckoning with mortality woven by way of ‘Mid Air’, from the album’s ear-catching opening line (“Who wanna rock? Who wanna roll? Who wanna die?”) to the morbid rumble of album spotlight ‘Everyone’s Protected Till…’ (“Demise on my thoughts / I obtained loss of life on my thoughts” goes the repeated chorus). No surprise Paris Texas are so eager to make their escape from Earth, or at the least Los Angeles.

They appear virtually extra at dwelling in London, which they visited for the primary time in the course of the ‘Boy Nameless’ tour in 2021 and rapidly fell in love with. They commemorate the journey on the tongue-in-cheek monitor ‘Full English’, which reels off a listing of the most effective of British tradition from Harry Potter to “rolling a cig”. “We went for like two weeks, and it was actually enjoyable. Plenty of reminiscences made there,” says Felix, earlier than Louie provides: “London appears like someplace I wish to transfer to within the close to future. After I’m there I’m like: ‘This appears like dwelling.’” King Krule additionally earns a reputation drop, because the pair are each followers. “I really feel like that’s the one artist that actually broke by way of right here,” explains Louie. “He was our introduction to that world.”

The references to Britain (“I’m in a puffer coat made beneath a London flag”) proceed on subsequent monitor ‘Lana Del Rey’, which is called as a nod to the actual fact the titular singer has her personal track referred to as ‘Paris, Texas’ on her most up-to-date album. As Louie reveals, that concept was itself impressed by Washington mathcore band The Fall of Troy. “I grew up on them and actually like them, they usually did the identical factor with Tom Waits,” he explains. “Tom Waits has a track referred to as ‘The Fall Of Troy’, and The Fall of Troy has a track referred to as ‘Tom Waits’. It’s an ode to them, greater than it’s to Lana Del Rey, which is humorous. I believed it was an ideal alternative.”

“Having to drop ridiculous quantities of music [to stay relevant] is a disservice to music itself” – Louie PASTEL

We’re talking 4 days after the discharge of ‘Mid Air’, a second Louie, who wrote all of the music, performed guitar, and drummed on the album, discovered notably candy. “It’s like a fucking weight off my shoulders!” he grins. “I can lastly suppose freely. I really feel full bliss. Persons are loving it, which is cool.” Nicely, most individuals. Louie has been studying feedback on-line. “Some individuals nonetheless shit on our writing capability, which is so silly!” he complains.

“Weirdly sufficient, doing something various will get you a lot extra criticism than doing the rest. I believe the manufacturing is so loopy, and the concepts are so loopy, that persons are like: ‘Why aren’t they rapping about quote-unquote actual shit?’” He rails in opposition to the concept that each lyric ought to need to have a socially aware message. “I don’t need to speak about Black issues on a regular basis!” he says. “I’m attempting to have enjoyable! It’s a enjoyable album, and we offer you bits of that.”

He additionally pushes again on the notion that the one option to keep related in fashionable music is to continually pump out new ‘content material’. “The preferred artists proper now, not all of them clearly, however loads of the preferred artists proper now are dropping ridiculous quantities of music, and to me that’s a disservice to music itself,” he says. “It’s the society we stay in now the place everybody’s attempting to flip by way of issues, and I really feel like individuals get so bullied by society to fall into that.”

“Doing something various will get you a lot extra criticism” – Louie

He has loads of concepts about the place Paris Texas may go from right here – a collaboration-heavy mixtape, a deluxe model of ‘Mid Air’, a comic book e book – however he doesn’t really feel the necessity to rush something merely to feed the web’s insatiable urge for food for brand new stuff. “Everyone must be extra affected person with their artwork,” he says. “The subsequent mission may not come out for 4 years, in truth. We’ve obtained to determine it out!”

For now, Paris Texas stay in ascendance. The surreal wit and explosive power of ‘Mid Air’ may not get them to Mars, however they’re not prepared to return again all the way down to Earth but both. “We’re floating!” says Felix, with a smile. “Benefit from the present! We’re gonna do some methods within the sky earlier than we land, what I’m saying?”

Paris Texas’ debut album ‘Mid Air’ is out now

Take heed to Paris Texas’ unique playlist to accompany The Cowl beneath on Spotify and right here on Apple Music

Phrases: Kevin EG Perry
Photographer: Ashley Osborn
Mgmt: Mike Ahern