With twenty years of covering some of the most seminal post-punk and new wave tracks of all time, French band Nouvelle Vague bring their elegant live performance to Metronome next Wednesday. We sat down to speak to producer Marc Collins and singer Mélanie Pain to discover how the band began and what inspired their sound...
There’s something special about hearing a great cover song, as if a window to an alternate universe has opened into ours, where things are the same, but different. Nouvelle Vague, who since 2004 have been reimagining some of the most intriguing and brilliant songs ever written, don’t just open a window, they invite you to the nightclubs, beaches and backstreets of said world, a place where the feminine and French share the stories of punks, goths and rockers.
The latest album Should I Stay Or Should I Go? was released in February ‘24 and takes a slight turn from previous releases in some of its musical stylings, bringing big band bravado and Bond-esque chanteusery to tracks such as Dead or Alive’s You Spin Me Right Round and Bauhaus’ She’s In Parties, while layering songs like Rebel Yell with their usual sophisticated sentiment.
This is part of the fun of Nouvelle Vague - scanning the track listings of their albums you’re bound to spot some familiar favourites - they’ve covered everyone from Depeche Mode to the Dead Kennedy’s, Blondie to Billy Idol - yet just how the band will interpret each number is always open to the unexpected.
Marc talks about his first foray into music as a teenager; learning classical piano before pivoting to synths and keyboard after seeing someone play at a party. Having recorded his own music with different bands, an idea then began to bubble of mixing the sunny and relaxing sounds of soft Brazilian bossa nova with the lyricism and grit of ‘cold 1980s Manchester’.
I ask Marc what first appealed to him about reimagining the songs of others. "When I discovered that Tainted Love by Soft Cell wasn't a Soft Cell song, that it was a cover from the 60s, I thought I want to play with this idea that you don't always know if you are listening to an original song or a cover,” he explains.
“Later, we had this time we call the ‘easy listening revival’. Everybody was listening to these 60s and 70s bands and doing covers, so it was kind of a trend. But I thought, let's really recreate something - forget about all the production and put our own personal artistic visions on the song. So we just kept the melody and the lyrics.”
Working alongside late producer Olivier Libaux, Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart and Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough were the first Nouvelle Vague songs recorded, with Brazilian singer Eloisia on vocals.
“I was into this whole concept of Brazil, but I could only find one Brazilian singer in Paris, and she really didn't know how to speak in English or to sing in English," said Marc.
Despite the language barrier, it was a concept that evidently had legs, so Marc set out to look for other singers to collaborate with on the project. Mélanie describes her introduction to the band as ‘completely by accident’. Marc had heard her vocals on a demo he’s been sent by her then boyfriend’s band: “I listened to it and I loved the vocals. So I called the guy, and I said, ‘’Yeah, I like your music, but who is this girl that is singing?!”
“I wasn't a professional singer at all,” Mélanie adds. “So, when I came to the studio, they said ‘Sing these two songs, and maybe it'll work’. It was very quick. I thought, ‘Okay, they're never gonna call me back.’ So when they did I was very surprised.”
I'm trying to build an atmosphere, something more than just a song. That's why there's a lot of different ambiences, like the sea, birds, or dogs barking. All these kinds of things give a second depth of field
The rest, as they say, was history, and since their first self-titled album in 2004, the band have released nine more and collaborated with numerous other singers, some of whom, like Mélanie, had sometimes never come across the original versions before recording them.
“When we began working with Mélanie, she didn't have any references. We just played the guitar to her, and we sang the melody, and gave her the lyrics. She said, ‘I don't know the original song, so I will do it like this,’ which made it a complete recreation,” Marc tells me.
This fresh perspective shines within the Nouvelle Vague sound. When delving into their back catalogue, it is clear this is not your usual covers band. Melancholy is juxtaposed with playfulness, wistfulness is mixed with flirtatious coquettishness, and elegance laid over lyrics of rebellion. Other sounds float in too, further adding to a cinematic mise-en-scène. This Marc tells me, is not by accident.
“In my teenage years, I wanted to be a filmmaker. So I always had a lot of influences and references from cinema,” he explains. “I'm trying to create an atmosphere, something more than just a song. That's why there's a lot of different ambiences, like the sea, birds, or dogs barking. All these kinds of things give a second depth of field.”
“We're kind of building an atmosphere and a whole sound, and it's all individual,” says Mélanie. “After twenty years, sometimes I go on stage and I forget that we're doing covers. It's like we're doing a Nouvelle Vague sound, but we're telling our own stories.”
As the band head on tour next week, (kicking off in Notts with their aforementioned gig at Metronome), Mélanie is also preparing for the release of her fourth solo album How and Why, which she describes as “a folky album. It's fragile and melancholic, but super sunny… a bit like me.” The most recent single Dreamloop is a delicate and dreamy dip into Melanie’s world, with that same naïve, ethereal charm in her voice that has given Nouvelle Vague its sound. She also shares the exciting news that she will be returning to the UK for several solo dates in the new year.
With such a catalogue of songs to choose from, I ask Marc how they possibly decide what to play live, and what we can expect to hear on the night.
"Well we are celebrating… it's the twenty year anniversary of the first album, and we have a new one. So I thought, let's do both. Let's present almost all the first album, and a lot of songs from the new album."
Nouvelle Vague featuring Mélanie Pain play at Metronome on Wednesday 12 November 2025, with tickets available below.
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