Funky, retro and still living with their parents, Sean Guerin and Isaac Franco, better known as De Lux, first hit the national music scene in 2014 with shiny ’80s-style disco gems “Better at Making Time” and “It All Works All the Time” from their debut album, “Voyage.”
Fast-forward a mere two years and a second album, “Generations,” later, and the momentum continues with socially conscious groove magnet “Oh Man the Future” and other tunes heavy in nostalgia.
They are based in the sunny suburbs of Glendale, Calif. The mystery about the De Lux’s infectious sound syrup is how they manage to pay homage to an era of music they weren’t even around to experience — think Talking Heads 2.0. But the addictive dance floor grooves of this electro band may be all you really need to understand when it comes to the De Lux cool factor. They’ll play Honolulu for the second time Saturday at The Republik.
Guerin and Franco recently spoke with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about their music and career.
Star-Advertiser: Where does the band’s direct influences in the disco-’80s vibe come from?
Franco and Guerin (in unison): Our older brothers!
Franco: My brother is a heavy record collector and a DJ in New York, so I grew up with a lot of his taste (in) disco. (It) also formed from finding where hip-hop samples came from, (which) was lots of funk and disco.
Guerin: I grew up listening to a lot of modern music and slowly made my way down in decades. But the ’80s disco certainly came from my brother being in a pop disco band at one point. That was the band that helped me escape my shy phase of not being able to dance in public.
SA: Talk about Glendale a bit. What kind of town is it? Were there a lot of musical influences or scenes around you?
Franco: Glendale is basic but that’s what’s great about it. It’s not very hip, there’s easy parking and people will race anyone from a baby in a BMW toy car to a grandma in a wheelchair.
DE LUX
Where: The Republik, 1349 Kapiolani Blvd.
When: 9 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $30
Info: flavorus.com or 855-235-2867. All ages accompanied by an adult.
Guerin: Glendale isn’t just basic, though. It’s like the kid who isn’t popular based on his yellow socks and limp, but on the inside he can make one hell of a burrito. But yeah, that city has no music scene. The only music scene it has are locked tight in its high schools.
SA: It’s almost impossible to avoid labels and stereotypes that may come with the De Lux sound; would you say the sound is more of a tribute to the era, putting a unique up-to-date spin on the era, or something that was developed more organically?
Guerin: It’s definitely a natural process, a weird blend. We don’t try to hide the influences, but we also don’t try to imitate. But if we do end up imitating, we just embrace them if it comes out that way. One person might feel like music shouldn’t be derivative and as original as possible, while someone else, who has no knowledge of music, has a mostly unbiased opinion based on instinct. I’m aware of the two, and I try not to get caught up in it.
SA: What are your goals in your live stage show?
Franco: I just want the live show to be entertaining. Right now we work on our own live visuals that we put together for each song. It’s a bit trippy, visuals mixed in with nostalgic video games and random stuff.
Guerin: One goal is getting the sound just right when we don’t have our own sound guy with us. It’s one of the hardest things to deal with for a live show. You never know when the house engineer is going to be good or not.
SA: Talk about how success may have affected you and whether it has created some irritations in your lives now.
Franco: I think we haven’t changed. We still play video games, eat tacos and golf at night. There are some of those conflicts with music and business. But that’s where our awesome manager, Scotty, comes in and takes the hits. He’s pretty much our hero, literally.
Guerin: Yeah, I’ve had instances where friends’ bands ask us to play their shows, and I really want to but unfortunately there’s always something that won’t let us, like a show we’re playing has a radius clause or we have to suck it up and not play just based on what venue it is because it could affect offers from elsewhere. And I totally get it. It just sucks that it has to be that way sometimes.
SA: Talk about the cool vibes your sound generates and the fans that vibe out with you guys.
Guerin: Our fans are an unpredictable delight. You got one guy who says, “I love your first record, I hate your second record and here’s $100,” and then starts to buy other people our records. Then you have someone who just has the deepest understanding of your music almost to the point where it feels like he knows you already. A really great fan and friend of ours told me he would have committed suicide if it wasn’t for our second record. One guy said he was living at home with his parents, broke, struggling with jobs. He said our song “When Your Life Feels Like a Loss” helped him move out and start a career of his own. I don’t think I’ll ever forget stories like that. They’re beautiful.