Getting To Know: French Exit

Emerging from South East London, French Exit is a powerful alt-rock quartet composed of three brothers and a close friend on drums. Formed in early 2023, the band wasted no time making their mark on the London music scene, earning notable slots at venues like The Windmill and The Half Moon. Their debut single "Still" has already turned heads, drawing acclaim from BBC Introducing and evoking comparisons to South London’s post-punk heroes. With a busy year ahead in the studio and more live performances lined up, French Exit is quickly establishing themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the alt-rock world.

1.Can you tell us about the early days of the band and how you guys came together, especially considering three of you are brothers and the dynamic that brings to the band?

Toby: Will and I started writing together properly at the start of 2023, where up to this point, we’d both been involved with various other projects — never together though. After a bit of time spent doing that, we brought Jack in on drums and then Tim just a week before our first show.

Will: Thinking about it now, I’m not sure what it was that meant then felt like the right time to collaborate more seriously — but something changed that meant we were keen and more creatively aligned. Growing up together, we naturally spent a lot of time listening to and making music, but our tastes were never super aligned which meant we creatively pathed our own paths.

Tim: Dynamically speaking it’s great though. With three of the four of us brothers, we’re very comfortable communicating with one another and that definitely helps the creative process. There’s a lot of honesty there, in the sense that we’re happy to push one another’s ideas to bring the best out of them, but also able to keep ourselves honest to who we are and what we’re doing this for. 

Jack: It’s a lot crazier for me.

2. Your debut track "Still" has received acclaim from BBC Introducing and has been praised for its powerful and catchy yet pathos-filled composition. What was the creative process like for "Still," and how did working with Christopher Smith and Cadien Lake James influence the final product?

Jack: ‘Still’ was one of those songs that fell together very quickly. Toby came along with the riff that you hear in the intro, and then everything was added almost as you hear on the recording.

Although the track was written prior to our live debut, we all felt as though it was going to be a good one to close the set with, and by the time we got into the studio, we were all familiar with the energy that the tune brings to our show, and therefore a key focus was ensuring that energy came across on the version we got down. Chris did a great job of helping us achieve this.

Will: Working with Cadien on the mix was then the obvious choice. I’d worked with him on other projects during the pandemic, so all being fans of the raucousness that comes with Twin Peaks records, we were all very excited to have him work on this one. We knew he’d get what we wanted out of this track and we’re really happy to have worked with him on it.

3. Right Chord Music noted that your track "Still" evokes memories of post-punk favourites like Shame while maintaining a unique identity. Who are some of your biggest musical influences, and how have they shaped your sound?

Will: Our tastes do vary across the group, but Shame are up there, and we were thrilled when we saw that they’d drawn that comparison. They have such a great energy and have definitely informed our sound and presence to a point. 

The same goes for others that bring that level of buzz to the stage — Fontaines, Idles, Fat White Family. We might not sound much like these groups, but they’ve all massively inspired our sound and the way we’d like our shows to feel as someone in the audience.

Toby: Yeah, I think we quickly realised that there are bands that we really like, but that they’re bands we’ll never sound like — and that’s fine. They can and do still play a big part around what goes into our sound, whether something of theirs helps us identify a feeling we want to try and get across in our set, or just because their influence naturally seeps into whatever it is that we’re writing.

Safe to say though, on top of all of that, we’re just big into any group that can write hooks that stick with you as a listener and hit hard live — and that’s something that we’re often focussed on when putting together tunes.

4. You’ve played notable venues across London, including The Windmill, The Half Moon, and Strongroom. How has performing in these iconic spots influenced your music and growth as a band? Do you have any memorable moments or stories from these gigs?

Tim: Playing these venues has definitely been a formative part in developing our sound. As we meld lyrical songwriting with bigger, grungier textures, our live sound is such a massive part of what we’re all about. Therefore being on those stages, with their engineers, we experience a degree of energy from the sheer noise level, and the songs take on a new life, which we then try to capture as best we can in the studio.

Jack: Highlights so far have to include being a part of the event YOWL put on at The Windmill. Also our Half Moon headline, where right at the end of our set my crash flew off and went straight for Will’s pint. Best 7 quid you’ll ever spend.

5.Do you have any non-negotiables as a band that you bring into each track/gig you do?

Toby: I think so far it’s come down to establishing a big guitar sound and writing memorable hooks that make an impact on our recordings and live. We want our tunes to have similarities and feel like a cohesive body of work, and it’s easy to overcomplicate a song, so right now we’re focussed on keeping them authentic, powerful and catchy.

Tim: Agreed. We take quite a forensic approach to writing and arranging, revisiting certain components in between shows and post-studio, but this is all in order to be able to let go and put on a good show each time we play.

6.So far in 2024, you’ve released two singles and have been busy in the studio working on more material. What can fans expect from your upcoming releases? Are there any new directions or experiments in your sound that you’re excited about?

Will: We’ve spent the first year in the band writing and performing as much as we can. With this, we’re sat on so much that we’re raring to release — and we’ve still got songs coming through all the time.

That said, it’s hard to tell you what to expect from our upcoming releases, as we’re still riding the wave of being sat on so many ideas. We’ll just vow to keep doing what we’re doing, in excess. Big songs will be bigger, soft songs will be softer, catchy songs will be catchier, and so it goes. We can’t wait.