Interview with Nick Stumpf of French Kicks
Words: Michael Rabinowitz
Photos: Joshua Rothstein

Common is it for a pop music fan to allow evolution take over his ear.  We all have vestigial favorites, favorite bands of our youth that now seem outmoded.  In middle school I worshiped glam metal (mostly Motley Crue) only to replace it with country (George Strait) and folk (does Joan Osborne count?) in high school.  I then eschewed the Skoal induced sound of my youth for the neo hippie jam rock of Dave Mathews. (Sorry, I was in a fraternity.)  Tasteful sensibilities took over when I found the beauty of lyrical architecture in hip-hop (minus the bling-dom of Diddy and Jay-Z).   The history of my musical appreciation is certainly of a polygamous nature. 

Yet, rare is it for a pop group to undergo similar drastic changes.  Sure, there are individual performers who altered their milieu as quickly as they change their wardrobe—Bowie being obvious exception.  The reason is universally palpable: a band cannot expect to retain its fan base by betraying their expectations.  It is safe to say Wilco will never turn toward an acappella version of “Heavy Metal Drummer” and Death Cab For Cutie will never explore their calypso roots on an upcoming Tito Puente cover album. 

So it is unique to discover a band like the French Kicks, whose advancement takes them from their garage rock dearth roots toward Brit pop frivolity.  This was evident earlier in the set where they mined earlier album tracks like “1985” with a flippant snare beat and modish serpentine guitars.  Then, as evident in their 2004 release, The Trial of the Century, Nick and the boys make a strong deviation from their roots with “One More Time.” 

“So Far We Are” allowed Nick to stretch his vocals in a more stripped down version than found on their recent release, Two Thousand, and French Kicks make their full conversion toward new wave that would make The Pretenders proud.  This is just a warm up for Nick, who settles into Julian Casablanca mode, cupping the mic up to his lips as if praying.  In essence, Stumpf was raising his game while brother Lawrence settled into slashing Edge-like chords on “Keep it Amazed.” 

On the ethereal “Knee High,” Lawrence drops the intensity as Josh Wise switched to organ (losing his own heavy handed bass) and Aaron Thurston sampled a lighter snare.   Nick then heightens his crooning theatrics while at the same time tenderly languishing away his notes.  He applied these same soothing scales to “England Will Just Not Let You Recover,” surrounded by Wise’s toy piano and ending the show about ten years past where the French Kicks started.

The French Kicks’ conversion is just a microcosm of the current pop music scene—a scene that is whole-heartedly embracing the complexities of 70’s progressive rock. Talents like the brothers Stumpf are free to project their skills in a truer sense then when first signed eight years ago.   Fashioning their own sound to polygamists such as myself can insure a lasting audience for French Kicks.