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If you haven’t heard by now, Gojira played the opening of the Paris Olympics and it was glorious. Gojira drummer Mario Duplantier has since expressed his gratitude in an Instagram post, while frontman Joe Duplantier had quite a bit more to say in an interview with Rolling Stone.
Duplantier touched on the fact that the Olympic Committee could’ve chosen any bigger metal band to perform the song “Ah! Ça ira”, and why Gojira was probably the right choice in terms of capturing the world’s attention.
“I try not to think too much about that because it continues to blow my mind [laughs]. The Olympic Committee could have asked literally anybody to play. I’m thinking of bands like Metallica or AC/DC that are household names and powerhouses in our genre that we all revere and are our heroes. We never considered ourselves the biggest band in the world that would be worthy to play the Olympics or anything like that. It’s so weird.
“The way I think about it is it’s a challenge in 2024 to give hope to people, to show something original. People have seen everything from landing on the moon to A.I. So it was a challenge for Paris and the Committee to express something fresh, new, and original [by booking us] and also show what France is all about.
“At least for our part, the fact that metal and opera had never been seen together on TV and in front of so many people before is a statement for the country of France. It’s saying, ‘Hey, look. We’re still pushing the boundaries in the world.’ So congrats to France for putting this together.”
Duplantier also had to unfortunately address the whole “Satanism” thing in the same interview. If you haven’t been paying attention, the Parisian Olympics Committee is currently under fire by Christians for two things – a “satanic” performance by Gojira despite the fact that the whole thing was a tribute to the French Revolution, and that “Ah! Ça ira” is a song about unity; and a tribute to the Greek God Dionysus that’s being called a mockery of The Last Supper (it’s not).
“It’s none of that. It’s French history. It’s French charm, you know, beheaded people, red wine, and blood all over the place — it’s romantic, it’s normal. There’s nothing satanic [laughs]. France is a country that made a separation between the state and religion during the revolution. And it’s something very important, very dear to the foundation of republican France. We call it laïcité. It’s when the state is not religious anymore, so therefore it’s free in terms of expression and symbolism. It’s all about history and facts. We don’t look too close closely at symbolism in terms of religion.”
