Having gone through several shifts over the years, France’s Novelists aren’t new to change. But the change that was ushered in with current vocalist Camille Contreras seems the most revolutionary in the band’s history. They’ve really expanded their musical boundaries and it seems the sky is the limit, especially after one listen to their recently released album, Coda. It moves in many directions, both rooted in metal and outside of it, and provides an emotional and visceral experience that fans are gravitating towards. We caught up with Contreras to get her thoughts on the band’s evolution and Coda itself, her musical background, the importance of live energy, and more.
Dead Rhetoric: What drew you to joining the band, initially? I know you did work on C’est la vie a few years back as a starting point.
Camille Contreras: If I go back to the beginning, I started music when I was seven. I started with piano, then violin and cello. I come from a Spanish family, so there was a lot of flamenco music and we were always playing guitars, drums, singing, and dancing during family reunions. When I was eighteen, I had a punk/hardcore band. I was just screaming during this period with that band, but I always wanted to sing as well. So in 2017, I started a project called Bliss Sigh with Nico, the guitarist of Landmvrks. We came from the same city, so we were friends. We did pop/ambient music. In 2019, Novelists were looking for a female voice to do all the harmonies on the album, so they asked Nico if he knew any girls who could sing the harmonies, so he suggested me. I went to Paris and spent three days recording the harmonies from C’est la vie and at the end of the session, they asked if I wanted to do a feature too. So we did the song “C’est la vie.” I went back home and I continued my life.
In 2023, Nico, the bassist and manager of Novelists, went to Marsailles and he texted me how I was, and asked if I wanted to grab a drink and talk to him about something. I thought he might want to create a rock band, but at the time I was doing my own solo band in France, which was kind of pop music. When he asked me to be the new singer of Novelists, I wasn’t even aware that they didn’t have a singer anymore. I was so shocked and surprised. I thought it would be a really cool project and I was excited to do it. We did two weeks of auditions in the studio to see what I could do with them. I think it was a success because they told me I would be the new singer.
Dead Rhetoric: Novelists has been a shifting and changing band over the years. How do you feel that your entry into the group continued that process?
Contreras: For me, it was the biggest opportunity of my life. I think I am a joyful and happy person in every day life, and I think I am taking the positive in everything. Being in Novelists – playing shows and creating music, and being able to see people at shows, some crying emotionally and being excited. That really fuels my soul. I think I am okay with the part that I’m the changing process in Novelists. They have changed singers twice. But I know that they always had some problems with the previous singers, and I know now everything is rolling. There are no problems, we all work together really well and I feel like I belong in this band. They have been really nice to me and open-minded with my ideas. I feel like there are no problems, so I hope they won’t switch singers again [laughs]!
Dead Rhetoric: Coda came out like two weeks ago now, how has the reaction been to it so far?
Contreras: We are so, so grateful and happy with the reactions. The numbers are really good, if we talk about those. We don’t have any help or anything with the publicity. It’s really organic. We can see that people are really enjoying the album and listening to it a lot. I’ve been receiving messages from people who are screenshotting their Spotify and showing that they are listening to it every day and they like it. There are some songs that are popping out that people are listening to more than others, but in general, the album is well-received and I’m so proud.
Dead Rhetoric: Are there any of those songs that you are surprised by, in terms of people listening to them more?
Contreras: The song “CRC,” it’s a heavy song and when we recorded it, at the beginning we said it was going to be a ‘stupid song.’ You know, ‘dumb’ riffs and I’m going to scream really loud. In the end, it talks about a heavy, sad subject so I’m happy people are getting it and listening to it. It’s been a bit of a surprise.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you view the album in the run of Novelists’ discography, from your outside perspective?
Contreras: I think it’s a new chapter, as the name implies. Coda means the end of something and the start of something else. That’s why we chose it. It’s different, because I’m new to the band. Pierre Danel, the other guitarist, is also kind of new. He has only been in the band since 2020. Even the three original members have evolved since the start of the band, as they have been doing music for over ten years now. Their taste in music has evolved too.
We wanted to create something that would shock people. To be creative, you have to shock people a little bit. If you don’t shock them, it means you didn’t create something new or something different. You just did what you did before. We have different influences, we did a song in Spanish, which I have never done before. I think I brought in new influences, like more pop music, hardcore style, and of course, Spanish lyrics. So it’s a new chemistry between the members. The music is going to be different. I, and the rest of the band, are proud of it.
Dead Rhetoric: To use your term, shocking the listener by putting in something new, is there a line that you use to give people something new, without their head exploding from shock, so to speak?
Contreras: We are trying not to have any limits in the process of creation. It’s really hard. You are listening to metal music and there’s a code to it when you write. I was new to it before, I hadn’t been in the scene, so I didn’t have the code. So it was easy for me to not have any limits in terms of writing in metal that was unusual or outside of the box. Now, I am listening to more metal and I start to get the code, so it’s hard to get out of your brain and think of new ideas.
We are already thinking about the next album and what we can do to continue to be creative and not follow the same ideas of Coda or the previous albums. I think it’s a good exercise. We are not trying to shock people and make their heads explode but we are trying to touch people’s hearts by bringing in something new, even if everything has been done in music. But we are trying to be creative and innovate.
Dead Rhetoric: So when the boundaries are limitless, are there any areas that you’d personally like to explore?
Contreras: We are thinking of bringing new instruments to the songs. Not just guitar, bass, and drums. We don’t really know yet, but we already did violin and cello on our previous EP, but in flamenco, we have hands that they call ‘palmas,’ we are trying to add some new instruments that we might not know how to play but are going to arrange them and make sounds that will sounds good for us.
Dead Rhetoric: When you sat down to write Coda, what were some of the challenges you found in creating the album?
Contreras: The deadlines [laughs]. It was really hard. Last year we toured a lot. When I joined the band, we had to release a song to announce that I was the new singer, so we recorded one song during the summer. Then we recorded a second one, since we didn’t have a full album prepared, but we just created a song and released them. When we released the EP, we toured Europe and then the US, and we only had two months in the summer to create the album. We had to give it to the label before September before we went back on tour in Europe with Northlane.
So we had two months, and during that time we had summer festivals. I also still had my side job and I was trying to do both. It was really hard, and it’s hard to be creative when you are in a rush. In the morning, I would work in the laboratory, then I would go to the studio to record, then I was trying to have a social life, and do it all again the next day. So the deadline made it really hard, so I hope for the next album we have more time for creation.
Dead Rhetoric: You said you work in a lab, what do you do?
Contreras: I’m a chemist and engineer. I created my own lab before joining Novelists, and I am creating cosmetics recipes and formulas for brands, and doing all of the regulatory files. It takes me a lot of time, so I’m trying to stop it, but I still have contracts that I’m trying to finish before stopping it all. But it’s hard to combine both.
Dead Rhetoric: That’s cool as you can be creative in both the lab as well as musically. I wanted to ask you about “78 Rue…” as it sounds a bit different than the rest of the album.
Contreras: It’s an interlude. We wanted to put one on this album, and it was Pierre that created this song. In the beginning, he was actually singing it. He was making noise over the lyrics, so we created lyrics for it. We thought it was really soft, vibey, and ambient for an interlude.
Dead Rhetoric: Discuss your look with the music videos, live shows and the red wig. What’s your approach to the visual aesthetic that accompanies the music?
Contreras: For this album cycle, we wanted to create a character for me. I have a lot of personality, and I love to dance, which is why we put some of that in our artistic direction. We wanted to do something futuristic. For the videos, the boys gave me power to create what I wanted. I proposed a red wig, as well as the scenarios for the music videos. They were all happy, since they have been doing videos for over a decade and didn’t have a lot of ideas. So they thought it would be good. I’m really happy with the visuals of them. A lot of people have been talking about the wig, which is really good, but it was for creating a character.
Dead Rhetoric: So it was something so you could step outside of yourself?
Contreras: Yes, exactly. When I am in the laboratory, I am dressed normally. But when I go on stage I have this red wig, and it’s like Hannah Montana [laughs].
Dead Rhetoric: How did your background in dance and piano, violin, and cello impact your thoughts on music in general?
Contreras: I think I was born into music, in every aspect. I play violin, cello, and piano, and I play a little bit of guitar but it’s really bad compared to Pierre and Florestan [Durand]. The fact that I played some classical music and that I learned lyrical music made me more eclectic in terms of music taste. I can listen to a lot of different music and still find something interesting in it. I can listen to soul, jazz, rap, hardcore, metal, and enjoy every style of music. I think my background helped me and I just love music. It’s something I love to do every day.
Dead Rhetoric: Have you found that Novelists have had much success at getting fans outside of the metal landscape?
Contreras: I think the fact that I have influences more in pop and generic music, I think people will listen to it more. For example, my parents are not listening to metal at all. But they really love to listen to Novelists, even the screaming parts and heavy parts. They came to one show with my punk/hardcore band, and my mom told me that it was horrible and she went home. It was hard to listen to, if you don’t like that music, and everyone is fighting and moshing with each other. In Novelists, there are a lot of ballads and technical guitars and vocals. It’s helping people to listen to us more, and it’s more digestible. My parents really enjoy the Novelists’ shows.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you want to see more from the metal scene, coming from someone who recently stepped into the scene?
Contreras: I wish that metal would not stay on the same code. I don’t want to see bands all doing the same thing just because it’s working. I don’t want to see bands jumping on trends. I hope that people will try to be more creative, and not use as much autotune live, for example. I really want them to step out of their comfort zones, but it is still the case that I’m seeing bands creating new stuff, or going back to their roots and having less effects live. On cd, there are so many opportunities to create new sounds, but live I really prefer a more back to the roots with real instruments and vocalists. That’s what I want to see in the scene.
Dead Rhetoric: In that live scene, what do you hope that someone takes away from it when they see Novelists?
Contreras: Live is really the thing I love to do. I give a lot of energy, even more than my gym sessions. I’m trying to give emotions and energy, and I hope to see the same. We are all sharing emotion, and I love to see people jumping as I am, screaming, and sometimes people are crying. You are creating music in your home, but when you see people singing the lyrics, I am so grateful. Like I succeeded at my job. So I hope people like the energy and sharing of emotions.
Dead Rhetoric: When you have someone sit down and hear Coda for the first time, what do you want them to take from that experience?
Contreras: When I wrote Coda, the lyrics are really personal. They are coming from personal experiences. Last year was the happiest year of my life, and also the saddest. I experienced mourning and loss, breakup, defeat, and a lot of hard stuff, and it gave me inspiration in the end. I hope that people who listen to it will catch it and they will feel the same as I felt last year, that it will give them some hope or comfort.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s planned for the rest of this year for Novelists?
Contreras: We are going to announce a US headlining tour. We have an Asian tour too, including China and Japan, so we are also touring a lot of Europe and France. We are touring almost the whole world. We are going to play a lot of shows, release music videos, and live content too.