INTERVIEW: Debauche ready for wild gathering at French Quarter Fest
Debauche is a Russian word that means “a wild gathering involving excessive drinking.” It’s also the name of a Russian band based in New Orleans, and they ensure that their audience members, both newcomers and dedicated troupers, are up and dancing within 15 minutes.
Debauche, fronted by Yegor Romantsov on vocals and guitar, will play this year’s French Quarter Fest in New Orleans and Festival Internationale in Lafayette, Louisiana. They’re scheduled to play 3:45 p.m. Friday, April 7 on WWL’s Esplanade in the Shade stage at French Quarter Fest and 5:45 p.m. Saturday, April 29 at Festival Internationale.
“[Audience members] can expect very happy type of music,” Romantsov said recently in a phone interview. “We play a mixture of gypsy, Klezmer, Balkan. We sing in Russian.”
Romantsov first visited New Orleans the year of Hurricane Katrina. He had made the trip from New York City for Jazz Fest and fell in love with the Crescent City. After the storm and the rebuilding efforts, he relocated to NOLA full time.
“I didn’t start playing music right away,” he said. “I was mostly doing rebuilding, renovation, construction. Well, I’ve been a musician all my life, but then the whole atmosphere of New Orleans just made me pick up my guitar. And I started singing in a small coffee shop, and little by little, I have musicians just coming by and sitting in with me. A year later, I have a full-scale band that everybody loves. That’s New Orleans magic, I would say.”
Romantsov said he doesn’t believe that Debauche would be able to cut it full time in New York City. It’s a group that is purposely based in New Orleans, a city where musicians can actually earn money off their creativity. There are few places like that anymore.
“Besides all the spiritual and all this musical inspiration that I have here compared to when I was in New York, I think New Orleans is one of the few, maybe the last remaining city in the United States where musicians can actually support themselves just by playing music,” he said. ” So that’s my full-time job these days, more or less for the past eight, seven years, I would say.”
Romantsov and Debauche love playing in front of large crowds at festivals because they appreciate the exposure and the challenge of getting a crowd who doesn’t yet know the band’s music to get up and dance.
“It’s always 99 percent of the people have never heard of us,” he said. “Then 15 minutes later into the set, they will start dancing and going crazy and trying to sing along in a foreign language.”
He added: “I would say 15 minutes into the set, people still don’t know what to do with this music or how to move, and then at some point, the ice has melted. And everybody just goes nuts. We bring the party, I would say that. It’s fun to watch because people on the stage are having fun. That’s the most important thing, too.”
Debauche, also featuring Kerry Lynn, Joseph Mcginty, Rob Wagner, Tom Witek, Gabriel Velasco and Scott Barada, has released two albums: Cossaks on Prozac and Songs From Underground. Most of the tunes are Russian traditional songs that might be familiar to a Russian-speaking audience. The singer, a native of Ukraine, believes the band puts a new twist on these old folk street songs, and that makes the group feel simultaneously traditional and of the minute.
“They know the songs,” he said. “They heard it many, many times, but they never heard the way we do it. And they’re always surprised that I’m the only Russian in the band. … All the musicians who play with me, they’re Americans. Most of them actually are from New Orleans, so, yeah, it’s really tricky. We don’t have that many Russians here, but if we go, for example, to New York playing Russian places or some Russian tourists would stop by and they hear the Russian song, they just freak out. They start crying.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Debauche will play this year’s French Quarter Fest and Festival Internationale. They’re scheduled to play 3:45 p.m. Friday, April 7 on WWL’s Esplanade in the Shade stage at French Quarter Fest and 5:45 p.m. Saturday, April 29 at Festival Internationale. Click here for more information.
