Conjoined twins, sentient swords and strange prophecies: welcome to the cinematic world of Paris Texas.
The LA-based rap duo have been making waves since their 2021 debut, “Heavy Metal,” a deft one-two punch that blended the thrash of fuzzed rock with the pugnacious delivery of Los Angeles hip hop. Since then, the duo has released a series of stellar singles, EPs, a debut album, and is now opening for Los Angeles’ own Tyler, The Creator on his career-peak Chromakopia Tour. Somehow, while in the midst of the global trotting shows, they released two EPs — They Left Me With The Sword and They Left Me with A Gun and two mini–films to go alongside them.
A surrealist sprawl shot like a “Disney Channel Original Movie,” the two films represent the pillars of Paris Texas: a penchant for goofiness, a dedication to vision and an overall extreme ambition. It starts with the duo as babies, in an alternate world where they’re conjoined twins. An ominous voice emanating from a sword comes in to speak to their shared desires, tempting them into a life of violence and chaos. The rest plays out like a rapid-fire acid trip, a story that is both mythic in scope and highly specific to the duo’s SoCal home base.
Their lo-fi approach to filmmaking with Director Dan Streit adds a new level of immediacy to their wild cinema. “Sometimes, when something is shot on HD or film, you lose the feeling that it is impressive,” Louie Pastell tells PAPER. “Once you see the camera, once you see the lens, you’re like, ‘Well, obviously there’s a budget behind it.’ Every video we’ve had beforehand, people have asked, ‘What’s the budget?’ This is the first time when somebody goes, ‘This story is crazy.’”
The sentiment rings true for their entire artistic project, which prioritizes ideas and impact over clouty signifiers and trend chasing. The duo chalk up their strong artistic sensibilities, somewhat ironically, to being from Los Angeles, the city that drives the music market. “ If you have experimentation in your work, you really have to go all out here,” says Pastel. “We’re in a city built off marketing, so when you say, ‘I’m gonna go crazy,’ you really have to go crazy because competition is just so much crazier here.”
Paris Texas has certainly met that challenge. They’re still independent, but are reaching new heights in their career and artistry. Now, opening up for Tyler, The Creator has put them within an implicit lineage of Los Angeles-based groups and collectives. But a one-to-one road map is too prescriptive to describe the out-of-the-box thinkers and artists’ path. What motivates them is a spontaneity and artistic spirit. Hence the somewhat impromptu double EP, the second of which came about after a quick fling of inspiration between the duo and producer Billy Lemos. In the end, the two EPs have all the hallmarks of the duo’s discography, but leveled-up. The hooks are sharper than ever, their verses ping pong off each other in escalating punch lines, and the production from Paris Texas, Lemos and producer Dilip has an even wider scope this time around: a deepened synthesis of genres, energies and ideas.
PAPER chatted with the very booked duo about being LA artists, touring the world with Tyler, The Creator and staying true to their vision.
How did the idea for these two EPs come together?
Felix: We were organizing the first EP [They Left Me With The Sword] and then Louie was like, “Let’s do another one.” I got really nervous, because I was like, “I don’t even know if the first one’s done.” But one day, Louie and [producer] Billy Lemos started sequencing the second one and then were like, “We got our second EP, [They Left Me With A Gun].”
Louie: [We were thinking]: Are we gonna make new songs? Then [Billy Lemos and I] were just like “Fuck it, let’s just do another sequence.” So we did it. The first EP was missing the things I wanted on the second one, which is a lot of the weirder stuff we were tapping into.
What was that “weirder stuff?”
Louie: Like “Stripper Song” or “mud bone.” Those two songs had more of the rock and indie influence that I wanted to put on the first one. It would have felt more forced to throw those on there. There are still indie and rock sounds on the first EP, but the first EP is more like a party to me, and the second EP is more experimental when it comes to rapping and singing. It has more singing hooks and features a wider range of our voices.
Tell me about this “Sword Voice” that narrates the album. I know it has roots in your 2021 EP, Red Hand Akimbo, but I’m curious about how you both conceptualize this voice and character?
Felix: It’s a cool voice [Laughs].
Louie: The way you can hear our motives [through the voice], but it’s not one of us speaking. It’s like a shared conscience guiding us. It’s a third party. It’s how we feel about certain things, together.
Do you guys feel like you share a consciousness in your day-to-day collaboration?
Louie: It’s a lot of inside jokes, banter, going back and forth. When we write the voice, we are writing it like we’re telling jokes. The way we work together is very similar.
Are there not moments where you find yourselves on polar opposite ends of an idea when collaborating?
Louie: The things we’re passionate about are very similar. We’re different about little stuff, like we’ll argue about Celsius flavors like Arctic Vibe. That’s our bickering moment.
Felix: [Laughs]
Louie: Now he’s laughing but it’s true! When it comes to our passions and music and how we want to create things … it’s never so opposite. I think we would have probably broken up by now.
I’m curious to hear more about the EP’s visuals and this mini film. The visual language is really wild. It feels like half-David Lynch and half-Nickelodeon. I’m curious what your reference points were while you were making it?
Louie: There really was no reference. We linked with Dan Streit, who I’ve always been a fan of. We had three or four separate ideas and Dan was like, we might as well just put them all together. So Felix and I sat down with Dan for a whole week and came up with this storyline. It was just a fun time, but there was no reference. We don’t really do mood boards.
What was the root of the story with the conjoined twins?
Louie: That was the last idea we had. A lot of the other story beats we had before the conjoined twins, so I said “conjoined twins” and Dan was like, “What?” It felt like a board meeting where [you say an idea] and the boss is like, “You get a raise.” But the conjoined twins idea was just like, “Yeah, this could be a cool shot.” [Laughs] But it was the last idea we had, which is so funny. The ideas from the plot go backwards, so the “gun dick” was the first idea I had.
The part that made me laugh the hardest, was when you’re holding the sword and shaking with sweat pouring down in literal buckets. It just reminded me of sitcoms I’d watch the early 2000s.
Louie: It’s funny. Some people have told me that too, but we weren’t even going for nostalgia. I think it was the camera. We’re very particular about not using an HD, artsy film camera. We’re very over that. It’s shot like a Disney Channel Original Movie. I wanted something that didn’t feel so modern. Sometimes, when something is shot on film, you lose the feeling that it is impressive. Once you see the camera, once you see the lens, you’re like, “Well, obviously there’s a budget behind it.” So every video we’ve had beforehand, people have asked, “What’s the budget?” This is the first time when somebody just goes, “This story is crazy.” This is the first time it doesn’t feel as clouty. The camera work doesn’t take away from what makes the plot or the idea special.
Has Tyler been able to impart wisdom about how to build your career in a sustainable way while on tour?
Felix: Tyler always makes a point to stop by and have conversation. This was even before we started the tour, [he’d talk about how] things we might change as time goes on. He also talked with us about visually representing ourselves on stage, and being more intentional with what we wear and what we want our focus to be. Do we want to be heard, or do we want to have movement? What do we want to focus on as our primary goal when we’re on stage? But I think it’s easier since there’s only three of us on stage. There’s a lot of opportunity for everybody to showcase their strong suit and get a moment to display something,
There’s a deep California quality that I really recognize and connect with in your music. Do you guys feel really rooted in being Los Angeles-specific artists?
Louie: I used to say the opposite, but now I do feel like an LA artist. I meet other artists from other places. I realized that in LA, we have a little bit more freedom, weirdly enough. It sounds crazy to say that. But if you have experimentation in your work, you really have to go all out here. We’re in a city built off marketing, so when you say, “I’m gonna go crazy,” you really have to go crazy because competition is just so much crazier here. You meet people here who are literally coming here to take your scene.
Do you feel competitive with transplants?
Louie: All the time. They’re mad skilled and mad talented. They really come from a culture that really bred them and put them on a pedestal. And then they came here. If you’re from LA, you hear more people… not shooting you down, but going like, “Well, everybody does it. With people from other cities, if you’re the guy that does it, you’re the guy that does it in the whole city. And people will champion you. In LA, I could throw a rock and someone is like, “I just signed to Atlantic.”
So when you guys were first coming up, did you have to really fight for your peers to recognize you?
Louie: They recognized us off rip. We hung out with the underdog, non-scene kids. We weren’t with people that had many connections. We had very small team of people and real love. I know so many people who are from where I’m from that didn’t get as lucky as us, especially in terms of free expression. I think a lot of times here people are like, “Well, you better do it for a bag, because the [music] market is right there.” That’s the whole goal of most people doing it.
Do you feel a pull towards being more commercial, being in this LA, market-driven environment?
Louie: Our bread and butter is not doing that, so not really [laughs]. But early on before we got popping, it did feel like that. We’ve worked hard enough to not have to hear that anymore. But beforehand, people would be like, “Playlisting!” or “Come to this thing!”
Felix: Just being for here you’re kind of spoiled to it in a way, because [the industry is] just there. It’s like when people come from out of town and they’re like, I really want to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame … like, I guess, bro. It’s whatever. With the industry pulling us, I don’t think it ever impacted our creation, especially at that time, not knowing what the industry was. It’s about what we are creating versus being recognized. We were like, “How do we make something big enough or impactful enough for the people that we respect to look and be like, ‘Damn man, that’s tight.’” We were trying to get props versus trying to get money, like “I can’t wait to be doing a Ferrari commercial.” We weren’t really thinking about Hollywood or shit like that. But also that’s because we’re from here. We didn’t grow up in Hollywood, but we’re used to it being around.
You didn’t grow up in Hollywood, but you grew up near Hollywood, literally and metaphorically?
Felix: Close enough. But we were way out of the way. Even like Fairfax and Melrose and shit: I was like, “I don’t even know what this is.” Just being from the towns I’m from, I was like, “I know about my neighborhood and the mall. I could take you to a fire pizza spot that’s 30 minutes away from downtown LA. That’s as much as I could give you.”
You guys are still independent, right? At this point, it must be like an active choice every day to remain independent.
Felix: I guess so. Until it makes sense. There are a lot of tools that can be offered to us if we weren’t independent, but there is so much more learning to do. When you’re independent, you’re just learning how long it takes to release a song, how important time management is, how important it is to have everything pre-ready before the public even gets to see it, how to roll shit out. You have to make sure that your music, when you release it, isn’t just like, “Oh, that was a cool song and people forget about it in two days.” Everything is so much more intentional. If we were to jump straight into a major label, I don’t know what would have happened at that point. So maybe in a few more years, but there’s a lot more learning to be done, and it definitely builds tougher skin. It’s a lot more humbling, because you really see if your art is worth it, if people care. I guess now they do.
Photography: Jack Balaban