Gojira (band)
Gojira is a French heavy metal band from Ondres. Founded as Godzilla in 1996, the band's lineup—brothers Joe (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) and Mario Duplantier (drums), Christian Andreu (lead guitar), and Jean-Michel Labadie (bass)—has been the same since the band changed its name to Gojira in 2001. Gojira has been known for their progressive and technical death metal styles and their spiritual, philosophical, and environmentally-themed lyrics. The band has gone "from the utmost obscurity during the first half of their career to widespread global recognition in the second".[1]
Gojira
Godzilla (1996–2001)
1996–present
- Gabriel Editions
- Boycott Records
- Next Music
- Listenable
- Prosthetic
- Roadrunner
- Alexandre Cornillon
Gojira's first two albums, Terra Incognita (2001) and The Link (2003), and powerful live performances established their reputation as a leading French metal band. Maciste All'Inferno was a silent film score composed and performed for a one-night show in Bordeaux. Their third album, the critically acclaimed From Mars to Sirius (2005) with "Backbone", "The Heaviest Matter of the Universe", and "Flying Whales", was covered in the British metal press. The band then signed with Prosthetic Records, which gave them visibility in North America. The follow-up album, The Way of All Flesh (2008), charted on the Billboard 200, and Gojira later launched their first overseas headlining tour.
The band began recording the Sea Shepherd EP in a collaborative framework involving several metal musicians. In 2011, Gojira signed with Roadrunner Records. The band released L'Enfant Sauvage (2012) and Magma (2016), which peaked at number thirty-four and twenty-four respectively on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold in their home country of France. Gojira shelved death metal in favor of a more straightforward style on Magma, the band's breakthrough album. In 2020, they released their first Billboard-charting single, "Another World". The chart-topping Fortitude (2021) was the best-selling album in the US during its first week. In 2022, Gojira attained arena headliner status in Europe, the UK, and South America. With a DIY approach, the band produce their albums at their own recording studios in France and New York City.
Gojira has released seven studio albums, three live DVDs, and is the first French band to top the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart. Gojira is considered one of France's most successful exports to the US. The band has received Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Album for Magma and Best Metal Performance for the singles "Silvera" and "Amazonia". Gojira holds the record for the loudest concert (and sound) ever recorded at the Stade de France. Throughout their career, the band has been involved in environmental, human rights and animal rights activism.
History[edit]
Background and formation (1993−1996)[edit]
At the age of seventeen, while in high school, vocalist and guitarist Joe Duplantier formed his first band called Eclipse after discovering heavy metal three years earlier. His brother, Mario, started a band at the age of twelve and had already demonstrated his capabilities as a drummer. Over time, the two brothers embarked on jam sessions after school.[2]
Joe and Mario Duplantier, aged nineteen and fourteen respectively in 1996, decided to start a technical death metal band emphasizing melodies[3] and recruited nineteen-year-old guitarist Christian Andreu. According to Mario, Andreu was "a passionate [fan], like us, of Metallica".[4] They began practicing with guitars and drums in the Duplantiers' garage (where the group had set up a studio) in their hometown of Ondres in southern Landes, on the outskirts of Bayonne.[5] The band soon recruited bassist Alexandre Cornillon, a friend of Andreu from Hossegor.[3][6] Joe Duplantier said, "We wanted to go fast and strong. We had no plan, no pressure ... We didn't even have a [band] name".[7]
Early years and Terra Incognita (1996−2002)[edit]
In 1996, the band settled on the name Godzilla.[8] The idea sprang from the original 1954 kaiju film Godzilla and "the myth of the big furious atomic lizard ... It was, in our heads, a symbol of devastating power".[9] The band first performed in Bayonne bars[5] (four months after its formation), selling cassettes at shows and to their friends.[2] Playing straight-ahead death metal with elements of thrash metal,[10] Godzilla self-released a pair of demo albums (Victim in 1996 and Possessed in 1997),[11] and toured southwest France.[12]
Legacy and influence[edit]
Gojira was ranked sixth on Paris magazine L'Express' 2009 list of the top 10 best-selling French music artists in the US.[307] In 2012, Gojira was top-ranked in the French metal category by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the US.[308] By August 2016, the band was one of France's biggest rock exports to the US.[131] French national newspaper Le Monde said in 2016 that Gojira was the country's first metal band to reach international status[247] without support from the Institut Français, which promotes French culture abroad.[309][nb 13]
Gojira has influenced bands and musicians such as the Agonist,[311] Alien Weaponry,[312] Avatar,[313] Betraying the Martyrs,[314] Black Crown Initiate,[315] the Contortionist,[316] Erra,[317] Fit for an Autopsy,[318] Hypno5e,[319] Jinjer,[320] Tallah drummer Max Portnoy,[321] Miss May I,[322] Rolo Tomassi,[323] and Thy Art Is Murder.[324] While the band garnered international attention through the release of From Mars to Sirius, vocalist Will Garner of the rock band Black Peaks said that Gojira changed his "perception of music".[325] Vocalist and guitarist Josh Middleton of Sylosis said that his vocal approach was inspired by Gojira: "when From Mars to Sirius came out, this album was huge for most people who love heavy music ... There are a lot of very melodic screams on this album, it seems like there is always a height in [Joe Duplantier's] singing, and that influenced me enormously".[326] Tesseract lead guitarist Acle Kahney said that touring with Gojira influenced the "darker tone" of his band's fourth studio album.[327] Myles Kennedy explained his inspiration in composing Alter Bridge's song, "Native Son": "When I wrote that riff, I had certainly been listening to a lot of Gojira".[328] Norwegian singer Aurora said that she was inspired by the band's lyrics,[329] and "Gojira is my favorite band of all time".[330] Jinjer's Tatiana Shmayluk and Aurora have said that they would like to collaborate with the band.[331] Spiritbox and Trivium have incorporated the "Gojira-esque pick scrape technique" into their music, according to Guitar World and Billboard.[332] Niklas Karlsson of Orbit Culture said that their sound and music was "A mixture of Metallica and Gojira", whom he described as having a considerable influence on the band, saying, "Without either band, Orbit Culture simply would not exist."[333] Born of Osiris guitarist Lee McKinney cited The Way of All Flesh as his inspiration and one of his five favorite progressive metal albums. He praised the album for its technical compositions and described the musical structure complexity of "The Art of Dying" as "Absolutely astonishing."[334]
Writing for Metal Hammer, Luke Morton noticed how Gojira gradually rose to prominence over the decades at a constant pace. After their headlining show at Bloodstock Open Air in 2018, he credited the band as having "cemented themselves as one of the best metal bands in the world".[335] In 2019, Kennedy called Gojira "the most important metal band out there right now";[336] he also said, "They're very important to the evolution of where things are going with hard rock and metal".[337] In December 2019, "Stranded" was ranked No. 8 on Guitar World's list of the decade's 20 best guitar riffs.[338] In January 2020, Alternative Press included "Toxic Garbage Island" in the list of the "Top 50 metal songs from the past 20 years" and deemed it "one of the best metal songs of all time".[339] Kerrang! listed Joe Duplantier's tapping in "Silvera" among "The 20 Best Guitar Solos Of The 2010s".[340] In 2020, Stereogum called Gojira "one of this century's most important underground metal institutions": "The band figured out a way to weld the grimy, mathy complications of technical death metal to the grand, mathy complications of prog-rock, and they quickly became the kind of band that other bands mythologize."[341] In April 2021, they were called "the band of the decade" by Metal Hammer.[342] In June 2021, Brad Angle of Guitar World called Gojira "titans of groove metal: progressive, heavy-hitting riff giants", adding that they continue "in the lineage of Metallica, Sepultura, Pantera, Lamb of God and others".[238] The Guardian ranked "Amazonia" at No. 8 on its list of "The greatest songs about the climate crisis".[343] "L'Enfant Sauvage" was listed in Revolver's "15 Greatest Title Tracks in Metal History".[344] From Mars to Sirius was ranked at No. 10 and L'Enfant Sauvage at No. 44 on the Loudwire "100 Best Rock + Metal Albums of the 21st Century" list.[345] Will Hodgkinson of The Times dubbed Gojira the "French metal masters" after attending a 2023 show.[233]
Three Jurassic-era brittle star fossils, Ophiogojira labadiei, Ophiogojira andreui, and Ophioduplantiera noctiluca, were named after band members by scientists Ben Thuy and Lea Numberger from the National Museum of Natural History, Luxembourg, and Tania Pineda-Enríquez from the Florida Museum of Natural History. They wrote that their genus was named in honor of Gojira "for producing songs of an unfathomable intensity, beautifully dark and heavy, and exploring the abyss of life and death, of human strength and error, and of thriving and yet threatened oceans."[346]
Studio albums