Childhood best friends Clément Savoye and Adrien Rozé, better known as the Parisian indie pop duo Kids Return, are steadily making waves in the music scene. Buzzing with excitement, they beam eagerly as they sit down with CLASH for their first ever UK interview. Speaking via video call from their studio in the French capital, the pair’s dynamic is immediately apparent. They bounce off each other’s ideas effortlessly, often finishing each other’s sentences—a testament to their deep-rooted friendship and creative synergy.

The duo’s euphoric energy is infectious, and their excitement is palpable. It’s no wonder: 2025 promises to be the biggest year of their careers yet. Their upcoming milestones include a highly anticipated springtime album release. But the crown jewel of their schedule? In June, Kids Return will realize their lifelong dream by headlining the legendary Olympia in Paris—a rite of passage for French musicians and a clear sign of their ascending star power.

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A few hours prior to the interview came the band’s first single of the new year, a dream-like love song called ‘All Yours Now’, released under their independent label Forever Melodies, which shares its name with the band’s 2022 debut LP. Savoye tells CLASH, “It’s a very important song for Adrien and I because it was one of the first songs we composed during the process of creating the new album.” Rozé builds on this, “It’s a song about love, about the moment you fall in love with someone. When you’re thinking about the person and that feeling is very strong in your heart.”

When it comes to creating music, the boys like to remove themselves from the hustle and bustle of the city, preferring instead to head southwest to a studio in Lescun, a remote village in the Pyrenees. Reflecting on this creative decision, Rozé says: “We were composing the verse for ‘All Yours Now’ in Paris with only the guitar part, and we were thinking about doing more of a sixties track, a bit like The Turtles’ ‘Happy Together’. Then we went to a studio up in the mountains, which is where we go to compose and to record a lot of our music.”

He continues, “We were thinking about the verse and we were like ‘maybe it sounds a bit too clichéd’, so we needed to find a new way of producing it that was more innovative, and more us, you know? We wanted to give it that late nineties, spacey vibe. So when we started adding the bass, we were in this studio where we’d look out of the window and just be completely surrounded by the mountains. I remember we were singing the chorus and it was just perfect with the view we had at that moment.”

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Towards the end of the song we hear a melancholic, auto-tuned vocal line which is highly reminiscent of those once pioneered by another, more robotic French duo. As it happens, Kids Return have been meeting regularly with Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, who has served as a mentor to the band, sharing his wisdom and advising them both musically and professionally. This relationship was established through Thomas’ son, Tara-Jay Bangalter who is a very close friend to Savoye and Rozé, and who has also directed multiple Kids Return music videos.

“Tara-Jay is our best friend. He’s done a lot of videos for us, and has spent a lot of time on tour with us,”says Savoye. “We met Thomas just like the way you meet the father of any friend. He’s so cool, and he gave us a lot of good advice when we were recording. We have dinner together every three months and we speak about music. He’s become a friend too. I think he’s very important to all the people in France, and for a lot of people around the world.”

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He continues, recalling the best advice shared with him by the legendary disco artist. “He told us to be sincere, and to do what we really want to do, and not to listen too much to what all the other people will say about the music. It’s hard, you know? When you’ve got people telling you ‘oh you should do the song like this’ or ‘the best song for me is this one’. He said that in the end, only Adrien and I know what works best when it comes to finding the right solutions for us and for making a song sound the way that we really want it to.”

While music remains their primary commitment, Savoye and Rozé also share a passion for cinema; so much so that the inspiration for their band’s name came about during lockdown, when the pair watched the 1996 picture Kids Return, by Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano. Last year, the pair composed the soundtrack for the French indie film Eternal Playground (La Récréation de Juillet), which was co-written and directed by Adrien’s brother, Joseph Rozé, and friend of the band Pablo Cotten, with cinematography by none other than Tara-Jay Bangalter.

Reflecting proudly on this experience, Savoye tells CLASH: “It was amazing. It was our first soundtrack, and for us it was always a dream to make music for the cinema.” He expands, shedding light on how this experience differed in comparison to their conventional recording methods; “We had the script before, so we started working on it when we got the script, and finished it once the film had been shot. The directors also had their own ideas for the music, so it wasn’t the same as when we start making a record and all kinds of things are possible. When you have a movie and a script you really have to go along with its direction. It was an amazing experience and the movie is very cool. I hope this soundtrack is only our first!”

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On May 14th, Kids Return will play their most important headline show to date at the Olympia in Paris. Its stage has been graced by many a hall-of-famer, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Iggy Pop to name only a handful. When asked how they’re feeling in the build up to this, Rozé says, “We’re feeling a bit stressed actually, because it’s gonna be huge! We’re so happy to be doing it, and so we really need to make something great. We’re now thinking about the conception of the show, and the idea is to make something strong and classy.” He carries on, “We’ve got a rehearsal very soon, and we’ll be playing songs from our last record and from the new one. It’s going to be something really great!”

Savoye’s earliest memory of the venue was seeing Arctic Monkeys, one of his favourite bands growing up, playing the 100th show of their career there in 2012. “I think it’s the best venue in Paris, it’s not too big and not too small. I can’t wait.” He explains, “One of the great shows I went to recently at L’Olympia was Air, and Phoenix too. A lot of big French bands always start or finish their tours by playing there, as it’s a very symbolic venue.” This will be far from the only iconic venue the band play in 2025, as next month they are set to support Polo & Pan at the Roundhouse in London. “It feels like the beginning of a story,” says Savoy. “We haven’t been to the venue before – but we can’t wait, man!”

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Catch Kids Return supporting Polo & Pan at London’s Roundhouse on February 23rd.

Words: Finlay Harrison

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