After Olympic glory, Gojira’s frontman sets sights on bringing metal to more events

At the 2024 Summer Olympics, Gojira did a fantastic job representing metal, but what other highly anticipated event requires a metal twist? According to Joe Duplantier, Full Metal Jackie, he has some thoughts about who he would want to see in the spotlight and would love to see metal receive some love at the Super Bowl halftime performance. Prior to first expressing his desire to see Meshuggah given the chance, Duplantier recommended Metallica, one of his favourite metal bands and one with a wider commercial appeal. Reflecting on the present, Duplantier tells us what it was like to participate in that historic Olympic performance, provides some context for the song they sang, and talks about the fallout from their participation. Duplantier explains why he has been speaking out as an activist this summer in an effort to liberate Paul Watson, a whale conservationist who is currently incarcerated. Additionally, the frontman of Gojira updates us on the status of the band’s upcoming album and discusses their fall tour with Korn.

I’d love to see Meshuggah at the Super Bowl. Oh my God, if we’re going to talk about Super Bowl, they need to put Metallica on. I think Metallica belongs in the Halftime performance of the Super Bowl. It’s a shame that they were never invited. That would make sense. I hope we will get to see that. Playing “Master of Puppets” and “Enter Sandman.” Imagine that! Metallica is known in the sports world. A lot of pitchers walk to the mound with “Enter Sandman” or at football games I hear a lot, their music is very present. They just deserve to do the halftime. It would be a total success. People are watching the Olympics. The organizers, they’re all dedicated people, professionals. I’m sure they keep their ear to the ground and want to make sure to not miss anything. And hopefully it’ll give ideas to the Super Bowl people.

People need to know. It hurts me that people don’t know what’s going on with Paul Watson. He’s a dear friend of mine. We met more than ten years ago, for sure. 14 years ago, to be precise. I found out about Sea Shepherd Conservation society and Paul Watson specifically because he is such a charismatic activist and leader and founder of awesome movements. He was co founder of Greenpeace in the early ’70s and the founder of Sea Shepherd. He’s continuing his work to protect whales and marine life in general. There was a show, Whale Wars, that was filmed in around 2010. It’s him basically putting himself and his crew between the boats and the whales to protect the whales, putting himself on the spot, taking risks, putting his life at risk to save whales. The way he’s talking about it is very, very inspiring. Paul Watson inspired me personally in my activism and he’s a great example that one person can make a huge difference in the world. He personally and with his crew, I have to add saved tens of thousands of whales, especially if you count all the babies that were made by the whales that he saved. He saved generations of whales. We can thank him personally for having saved maybe two times the amount of whales that would exist on earth if he wasn’t there, maybe it would be just half of that number. His work is incredibly important. Recently he got arrested and put in jail for something that if he was really responsible for that thing, he should have to pay a fine, a 400 dollar fine or something. But instead, he’s facing potentially 15 years in a Japanese prison. At the moment, he is imprisoned by Denmark in Greenland, because Greenland is owned by Denmark. So it’s a little complicated. But it’s in Greenland and Denmark that arrested him. And there’s a warrant by Japan that wants his extradition to Japan to put him in jail for 15 years.

We’ve been busy since the summer between the Olympics and this trip to Denmark and this tour with Korn. We’ve been very, very happy to be on tour with Korn. We have massive respect for them. We were paying attention when they were releasing their first albums. When we were starting being a band and everything, it was always in the back of our mind. There was always this Korn band that was doing something a bit different. And although we were playing more of a death metal type, there was always a link between two bands and massive respect, too. We tried to organize a tour that unfortunately got canceled because of the COVID. That was in 2020. So finally it’s happening. We’re on tour with Korn. It’s great. I think the crowd that goes to see Korn, they’re ready for some darkness and some weird, emotional journeys. And they’ll find that with Gojira, too. So there’s a similarity.  And Spiritbox is also a great addition. These shows are amazing. And we are backstage writing riffs, and we have a bunch of riffs. We have a bunch of ideas for the next Gojira, but we’re really taking our time. Our apologies if it feels too long to our fans, but we will release something when we have something that is solid and beautiful and shining like a diamond. We’re not going to release something just to put something out there. So we have some great elements, but something is still missing. This magical ingredient that I’m still looking for and we are still looking for it.

Yeah, it’s funny. We have a bunch of ideas and there’s a bunch of stuff going on, and it’s still very hard to give you a hand on how it’s gonna feel, how it’s gonna sound until the last moment, until we have our champion songs. And it’s a bit difficult to tell you where it’s gonna go. There’s some old school stuff going on, and surprisingly some of the riffs we play are more old school than old Gojira if that makes sense. We have some things that are even more primal than our first albums. Also, there’s some technical things and there’s some more melodic things. Again, it’s a bit difficult to talk about it, but I’m excited for it.