Caravan Palace fuse hedonistic house and old school jazz to euphoric effect. Their decadent, potent cocktail of jazz manouche, hip-hop, jive, house and beats defies simple categorisation but, needless to say, delivers with a punch. The musical virtuosity of the Parisian seven-piece band combined with their panache, flair and genuine joy in performing live guarantees a riotous good time.

Lauren Foster chats with band member Arnaud Vial ahead of their Birmingham show this winter...

Firstly, what can your Birmingham audience expect from your upcoming show at O2 Academy?
When we’re playing in the UK, people get very hot during the show, dancing a lot and everything. Most of the time people wear vintage costumes, ’30s or ’40s-style clothing, which is always very nice to see.

When you started out back in 2005, the electro swing genre was relatively unheard of. With that in mind, how did Caravan Palace come about?
We were playing in a classic swing band, like a jazz band, with one guitar, one violin and one double bass. At the same time, we were composing and doing a lot of electronic music on the computer, mostly trip-hop and a little house. One day there was a French TV channel that wanted to do a porn show with very old black-and-white porn movies, which were illegal at the time, and they wanted some new music to fit with it. They asked us to do something that mixed the old and the new. For us, it was pretty natural to mix the two, as we were playing gypsy and old swing music as well as electronic music. That’s how we started.

You’re often described as the ‘pioneers’ of electro swing. The popularity of the genre has grown a lot in recent years - it’s now being used in prime-time television adverts and you often hear it in bars and restaurants. It must be a great feeling to know that Caravan Palace have played a huge part in its success...
It’s pretty cool. At the time we had never heard of the term ‘electro swing’, so we didn’t really know how to label what we were doing. I suppose we called it gypsy/electro music - I can’t remember exactly. It grew in France, Austria and the UK, but nobody really knew the genre. I think it’s very trendy now. We’re very proud to have been a part of that.

Your sound combines jazz, hip-hop, house and jive. What originally prompted you to create a fusion of genres?
At first it was gypsy, house and trip-hop, and with the second album, we wanted to go a little further. Gypsy music is really ’30s music, especially French ’30s music, and with the second album we were more influenced by ’40s music, which was more American, jazz, big band-type stuff. With the third album, we went more ’50s. We incorporated rhythm & blues, jive, the beginning of rock and rockabilly and a little bit of soul music. We’re not sure what we’re going to do on the next album. We may be more influenced by soul and rock’n’roll perhaps.

Jazz and house, for example, are two very different genres. Do you ever experience difficulties when producing songs?
Swing and house work very well together because they’re mostly the same tempos, but when we tried to put other genres with house, it was more difficult. It worked pretty well with hip-hop music. On the last album, we tried to mix it with bass music and a little bit of trance and stuff like that. It was more difficult to keep the swing and jazz influence there. I think we made some good stuff, but it was a little less natural.

You’re well known on the festival circuit. Do you have a favourite festival?
We liked playing Burning Man in the US. In the UK, BoomTown Festival. We’ve played there a few times and it’s always very funny. Secret Garden Party is fun too. Those festivals are very into partying. The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury was very good to play.   

Who thought up the name Caravan Palace and what’s the meaning behind it?
It was Charles, the bass player, who thought of it. Caravan was for the gypsy side and Palace was for a very famous Paris nightclub in the 1980s which was very jetset and everything. Also, Caravan is a very famous piece by Duke Ellington that’s played by jazz musicians across the world.

Your shows are very energetic and fast-paced. What do you do to prepare yourself pre-gig?
Maybe we exchange some slaps to the face to wake us up, and we train our voices. At first, Zoé was a classical singer, so we’re always trying to imitate her. It’s kind of funny because she’s a female and you’ve got six men behind trying to do the same thing, which just results in a lot of noise coming from the dressing room. We maybe also have a drink, one glass or maybe two. You know, Evian...

How did growing up in France have an influence on your musical style?
France is not like the UK - most of the music you listen to, the rest of the world isn’t listening to. In France we have a lot of French pop bands. They’re not very good but they sing in French. French people like to understand and they don’t want to learn English. At first we played mostly instrumental music, and most of the labels didn’t want to sign us. Forty percent of the music played on the radio when we started out had to include French lyrics, so it was very difficult for us. We’re very surprised by the success in France.

How did you all meet? 
At first the band was three people - the bass player Charles, the violin player Hugues and myself. We met at high school and went to college together. We were looking for a singer. It was the time of Myspace and we were beginning to put our music online. The first comment on the page was a girl saying, ‘Yeah, that’s very cool, do you need a singer?’ She had a page too and she was playing not the same music but similar, so we met in a tram station in Paris. She was very funny and a good singer too, so we began to work as a foursome. Then we met Antoine, who takes care of all the electronic stuff on stage, and then we met Camille, the clarinet player, who’s playing saxophone now. Then there was a guy who kept sending us mail saying, ‘Do you want another guitar player, or maybe some piano?’ We didn’t answer but he kept sending mail, so in the end we said we’d meet him. We discovered this guy, Paul-Marie, was very, very talented and could play every instrument, so it’s very convenient now that we have him. It’s very cool to have him with us.

And finally, what does the future hold for Caravan Palace? 
We’re just starting to write a new album, but there aren’t a lot of ideas yet. We’re touring in Europe and the UK in November. After that, we’ll get back in the studio and work on the album, then maybe a tour of the US in the spring. Mostly, though, we’ve got to find new and exciting stuff for the album, to give to our audience.  

Caravan Palace play O2 Academy, Birmingham on Friday 18 November.