And Justice For All…
Inside the uncanny longevity of Justice — electronic music’s most hard-rocking aesthetes.
Words by Noah Rubin
Photos by Clare Gillen
This article originally appeared in Hypebeast Magazine #36: The Platinum Issue
It was just another Tuesday night on the Lower East Side in 2005 — back when Tuesday was my Saturday and Ludlow Street still had a pulse worth checking. I started the night with a cheap beer at Motor City, detoured through Dark Room, then landed across the street at Max Fish where something unexpected hit me the moment I walked in (no, not the aggressive fluorescent lighting). It was a sound I couldn’t quite place—aggressive, synthetic, and completely electrifying. Teeming with all the cues of club music and delivered with hard rock bravado, the whirlwind of synths and drums coming through the speakers that night didn’t just slap — they seared themselves into my memory with unmatched permanence. This wasn’t just a new sound. It was a new feeling altogether. And it had a name: Justice.
Their hyperactive 2005 debut EP Waters of Nazareth blew through sound systems and blog feeds alike, building sonic walls made of concrete in a Franco-electronic style all their own. Justice’s musical assault made them essential listening during that era—but Waters was just a taste of things to come. The now iconic debut full-length, Cross, arrived two years later and announced itself with the subtlety of a riot. The album’s debut single, “D.A.N.C.E.,” propelled the album to No. 1 on the UK and US Dance charts after its release in 2007, and quickly turned Justice into one of the hottest groups of the moment.
The duo’s sound struck a nerve, perfectly timed for the indie sleaze era: a blend of rock-star swagger and home-studio humility, delivered with that unmistakable French touch that’s all their own. Their impact was felt in dive bars, yes, but in record industry exec-suites, as well: At the Grammy Awards that year, “D.A.N.C.E.” was nominated for Best Dance Recording and Cross for Best Electronic/Dance Album.
Before their meteoric rise, Justice masterminds Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay met as graphic design students dabbling in electronic music in the early 2000s. Their shared visual sensibility shaped not only the group’s bold musical approach, but also the band’s striking aesthetic identity. The cross motif they adopted early on has been reimagined across eras, anchoring a project that’s remained creatively intact in a time when that’s more the exception than the rule. Observationally, their unusual staying power stems from a few key ingredients, including an uncanny friendship and collaborative cool. Plus, a homegrown creative process that’s shielded them from many of the trappings that global success tends to heap on musicians in their prime.
Hyperdrama, their latest album, released in April 2024, is both a departure and a reaffirmation of the core artistic tenets that have defined Justice from the start. For the first time, they embraced a level of collaboration not seen on their previous projects, bringing in artists like Tame Impala, Thundercat, Miguel, and Connan Mockasin to expand their palette. And true to form, they didn’t just show up, they took home hardware, too. Their track “Neverender” (a collaboration with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker) won Best Dance Recording at the Grammy Awards in early 2025, nearly two decades after “D.A.N.C.E.” earned them their first nomination in that same category.
Talking with the duo during a recent tour stop in Michigan (the final date of their North American tour), they give off the impression that they are pretty much the same guys whose tracks caught my ear 20 years ago: obsessive about audio nuance, happily absurd when it serves the art, and absolutely, always in sync. They’re also deeply aware that the technological shifts of the past two decades have helped them stay afloat—tools that not only made longevity possible, but also deepened the artistic fusion that’s turned them, in their own words, into “almost the same entity.”
JUSTICE HAS BEEN A BAND FOR OVER 20 YEARS NOW. COMPARED TO WHEN YOU STARTED, HOW ARE THINGS DIFFERENT FOR YOU GUYS CREATIVELY AND INTERPERSONALLY?
Xavier de Rosnay: Well, I’m gonna give you such a stupid answer, but a lot of things are the same and a lot of things are different. Creatively, it’s pretty much the same. We are still a home studio band and we make music in a very close circle. One thing we do think about is, “How long can you do this and still make good records?” Our favorite bands lasted less than 10 years and then they just exploded. So we are monitoring how many more records we can do that feel exciting and good without being too corny.
ABSOLUTELY. GASPARD, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU’D ADD TO THAT?
Gaspard Augé: The thing is that we are labeled as an electronic music act. When you take all the decades before the 2000s, every decade was very easy to identify, and so it was probably harder to survive through than these times. Music hasn’t evolved with as much clarity since the 2000s. Obviously you have new movements, but it’s a bit harder to pinpoint. I guess this is also probably why we can still do what we are doing today.
TOTALLY. WE LIVE IN AN ERA WHERE PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY HAS SHIFTED DRASTICALLY, TOO. MAYBE THAT’S AN INGREDIENT IN BEING ABLE TO HAVE A KIND OF LONGEVITY THAT IN PAST ERAS WAS HARDER TO ACHIEVE?
X: Yeah, absolutely. If we had been a band in the ‘70s, we would have lasted like four months. Everything that was related to the life of being in a band was much different. I feel like nowadays it’s much easier to stay alive than it used to be 40 years ago.
G: It’s much easier not to die in your own puke.
I WAS GOING TO SAY THAT — FOUR MONTHS, BECAUSE THE DRUGS WERE BETTER BACK THEN.
X: But we also definitely benefited from the democratization of the home studio. We were able to make music because when I met Gaspard, it was more or less affordable to have a small sampler and a keyboard and a couple of synths.
G: We were just broke students at the time so we had to improvise with what we had.
ABSOLUTELY, YOU GUYS CLEARLY DID A LOT WITH A LITTLE. SPEAKING OF A LIMITATION OR FOCUS, YOU TALKED QUITE A BIT ABOUT THE PPG WAVE SYNTHESIZER AS AN INSPIRATION ON YOUR LATEST ALBUM, HYPERDRAMA. WHAT WAS THE GENESIS MOMENT WHERE YOU WERE LIKE, “OH YEAH THE PPG IS WHAT’S SPEAKING TO US RIGHT NOW”?
X: It’s Gaspard who found this synthesizer when he was working on his solo album. I remember he sent me a picture and he was like, “Man, this sounds so much like a synth to make R&B from the future.” And I was like, “OK, sounds interesting.” We were very lucky because the one we bought had amazing presets. But then it broke. We had made two-thirds of the record and had to send it to be fixed. When it came back, it had been reset. Those amazing presets were not there anymore. It lost its soul, so we stopped using it.
“WE ARE STILL A HOME STUDIO BAND AND WE MAKE MUSIC IN A VERY CLOSE CIRCLE.” – JUSTICE
THAT MAKES ME THINK OF A STORY I HEARD ABOUT THE FINNISH ARTIST JIMI TENOR. APPARENTLY, HE WOULD THROW HIS SYNTHESIZERS DOWN THE STAIRS AND INTENTIONALLY BREAK THEM. HE HATED THE SOUND OF A PERFECTLY FUNCTIONING SYNTH.
X: OK, no disrespect to Jimi Tenor but that sounds pretty silly. I would hate for our production budget to go into breaking synthesizers.
G: We did throw one on the floor while on stage once, but it was a very cheap one.
SO BESIDES NOT BREAKING SYNTHESIZERS, WHAT ARE SOME OF THE PATTERNS IN YOUR CREATIVE EXCHANGE? LIKE, IS XAVIER ALWAYS DOING DRUM PROGRAMMING AND GASPARD IS ALWAYS THE GUY WHO WRITES LEAD LINES?
X: No. It’s more like, when it is good, we know it, and when it’s not finished, we also know it. We’re just pushing it until we find something that feels good. And we don’t really have to understand too much or argue too much about it.
ARE THERE INSTANCES WHERE YOU DISAGREE THOUGH? I READ SOMETHING ABOUT BONGOS — LIKE, THERE WAS A BONGO TRACK THAT THERE WAS A DISAGREEMENT ABOUT?
X: Yeah, I knew that Gaspard would hate it as I was making it. I felt like, “OK, that’s cool because it gave amplitude to the track in the sense that we were coming from something that’s digital and futuristic to something that was very not digital and not futuristic by putting bongos on it.” Of course, he said, “I hate it,” and then we didn’t even talk too much about it. We removed it and that was it. It was not a big loss. I just wanted to explore the fullness of this bongo joke.
BUT GASPARD, YOU HAD TO GIVE THE THUMBS DOWN ON THE BONGO JOKE?
G: Yeah, I mean, it’s very rare that we disagree, but I just felt it didn’t add much to the general emotion of the song. And most of the time it’s about finding the right emotional tone. When we know it’s in the right zone, we just look at each other and know that that’s going to be a good start for us.
X: The bongos, like a lot of things you make at the end of a record, are a trade-off. Putting bongos on was like trading a bit of elegance in order to get something more efficient on one level of the track’s legibility. This is exactly what Gaspard told me he hated because it was taking away from the simplicity and elegance of this moment in order to augment another aspect of the song.
G: To me, it felt a bit like watching Blade Runner and then Will Ferrell enters the screen for a cameo. I love Will Ferrell and I love bongos, but it just didn’t match for that song.
ABSOLUTELY. BLADE RUNNER: RICKY BOBBY EDITION DOESN’T HAVE MUCH OF A RING TO IT. CLEARLY YOU GUYS HAVE STAYED VERY CONSISTENT IN YOUR CREATIVE RELATIONSHIP, BUT 20 YEARS IS A LONG TIME TO DO ANYTHING WITH ANYONE. HAVE YOU FELT YOUR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP EVOLVE AND CHANGE OVER TIME?
X: It’s very difficult to say because we don’t have another example of somebody we do so many things with. We’ve done more things together than with our own families. I guess the biggest difference, as far as I’m concerned, is becoming almost the same entity. I behave the exact same way I’d be with myself as I do with Gaspard—with no filters at all.
“WE’RE JUST PUSHING IT UNTIL WE FIND SOMETHING THAT FEELS GOOD.” – JUSTICE
SO YOU THINK THAT BEING UNFILTERED WITH EACH OTHER IS THE KEY? BECAUSE IF YOU’RE NOT BEING COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT THAT MIGHT CREATE FRICTION?
X: That’s the key with everyone that you want to engage in real commitment with. Of course, with people you don’t really know, you have to take some turns and maybe do something in a specific way. But with people you’re close with, you need to go just straight to the point.
WHAT’S THE LONGEST PERIOD OF TIME YOU GUYS HAVE GONE WITHOUT SPEAKING?
X: Not much. Maybe a couple of weeks? It’s important sometimes.
DID THAT FEEL WEIRD? LIKE YOU’RE NOT WITH YOURSELF?
G: No, it doesn’t feel weird. Even if we are not in some kind of work mindframe or an album cycle, if there’s something that we hear or see, we want to share with each other. So it’s this ongoing conversation, like, “OK, that may be interesting for a video or for a track or whatever.” Or just silly stuff we find funny.
WHEN YOU’RE IN STUDIO MODE OR IN TOURING MODE, DO YOU HAVE ANY RITUALS THAT YOU THINK PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED BY?
G: No, we don’t even have a picky rider. It’s very simple. We don’t have pre-show rituals either.
SO YOU DON’T, SAY, BURN A LIVE CHICKEN AND EAT ONLY GREEN M&MS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT?
X: No, we don’t do this.
GOT IT. SPEAKING OF BURNING LIVE CHICKENS, THOUGH, I WANT TO WRAP UP WITH SORT OF AN OFFBEAT QUESTION. IF JUSTICE WAS AN ITEM ON A FRENCH BISTRO MENU, WHAT DISH WOULD YOU BE?
G: A slow-cooked dish.
X: I suppose something comforting and satisfying, but with an element of bitterness that makes it just a bit like, “OK, is this actually good?” But at the same time, you feel full and happy at the end of the meal.
ABSOLUTELY. ARE YOU THINKING PORK, BEEF, OR FISH?
G: Pigeon. Like red meat, but coming from birds.
X: Yes, duck or pigeon for sure.
