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Beck and Phoenix: Old Friends Unite for Summer

US musician Beck performs on stage in the Festival d'ETE Concert in Quebec City on July 12, 2018. (AFP)
US musician Beck performs on stage in the Festival d'ETE Concert in Quebec City on July 12, 2018. (AFP)
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Beck and Phoenix: Old Friends Unite for Summer

US musician Beck performs on stage in the Festival d'ETE Concert in Quebec City on July 12, 2018. (AFP)
US musician Beck performs on stage in the Festival d'ETE Concert in Quebec City on July 12, 2018. (AFP)

It feels so natural a collaboration that the only surprise is it didn't happen before: indie favorites Beck and Phoenix have teamed up for a new single and summer tour.

The California singer-songwriter joined AFP on a sunny riverside in Paris to talk about their joint single "Odyssey" and upcoming dates in North America.

"A lot of times these tours where they put bands together, no-one really talks. There's no real connection," said Beck.

"To me it's more interesting if there's a life behind all that. We didn't ask permission to do it. We just did it."

The connections between the Los Angeles native and the band from Versailles -- probably France's biggest indie export of recent decades -- go back a long way to their debuts in the 1990s.

"The first time I heard Beck was probably 'Loser' on MTV, but the song I would play the most was 'Jack-Ass'," recalled Phoenix singer Thomas Mars, referring to a hit from Beck's seminal 1996 album "Odelay".

"It felt like we had a cousin or brother somewhere in the world."

Beck said he was sent the first Phoenix album by mutual friends -- probably French electro bands Air or Daft Punk.

"In the 1990s we were coming out of a long period of hard rock and grunge and Phoenix's music had 80s influences that were not fashionable yet. And it felt risqué to embrace happy 80s sounds," he said.

"'Risqué' was my email address back then," Mars joked.

Together for a summer

The old friends have been hanging out in Paris where Beck has been busy attending fashion shows and joining The Black Keys for a rendition of his 1990s breakout hit "Loser" last week.

He plays an acoustic set this Wednesday at city hall.

"It will be me, one guitar, and we'll see what happens," he said with a laugh. "Maybe I'll just do French hits sung with a really terrible American accent."

The two friends will reconnect from August 1 for the North American summer tour, titled "Summer Odyssey".

So why now to finally write a song together?

Beck jumps in: "Well we have the tour, and we decided to give it a name, and then a song, and why not a T-shirt... And let's have a restaurant and a hot-air balloon!"

Then a little more seriously, he added that it "makes it more interesting to have these artifacts from this time where we came together for a summer".

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Entertainment

Keke Palmer Comedy ‘One of Them Days’ and ‘Mufasa’ in Close Race for No. 1

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Keke Palmer, left, and SZA in a scene from "One of them Days." (Sony Pictures via AP)
This image released by Sony Pictures shows Keke Palmer, left, and SZA in a scene from "One of them Days." (Sony Pictures via AP)
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Keke Palmer Comedy ‘One of Them Days’ and ‘Mufasa’ in Close Race for No. 1

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Keke Palmer, left, and SZA in a scene from "One of them Days." (Sony Pictures via AP)
This image released by Sony Pictures shows Keke Palmer, left, and SZA in a scene from "One of them Days." (Sony Pictures via AP)

The Keke Palmer buddy comedy “One of Them Days” opened in first place on the North American box office charts on a particularly slow Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

The R-rated Sony release earned $11.6 million from 2,675 theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday, beating Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” by a hair. By the end of Monday's holiday, “Mufasa” will have the edge, however.

“One of Them Days” cost only $14 million to produce, which it is expected to earn by Monday. The very well-reviewed buddy comedy stars Palmer and SZA as friends and roommates scrambling to get money for rent before their landlord evicts them. Notably it’s the first Black female-led theatrical comedy since “Girls Trip” came out in 2017 and it currently carries a stellar 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

But the marketplace was also quite weak overall. The total box office for Friday, Saturday and Sunday will add up to less than $80 million, according to data from Comscore, making it one of the worst Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekends since 1997.

“For an individual film like ‘One of Them Days’ this was a great weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “You can still find success stories within what is overall a low grossing weekend for movie theaters.”

The Walt Disney Co.’s “Mufasa” was close by in second place with $11.5 million from the weekend, its fifth playing in theaters. Globally, the Barry Jenkins-directed prequel has made $588 million. It even beat a brand-new offering, the Blumhouse horror “Wolf Man,” which debuted in third place with $10.6 million from 3,354 North American theaters.

Writer-director Leigh Whannell’s monster tale starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner did not enter theaters with great reviews. It currently carries a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews don’t generally affect the success of horror movies in their first weekend, but audiences also gave it a lackluster C- CinemaScore in exit polls. The Blumhouse production and Universal Pictures release cost a reported $25 million to make and is expected to reach $12 million by the close of Monday’s holiday.

“Sonic the Hedgehog 3” was in fourth place with $8.6 million and “Den of Thieves 2” rounded out the top five with $6.6 million.

In specialty releases, Brady Corbert's 215-minute post-war epic “The Brutalist” expanded to 388 screens where it made nearly $2 million over the weekend. A24 reported that it sold out various 70mm and IMAX showings. The studio also re-released its Colman Domingo drama “Sing Sing” in theaters and prisons, where over 1 million incarcerated people in 46 states were able to view the film.

The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend has seen major successes in the past. Dergarabedian noted “Bad Boys for Life,” which had a three-day opening of $62.5 million in 2020, and “American Sniper,” which earned $89.3 in its first weekend in wide release in 2016.

“This is a year that’s going to get a big boost starting with ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ and ‘Paddington in Peru’ in February,” Dergarabedian said.