As the temperatures continue to soar into the 30s and the water levels continues to run low, it’s a sure sign the summer festival season is well underway. With the Big Day Out juggernaut now on Australians shores, how can we not get into the spirit? One of the hottest acts to grace our stages this year will be a pair of Gallic bass bandits that we’ve only been able to admire from afar, until now that is. With stifling beats, throbbing bass and a cart-load of ambidextrous remixes in the bag, these boys are armed, dangerous and ready to set our nights on fire! Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay, who together make up Justice, are without doubt the most talked about artists on the ever-growing Ed Banger roster. Their name has been hot on the lips of the electro world since their phenomenal take on Simian’s ‘We Are Your Friends’ hit dancefloors like an atom bomb just over 2 years ago, inciting media tags such as “the new Daft Punk”. It still shows no sign of slowing down.

Since then, Justice have continued to show the world that they are much more than a one trick pony. They went about slaughtering our ears with the thrilling follow up, ‘Waters of Nazareth’, and presented us with endless remix bliss. Now on their expanding discography they have reworks of Daft Punk, Soulwax, Franz Ferdinand, Fatboy Slim and even Britney Spears to their credit. They also managed to retouch their own ‘Waters of Nazareth’ masterpiece. “When we remix, we just like to keep the vocal from the original track, then we take apart and re-do everything else. Remixing ‘Waters of Nazareth’ was really hard. We had to take a step back and spend a lot of time on it, to get it right,” laughs Gaspard down the line from Ed Banger HQ. “That’s what we’re trying to do with our album now, take a step back before we go back in to mix.”

Having such a massive breakthrough hit, it’s not at all surprising to learn that its continuous attention and revival has begun to have a haunting affect on the boys. “We’re bored of it now,” Auge admits with a laugh. “That track is like 3 years old, and some people are just hearing it now. I think it’s great that a track can move from the club to mainstream [though].” The track’s clip also saw the boys take out a European MTV Music Award for ‘Best Clip’, beating out Kanye West’s ‘Touch The Sky’, which had the spoilt rapper storming the stage to hijack their acceptance speech. “It’s funny, we were still in the US [at the time]. I think he’s apologised in an interview on the web now,” he laughs of the surprise attack.

Spending most of the last two years on the road, it’s hard to believe that the boys have achieved much more than just getting to airports on time and catching up on much needed sleep. But fans can now breathe a collective sigh of relief, because their debut long-player is well on the way! “We started working on it in January [of 2006], during the week, between weekends around the world. It’s nearly finished, all we have to do is mix it. It’s going to sound very disco, [with] really obscure basslines and drums. It’s really different from what we’ve done before!” he supplies excitedly.

2007 will be the year of the crucifix, as the boys blow off our heads with a string of scorching DJ sets around the country and follow up release-wise by launching their new ‘Dance’ EP, featuring party thriller ‘Phantom’ which has wasted no time blowing up dancefloors around the globe. “We’re hoping to complete the live act when we get home and then start promo on the album in March. If we didn’t have deadlines, then we’d never get anything done,” he laughs light-heartedly of their work ethic. “We just hope to do the best music we can [this year] and then we’ll see what happens,” he says hopefully. Somehow, I think things are just about to reach a whole other level, something that the even the pair aren’t particularly prepared for. That being said, the spotlight and attention isn’t a new feeling for the pair, with the first sign that their sets incited pure madness at a 2006 show in London. “It was the funniest thing, it was at the end of our set and some guy in the crowd just stood there and stared at me as he ate his glowstick,” he laughs of the incident. “It was crazy!”

Catch Justice as they rip up stages nationwide on the BDO bill and through a few select sideshows:

Jan 25 – Big Day Out, Sydney
Jan 26 – Killer, Sydney
Jan 27 – Room, Melbourne
Jan 28 – Big Day Out, Melbourne
Feb 2 – Big Day Out, Adelaide
Feb 4 – Big Day Out, Perth