A Chat with Your New Favorite Tape (05.05.25)
Weaving elements of punk rock, pop-punk and hard rock into a hard-hitting mass of moving music, French group Your New Favorite Tape excites, intrigues, and intoxicates audiences. We speak with the group about their new album, Twenty Years Too Late, musical styles, upcoming plans and more.
OSR: It sounds like the band started with Guiggy and Pedro. After twenty years of friendship, what finally pushed you over the edge to start a band?
Guillaume: YNFT kind of came out of nowhere. The project is pretty recent, musically speaking, and it all came together in a kind of messy way. The idea first popped up in early 2023 after a pretty boozy night with a buddy of mine – Hubert, a drummer who’s no longer in the band – and Pedro, who’s on guitar and vocals. We just felt like starting a punk rock band to get back into music and, in a way, pick up where we left off 15 years ago with our old bands.
Pedro: Guillaume and I have known each other for over 20 years. Back when we met, I was playing in a bunch of metal projects, and he was in Bleachin’ and End Over. Funny thing, I actually filled in as bassist for Bleachin’ for about six months. We hit it off right away, but apart from one try at a garage rock band in the late 2000s (with the same Hubert), we never really had a chance to make music together.
Guillaume: So yeah, there was this kind of unfinished business vibe that led us to launch YNFT at the start of 2023 with that drummer friend. We recorded two tracks in a garage and self-released them at the end of 2023. That gave us the itch to go further, like, make a full album before turning 40. Since Hubert didn’t want to keep going, we started looking for a drummer and a bassist. That’s when we met Jeremie (drummer from Dolores Riposte) at the end of 2023. We shared the demos for the album with him, and by April 2024, we were in the studio recording drums for Twenty Years Too Late.
Pedro: Then came bass and guitar tracks over summer 2024, and vocals in the winter. Around the same time we were wrapping up the album, we met Benny (formerly of Exit Wounds, The Animal Conspiracy) in October 2024. The four of us started rehearsing and putting together the live set to hit the stage starting January 2025.
So yeah, as you can tell, the birth of this band and this album was anything but traditional. But in the end, we became this tight-knit crew of four buddies. It feels like we’ve known each other forever. We hang out on weekends, and even our kids get along great!
OSR: How does your writing partnership work? Does one handle the music and one the lyrics?
Pedro: We don’t really have any strict rules when it comes to songwriting. Most of the time, it starts with a guitar or bass melody, either from Guillaume or me.
Guillaume: Yeah, and then we bounce demos back and forth, each of us adding vocal lines on top without really discussing it beforehand. Kind of like an “exquisite corpse” approach. The lyrics are often written separately and sometimes end up reshaping the structure of the song. Though sometimes it’s the other way around.
Pedro: Sometimes we even blend two different tracks, one from each of us. Our song ‘Your Screen’ is a perfect example: it started as two separate pieces that we merged into one. We try not to lock ourselves into a fixed writing method – we like to experiment with different approaches. I don’t think there’s one magic formula; it’s more about figuring out what works best for each individual track.
Guillaume: Some songs, like ‘The Change’, went through 11 versions before we landed on the one that really clicked. At some point, you’ve got to stop overthinking it and just lock it in, otherwise, it never ends. One thing’s for sure—we each sketched out around 35 to 40 song ideas in total, and we only finalised 12 for the album. So our creative process is mostly about filtering, refining, and shaping things after the initial writing phase.
OSR: Do you share lead vocal duties?
Pedro: Totally! We always had this idea of having a band without a dedicated frontman. Inspired by other bands like Hot Water Music, we like this concept of having very distinct lead vocals. I have a rawer voice with impact and energy (I handle all the screaming parts) than Guiggy, who has a softer but warmer voice – our tones are very complementary
Guillaume: Yes, and Benny and Jeremie also sing backing vocals, so sometimes we have 4 voices at the same time. We think it really makes the difference playing live. After our shows, we are often told that the 4 voices together is really a game changer.
OSR: You address a lot of social issues. Do you agree on pretty much every issue you write about?
Pedro: Yes. We 100% agree with our lyrics. We do indeed have political topics in our lyrics, but not only. We always try to have storytelling in our writing. It’s always said from the point of view of the narrator: how he sees the world at a specific time, how he feels at a specific moment, talking about society issues, emotional scars, broken dreams, etc. And we like the idea of the narrators not being necessarily us, so the listeners can identify themselves in the story. For example, ‘S.A.M.’ speaks about the fears of childhood, ‘The Change’ speaks about the political mess, ‘Onions 4 All’ about the cyber-surveillance of society, ‘Monday Song’ is about depression and mental difficulties, ‘Final Dive’ describes insomnia, etc.
Guillaume: In the end, all of our lyrics are inspired by our own experiences. So yes, we do believe in what we write, but we paid a lot of attention of not being lecturers or know-it-all guys. We never say what to do or what to think to people, we simply say what’s in our heart and mind.
OSR: How long did it take to come up with the material for the album?
Guillaume: Very long! 😀 More seriously, not so long if you take into account that the bands only exists since end of 2023 and that we got our first album released in March 2025. But we did things a bit backwards with this band – starting writing an album almost from the beginning of the band, even before playing any live shows! All together, I’d say the album took us 18 months from composing the first notes until the release.
OSR: What brought Benny and Jeremie into the band?
Pedro: Our first drummer, Hubert, left the band when things were getting a bit more intense and the album project was more concrete. He was moving anyway to a city far away from us, so it was the good decision for him to leave if we wanted to keep the right momentum.
We had released 2 tracks on Spotify with Hubert (‘No Way Back’ and ‘Drink Drank Drunk’), so we had some materials to propose to potentials musicians. In the end, it was very simple: we posted on several social media that we needed a drummer and a bass player and we got contacted by Jeremie and Benny. We immediately hooked: the most important thing was the feeling more than the musicianship background. You can always work on your instrument to be better, but if you’re an asshole, you’re an asshole. 😆
Guillaume: We were very lucky to meet with two adorable guys living close to us with great past live and band experiences. They both did hundreds of live shows with their previous bands (Dolores Riposte, Exit Wounds). So we had the perfect feeling and the great musicianship level.
Benny: I think that having this very mature album project was clearly a trigger for me to join YNFT. I know I was getting in a serious project, with ambition and hard working guys wanted to take it to the next level. Not the typical Sunday afternoon cover band, there was something more!
OSR: What influenced your decision to bring on a producer?
Guillaume: Pedro and I both have sound engineering skills (I actually am a sound engineer for a French radio), but we wanted somebody external. A person who looks and listens to the project in an impartial way. And, of course, with more talent than us for sound production. We naturally called Seb (Sebastien Langle), who is a very talented punk rock producer who has produced almost 300 releases in his career, so we knew he was the right guy.
Pedro: Yes, and the human feeling was very good, Seb is a good friend now. Guillaume had worked with him in the past and only had good memories. We really thank Seb for his incredible work, without him the album wouldn’t have sound this way.
OSR: Who handles the lead guitar duties?
Pedro: Me! I come from the metal world where lead guitars are a key component of the music. I used to play 8 hours of a guitar a day in my twenties, learning all the pieces from the best shredders of the world (I’m a big fan of Paul Gilbert, Richie Kotzen, Greg Howe, Steve Vai, Guthrie Govan, etc). I dropped this part a bit because it’s really demanding to keep your playing level, and because I got a bit bored by it – and because I don’t have the necessary talent.
Guillaume: Don’t appropriate yourself the lead on ‘The Sun Will Rise’, it’s me!
Pedro: Ah yes ! Guiggy is doing lead parts on this track, because he literally wrote this song from A to Z and it made more sense to have him doing the lead on this one.
OSR: When we think of punk, we don’t necessarily think lead guitar virtuosity. What drove the decision to include blistering lead guitar solos?
Pedro: It’s true, but when you listen carefully to the album, it’s not 100% pure punk rock. It’s a mix of punk rock and metal with touches of pop here and there. Bands like Sum 41, Bad Religion or Mute very often put solos in their songs, it’s something that we like and bands that we really love.
Guillaume: And as listeners don’t necessarily expect these solos to be there, it generates a bit of a “surprise effect” which is nice.
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OSR: What influenced the decision to do a lot with vocal harmonies? Do all of you sing?
Guillaume: One of the strongest markers of melodic punk is vocal harmonies. Bands like Bad Religion or Uncommonmenfrommars are executing this perfectly and I believe it gives a different dimension to the music.
Pedro: It’s demanding, because when you play live, having guitar harmonies – and on top of that, 4 different vocal harmonies – can be very tricky exercise. You don’t have a lot of room for mistakes, or the result will be awful. But we love this challenge and equipped ourselves with in-ear monitoring to be sure that we will ear each-other well!
OSR: What can we expect from Your New Favorite Tape?
Benny: Live shows, live shows, live shows ! We love playing live. This is the essence of music and particularly of punk rock, it’s a music to be experienced live. We have around 20 shows planned this year, and hope for more in 2026. We are planning a small tour in Germany in November, spread the word!
Pedro: Totally agree with Benny, and to be fair, he brings a lot of energy to the booking and it starts to pay off! Playing live really strengthens the bonds between band members, it creates great memories. But we don’t forget to compose and write new songs, we want to release new singles by the end of the year – the show must go on!
Jeremie: Every time we play and tour, it’s like holidays with friends. It’s funny because, except for Guiggy and Pedro, we weren’t friends before. We became really good friends thanks to the band, and that’s really amazing
OSR: Do you have a message for our readers?
Guillaume: Do what you love, write music, write lyrics, create bands, go touring, record music with whatever equipment you have at your disposal, but simply do it! Life is too short for regretting things, and eventually, give an ear to our album and come to see us live. 😊 And if you want us to do a show in your town, contact us, we’ll be thrilled to do so
Many thanks to Your New Favorite Tape for speaking with us. Find out more about Your New Favorite Tape on their official website, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
