French Producer Myd Owns His Loser Status

Despite giving his debut album the name Born a Loser, French producer Myd is anything but. The 34-year-old has been making music for most of his adult life, first as a part of Club Cheval and later as a solo artist. And a few years ago, he signed to Ed Banger Records, perhaps the premier dance-music label in France – home to acts like Justice, SebastiAn, Busy P, and Mr. Oizo.

Still, Myd (real name Quentin Lepoutre) doesn’t try to pretend to be anything he’s not.

“When I made this album, I made it mostly in my living room of my flat, which I totally transformed into a studio. And I mostly made it only wearing underwear, having my coffee, waking up, doing music, recording the vocals in the kitchen – you know, it was really like a loser in the movies,” Myd says of the album’s title.

Imagery aside, Myd also took inspiration from British big beat acts he admired when he was 15 years old, like the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, and Basement Jaxx.

“I was trying to make electronic music like the artists I admired at the time,” he explains. “It was all the guys who were sampling with a touch of pop, which is kind of my way of making music now.”

After wrapping up the production on Born a Loser, Myd couldn’t help but notice there was a thread connecting that music from the early aughts to his current body of work. It felt like a return to his 15-year-old “loser” status when he wasn’t worried about impressing anyone with his music.

“The more I was close to my 15-year-old way of making music – as a loser, geek – the more I’m comfortable and the more the audience is too,” he says.

That comfort level will be put to the test when Myd embarks on his North American club tour, which stops at ATV Records on Saturday, February 26.

Talking to New Times over Zoom from Paris, the 34-year-old says he’s looking forward to returning to the U.S.

“Two years ago, I was supposed to do the same kind of tour a bit smaller because my album was not out yet,” he says. “After two years of only touring in France, I know my French audience pretty well, but I’m really happy to be back in a foreign country – especially the U.S., because it’s a totally different way of partying and acting in clubs.”

It’s not like the last two years have been a complete bust for Myd. Though he had wrapped up most of the recording for Born a Loser prior to the pandemic’s onset, he found himself needing a reason to get out of bed every day. The result was CoMyd-19, a livestream series over YouTube where he and special guests would spin.

For Myd, the livestream was a way to fend off the depressing reality that he was no longer touring the world and spinning at clubs.

“I decided to do my CoMyd show, which was good because I had to wake up in the morning and not to stay in bed,” he says. “It was good for the audience because everyone was at home, but they could listen to my music and dance at home if they wanted.”

While some musicians used the pandemic as an excuse to disconnect from life on the road, Myd couldn’t sit idle.

“I just discovered during the pandemic that I cannot stay at home doing nothing,” he says. “It makes me feel anxious when I don’t do anything and nothing is going forward. I don’t feel comfortable with that.”

With nightlife going to some sense of normalcy, the dance floor is perhaps the best place to shake off those anxiety-ridden cobwebs. And Myd’s latest album might just be the bright, hook-laden respite everyone is looking for.

With its lo-fi, indie-pop approach, Born a Loser seems at home on Ed Banger, a label whose artists so seamlessly combine rock elements with dance music. That’s certainly true for most French electronic acts, whether it’s Daft Punk’s disco-infused house or Justice’s heavy-metal-clad bangers.

Myd’s approach works as well in the club as it does during a midafternoon set on a festival stage. Born a Loser also receives a helping hand from a who’s who of indie-rock singers like Mac DeMarco, Bakar, and Juan Wauters. And working with acts like DeMarco came from a place of mutual admiration.

“I had heard that [DeMarco] only worked with artists he likes. So I met him after his show in Paris, and he told me, ‘I love your song ‘The Sun,’ and I was, ‘OK, good,'” Myd remembers. “In my mind, I was like, Wow, that would be awesome to have him on the album.’ It was the only feature I really wanted to have, so I composed [‘Moving Men’] for him.”

Myd was able to further break the ice in Los Angeles, when DeMarco found himself unable to pick up thecar from Justice’s “Fire” video, which his labelmates had promised him.

“I asked Mac, ‘Did you get the Justice car?’ He said, ‘No, I cannot get it because my driver’s license is Canadian.’ I was like, ‘If you want, I can bring it to you.’ It was kind of my present for him – thanking him for having me in his studio.”

Unfortunately, as beautiful as the camera made the mid-’80s, mirrored-finished Toyota Celica out to be, the reality fell a bit short.

“I drove the Justice car in the middle of L.A., and I’m surprised because the car in the music video is gorgeous, but it was totally like a fake. The car was really bad – no license plate, no mirrors, nothing. The steering wheel was totally broken.”

But while the album is full of new material for Myd, the song everyone perhaps knows him best for is the song DeMarco complimented him on, “The Sun.” First released in 2017 on his EP All Inclusive, the track has become the unofficial summer anthem in his home country, something that he’s reminded of every time the weather starts to warm up.

“Since its release, more and more people listen to this song,” he says. “In France, every summer, ‘The Sun’ becomes gigantically famous. Everyone on Instagram is posting it and everyone is insulting me on Twitter, like saying, ‘Oh my God, I can’t bear this song anymore. I hate it.'”

Well, get ready to hate it all over again, because Myd just released a reworked version featuring Jawny earlier this month.

“It was really important for me to do a new version because I’m doing a re-release of my album for the one year and with new songs,” he says. “It was important for me to offer the track a makeover. The song has never been so popular. I can take years for a song to become popular.”

Myd. With Nii Tei and Mutant Pete. 10 p.m. Saturday, February 26, at ATV Records, 1306 N. Miami Ave., Miami; 305-456-5613; atvrecords.com. Tickets cost $30 via eventbrite.com.