Finding Paris Texas

The address was unfamiliar, and digital maps didn’t help much. Even the flyer was a bit vague—Paris Texas would host a “pop-up van,” selling T-shirts out the back of a beat-up white cargo van. Proceeds were going to the local NAMI branch, but beyond that, information was scarce. Fans were not: a half hour before the group’s arrival, bodies began to converge on a desolate street in Downtown LA. The only landmark was a brewery two blocks away, unless you counted a tall barbed-wire fence that ran the length of the street. On the other side of the fence was a parking lot, half-full with more unmarked white cargo vans.

Then, in the distance, Pharrell’s unmistakable percussion started to punch through the white noise of surrounding freeways. As the music drew closer, Justin Timberlake’s vocals on “Like I Love You” touched the sky, and a van swerved around the corner, music blasting. 

The crowd circled. Film cameras and camcorders were unholstered to frame the van doors, capturing the words “Ditch-Maid Cleaners” outlined in red along the side. To the Paris Texas faithful, the red scythe decal signaled another thrilling descent into the cinematically hellish world of Paris Texas. The duo’s Louie Pastel and Felix first appeared as a clean-up crew for contract killers in “HEAVY METAL,” their blue coveralls and black high-tops awash in blood and violence. They turned up again a month later as blocky animations in “SITUATIONS,” this time driving a Ditch-Maid van and swinging shovels at the Grim Reaper. 

As release day approached this past May, minute-long snippets of the Ditch-Maid workday surfaced on YouTube, and a fuller picture began to emerge: even if they were moving corpses and mopping up murders, the job didn’t make them monsters. These characters just needed work. 

By the time Louie Pastel and Felix emerge from the van, the BOY ANONYMOUS project has been out in the world for just over 24 hours. If the fawning media coverage (present company included) is any indication, it’s one of the best releases from a new artist in some time. Varyingly intense, soothing, and dense, the music of Paris Texas is consistently one thing: their own. And while BOY ANONYMOUS will certainly be remembered as an arrival, these two already have years of collaboration behind them.

On the street, the crowd has gathered around the duo to ask questions and give thanks. This is Louie and Felix’s first time since quarantine interacting with listeners in person. “It made me feel a lot better about everything,” Louie told me later. “A lot of the love and appreciation felt kind of fake at first. [Today] wasn’t something crazy, but it was enough where I’m like, oh, these people genuinely fuck with it.” 

The gathered masses seem to be equal parts friends and followers. Louie and Felix were both born and raised in L.A., and built a community of support over the years that has spilled from the sidewalk, into the street, and onto the opposite sidewalk. The mood is giddy and expectant. The band’s managers sell black and red T-shirts out the back of the van, while Louie DJs from his phone, mouthing the lyrics and chain smoking between greetings. They sign shirts, pose for pictures, and take questions from the sea of tie-dye, piercings, and tattoos.

Two hours later, they’re still at it. Louie and Felix have pledged to stick around until everyone else tires out, and that ends up being most of the afternoon. When we finally meet at a nearby recording label where frequent collaborator Austin Taylor-Richburg works as head of creative, the two look like they’ve just run a marathon, tired but content. But that may have had more to do with an unintentional fast than a lack of energy. In any event, we could still laugh at the fact I was the only other person wearing an imitation Ditch-Maid uniform.

LOUIE: Were the coveralls intentional?

Oh yeah, definitely. 

FELIX: Yeah, he said he had these. It’s so crazy you just have that.

Coveralls just make life easier. How’d you decide on making that the uniform for Ditch-Maid cleaners?

LOUIE: It’s funny, I was so afraid to actually even do it. It just seemed like too on the nose with certain other people, I won’t say names. 

What was your original inspiration?

LOUIE: I remember I was watching this movie called Ichi the Killer. There was a certain scene where there are guys just cleaning up. I always thought it would be kind of interesting to tell that story. I imagined this alternate universe—probably in the real world too—where it’s like, somebody has to do that. We already know with very illegal shit there has to be a cleanup team. I just imagined, what if they franchised?

I feel like the average person, they get popping, they post a bunch of fit pics, and they show themselves in the studio. That’s all they give you, which works for some people, obviously. I’m guilty of it too. I’ll see somebody’s page, and be like, “Oh, who are they with, their clothes are really cool.” I’ve always thought, why hasn’t anybody done more?

I loved the “Orientation” video. Very disconcerting. 

LOUIE: At first it was going to be a full tutorial video. But doing that, at that point in time, it would have taken a lot more effort. Our team’s three of us. Me, him, and our friend Saru, who does a lot of shooting. 

FELIX: Especially in quarantine. We would have had to cast people, teach people their cues, and the editing… It would have taken too long.

Anyway, how are you two feeling right now? That must’ve been a crazy last couple of hours.

LOUIE: Yeah, it made me actually feel a lot better about everything. We haven’t got to see anybody, because everything’s been online since quarantine. So at first—I don’t want to speak for [Felix], but a lot of the love and appreciation felt kind of fake. Now, to genuinely see… it wasn’t something crazy, but it was enough where I’m like, oh, these people genuinely fuck with it. They’re having a good time.

Where’d you get the van? How much does a custom decal like that run? 

FELIX: We had the decal put on last week. And then we had the van waiting in Silverlake, and we woke up and picked it up. We just literally woke up, didn’t even have breakfast. 

LOUIE: I’m so hungry.

You haven’t eaten anything today?

FELIX: We just woke up and got ready. He had to clean his suit, because we have cats in our house, or the people staying with us have cats—

LOUIE: He pissed all over it.

FELIX: One of the cats peed on it, so we had to go clean it. I just woke up, took a shower. I don’t even think I’ve had water yet. 

Let’s break for some water. And a snack.

FELIX: Yeah, probably.

[WATER & SNACK BREAK]

What were your conversations like? What did people want to know?

LOUIE: I think a lot of people were kind of curious about the process. I feel like a lot of the fans, especially this early on, are not only fans of music but musicians themselves. A lot of them want to know like, “How did you do this, who produced what?” There was one kid that was really shy, I wish he would have talked more. With the blonde hair.

FELIX: That kid Max? I think that’s just how he is. He’s just like that.

LOUIE: He seemed cool. 

What kind of movies were you watching while making the EP and the music videos?

FELIX: I learned all my movies from [Louie]. He put me onto some crazy shit.

LOUIE:  I failed the second half of tenth grade because I watched too many movies. I didn’t put him onto anything crazy. If anything, we watched a bunch of dumb shit.

FELIX: Besides Final Destination. I think we watched the first one, maybe?

LOUIE: We watched one and two, I think.

FELIX: But then you also put me onto I Saw The Devil, Snowpiercer, certain films that I had just never seen. And prior to that, I really liked John Carpenter a lot. I liked Big Trouble in Little China a lot. 

Have you seen The Thing?

FELIX: I just talked to someone about that outside. That one’s so good. 

LOUIE: My auntie put me onto that because my older cousin had the game. There’s a video game version of The Thing—it’s so fire. We were playing it thinking it was just a video game. And she walked in there, she was like, “Oh, this is the movie.” And we’re like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” And she’s like, go in there and watch it. And me and my cousin are watching it at one in the morning, kind of laughing at it or whatever. Then that blood test scene comes up, and the whole night there was such a crazy silence. We’re pretending we’re not scared. I’m 13, he’s 16, and I woke up the next morning like, “That kind of fucked me up.” 

Let’s talk about the Paris Texas videos. I was talking to [director] Aus earlier about “HEAVY METAL” and figuring out the shot where you’re being dragged.

LOUIE: I had the idea for a long time, but I didn’t know how we’d do it. Would I sit on the skateboard and somebody just rides over me? How do we get it done right? When we brought the treatments to [Austin-Taylor Richburg], he was just like, “I know exactly how to do this. We’re going to get a rig.”

FELIX: On a board, it was like a very small board.

LOUIE: The pants and the sweater I was wearing have holes in them now. I just found that shit.

Felix, you had your own blood-spattered moment later in the video. 

FELIX: It was interesting to perform like that. My eyes were kind of closed. And I already had a black eye, and that was just fun. In that scene, my eye’s mad swollen. I already have naturally low eyes, so I just rap like I’m doing the lightskin face the whole time.

LOUIE: My favorite thing about that whole scene is that you can hear the splat on the ground. There’s certain things in there that are like little Easter eggs. Not even Easter eggs, just small things that make that video so tough.

Anything else come to mind?

LOUIE: The ringing ear. That was last minute. There were a lot of things we had to sacrifice, especially because it was such a quick thing that they do in a day.

FELIX: It was a one-day shoot.

LOUIE: That day was so fucking crazy. I really wanted to emphasize the fact that the amps are making his ears bleed. Because we couldn’t physically show it. Again, it just looks like he’s in the warehouse and I’m in the back. And so I was like, the best thing we can do is let it be known that his ears are gone. That’s my favorite thing about that video.

Aus did “FORCE OF HABIT” too. What stands out from that shoot, looking back on it?

FELIX: That one was easier. We didn’t need blood, we didn’t need a rig. We weren’t driving anybody, we didn’t need a studio. The only rig that we had was a Snorricam.

So that’s all we needed. Had him wake up three times, trying to make sure the title of the song and the video made sense together. Just the repetition that’s like when he gets out the bed, he’s in three different outfits. And I’m sitting on the bed, I’m in three different outfits. And even when we’re outside in the parking lot, everybody’s outfit changes. All the people we have there are just important people like friends, and the friend of ours that has the interlude on that part [Filthy Peralta]. We had to change all their clothes in the cold.

Did you both grow up in South L.A.?

FELIX: Yeah, yeah. So he’s Compton, I’m South Central. We met in college.

LOUIE: Our freshman year.

How did it happen? 

LOUIE: I had a French class with this kid Jesus. Funniest dude I ever met in my life. They had been friends already through high school. I told Jesus I made beats. He was rapping and said he has a friend who raps too. 

FELIX: I was always rapping but I would never record it. I would write sometimes, but I didn’t record it. And [Louie] didn’t have much experience with it either, he just started producing rap music. This was a year in?

LOUIE: Couple months.

FELIX: Couple of months into it. He was like yeah, we should just make a project together since we’re learning how to record, learning how to get familiar with it. Weren’t even gonna be a group, let’s just do it together and we’ll get stronger and we’ll just do our own thing.  

And it was like the second day. He was like, “Oh, I made this beat.” And then we’re listening to it, and this beat’s crazy. I’m like, “We should just do a back and forth thing on it.” I still remember the lyrics, but I don’t know what that song sounds like today.

LOUIE: And we’re still not even completely happy with everything, but it’s just really funny how this has been the goal, even when we first worked together. It was like, “Yeah man we’re gonna do this thing, there’s gonna be a script. It was going to be a side thing that we can go to, we’ll do this thing with a little story inside of it, yadda, yadda, yadda.” 

And then every year, we just never got it done. Every year we were just like, we’re going to do this. I think we only stayed together because we were just so driven to do this thing that we said we were going to do. 

Do you have a recording of that first song? 

FELIX: We weren’t recording yet. This was just us telling our verses to each other, no mic. 

LOUIE: We didn’t even do voice memos, which I think would’ve been smarter.

FELIX: We just have the beat and we’re writing our lyrics to it, looking at each other like, “What did you do? Okay.”

So when was BOY ANONYMOUS actually recorded? 

FELIX: That was made in a few months. I’m going to class, weaning out of being in school, in one jazz class and hitting him up right after class to come to my house. Certain things lined up too. At the time I was staying with my father and he’d just be doing stuff. He’d go on a cruise for two weeks. Just out the house damn near every day. 

We were making music with friends, working with them in a group called MOTH. We were cool with some of them, and they were like, “You guys should make a project,” and it was supposed to be this rollout where every artist is highlighted for a certain period of time. 

So we were just like okay, we’ll do this for a second real quick. This will be a good opportunity to put music out, since we didn’t put music out at the time. I think maybe i’ll get my revenge in hell was out. So we’re making songs, we finished it, and just through the process of waiting our turn, we started going back to edit stuff or adding new songs. “CASINO” was the last song.

And when did you—

FELIX: Oh, you know what? I lied. “CASINO” wasn’t the last song on the project. Last song on the project was “SITUATIONS.” Because after three months of not seeing each other… We’d be in contact, texting, IG, whatever, but we didn’t see each other for a long time. Then the house that we’re at now, we were like, “We’ll just go there and record. Three days, fuck it. Let’s just knock out three days and see what we do.” And “HEAVY METAL” and “SITUATIONS” came out of that.

LOUIE: That was one of the most fun times to record music. We had been going back and forth for so long, we didn’t even know if we wanted to do music anymore. That was a point in time where we were like, “Why even do it?” We felt kind of guilty for even trying to do it, and were trying to figure out our lives. But then during that time it was just like, fuck it. It was such a weird feeling.

FELIX: It was just real life catching up, in a way. At that point, I had even made the decision in my head to say, “Let’s just go all in.” Because I was always in limbo. Both of us were working, and working is good, but it was just gross. And we had been doing shit for a long time, performing and stuff. So it was just like dude, let’s put our all into it. 

Me having to explain it to my dad was wild. Like look, I’m not going to school for a minute, I’m also not even going to have a job for three months.

LOUIE: I left my whole ass house and slept in my car. That story’s getting kind of played, but we just got really sick of all the shit. It’s a really weird feeling, and I talked to my girlfriend about this the other day. She told me something that was kind of interesting. She was like, because certain thoughts stay in your head, you always think that you’re the best, but you don’t execute it. So if all this is in your head and nobody knows about it, it goes over and over again to keep thinking you’re the best, you’re the best, you’re the best, I’m this person. Without ever having to actually do it, you can continue with that kind of delusion. 

So in my head, I’m like, we need to finally get out of that. Because we believed it. It was no question that we were tight. But trying to execute it, every single time felt crushing. And finally, we were just like, fuck it. Let’s be the n****s we always said we were going to be, and then it just worked out. That’s the craziest part, it worked.

What was it like having that conversation like with your parents, or quitting your job? Because there’s still no guarantee at that point.

FELIX: It was more so my parents, and family stuff. Quitting work, I already knew. I’d be at work thinking about this stuff. I remember I had a teacher at school, and she was like, “What’s going on?” Because she noticed I was acting weird with work. And she was like, “You know, school is always going to be here, but if this is how you really feel then just try it and see what happens. Because obviously you don’t want to do this.” 

LOUIE: I feel like that’s always been a big problem. Not to be preachy, but a big problem with people telling you to go to school in the first place, is that if your heart’s not really in it, it kind of sucks. A lot of the time, people have that mentality where it’s just like, just suck it up and go do this thing, even if you’re not really into it. That’s why certain people suck at their jobs. 

You tell a kid, go be a doctor and they’re not even into it, then somebody’s going to half-ass on the fucking surgery table. It’s like yo, you’re forcing people to do shit they don’t want to do. But just because you don’t want to do school, don’t be a rapper. That’s fucking stupid.

All right, so you make the decision to finish the music. Did you give yourselves three months, or—

LOUIE: We didn’t even give ourselves a time. I just had to start working again because I was broke. That was my most scumbag era. Just doing shit I wasn’t supposed to be doing.

What were the jobs you were working at that point?

LOUIE: We were both working at 7-Eleven.

FELIX: Shout out Justin. I got fired from working at New Balance, because I was too late all the time. And then our friend Justin helped us get a job at a random 7-Eleven, and then after that I also started working at a UPS post office. Then I ended up going to Costco. That was the last job I had before I was like, all right, I’m good. I would rather do more service jobs than food jobs, though. 

LOUIE: Food jobs suck extra ass, yeah.

FELIX: Whoever does that deserves the Medal of Honor. Just fast food and shit. That’s real, that’s so real. Because people are so crazy when they come to you hungry.

And then you have to depend on tips…

FELIX: Yeah, fuck that. The customers decide if you’re worthy. Nah bro, they’re already giving you guys the money.

Louie, what made this your biggest scumbag era? 

LOUIE: I was just bumming around L.A. It’s funny talking about it now, how crazy that was, because I had no idea what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to go back to my momma’s house, but I was just in my car. It was so weird, I had no plan at all.

I was finessing. The car I originally had was about to break down. I had no money to fix it, so I was just like, fuck it. I’m going to sign up for Lyft. I was driving and living in a Lyft car for like three months. That summer we had seen each other the least, because I was like I need to start making money again. So I’ll see you when I see you. 

FELIX: Yeah, we had [BOY ANONYMOUS] done, written and recorded at that time. 

Did you have any idea at that time that the project was going to do what it has?

FELIX: We were just going off the merit of finishing it. Just being like, all right, we’re going to release this thing. Let’s do it. 

LOUIE: Even now we still have doubts about it—at least I do. I’m a real big stickler about watching waves come and go, right? And for me, there’s this weird thing where people like it because it’s fresh, but do people genuinely like it because it’s tight? 

I’m always battling that thing where it’s like, “Oh, they’re doing new alternative music.” And you put them in this bubble and name this person, name this person. By next year, will people still look back and be like, “This was amazing?” Or is it just because like, there’s some clout, and Pigeons & Planes fucks with you guys. Shout out Pigeons & Planes though, because y’all really snap.

LOUIE: Even when we released the project, it was kind of bittersweet because I just want the next thing to be so… It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I need to not be not second-guessed. I don’t want to be the next yadda, yadda, yadda. I want it to be like, “Who the fuck thought this would’ve happened?” I know how much better we can do.

FELIX: Even from 2013, I always knew that it was going to be a thing. I never knew what it was. I always had faith in it. Even through the many songs that we’ve done, and going through different eras, pockets of music that we make, I knew it’s going to be a thing. 

Even with BOY ANONYMOUS, this is so small on the scale of what we’re going to do. This is just our introduction to the world. We’ve known each other for seven, almost eight years. This is just the world now understanding what’s happening, but I always know we’ll never let each other fall short.

What do you have to hear to make something pass your internal quality test?

FELIX: There are moments—which happen very rarely—but there are moments where we make songs and when you listen back to them, to a certain degree you know it’s you, but it doesn’t really feel like it’s you for real. You’re almost listening to it as if you’re really listening to another person. But it’s just you, it gives you the feeling of, do I know this person?

LOUIE: You don’t recognize yourself. That’s a good point. You hear a song and think, “Who is this?” It’s the craziest feeling.

FELIX: The first time I felt it, I was like, oh man. I wanted to cry a little bit.

LOUIE: That’s why I like “A QUICK DEATH” so much, because I was like damn, whoever this person is is crazy. It doesn’t feel like me.

Did it feel different in the moment when you were recording it?

The whole project was a bunch of those moments, for me at least personally. Because I’m definitely not the rapper of the group. I smoke cigarettes all the time, I run out of breath so fast. It’s something I don’t really do. I mostly make beats. I’ll do shit here and there. He always says, “Oh [Louie] will have the magical eight.” If you listen to the project, it’s kind of like that.

FELIX: Eight bars will just be really crazy. Not a hook though, just a fire eight-bar verse. And he’s out.

LOUIE: But a lot of those songs from “CASINO” down is like, wow. Who are these people? Except “AREA CODE.”

What’s different about “AREA CODE?”

FELIX: I like his part on “AREA CODE” a lot.

LOUIE: I like his part a lot too, but… That was a crowd favorite and I was like, we got to fix this. People just love it so much, but I remember even before we were remixing the project, I was like, “I have to fix this beat, I have to do it right now!” And every time I tried anything I was like, “I’m fucking up the song.” Everything but the beat is so amazing to me.

But I am really proud of producing our own shit. It’s a whole different bag you can get into.

You can tell, too. This project sounds totally unique. When you’re writing, how do you approach a new idea?

FELIX: More recently I’ve been writing in the moment. During the [BOY ANONYMOUS] sessions it was just like, the beat was on, I have an idea. I just go. I think maybe the “CASINO” verse was…

LOUIE: Premeditated, lowkey.

FELIX: Yeah. And “FORCE OF HABIT,” the first few bars of that song, I’d have the beat playing in the car and I had to keep freestyling the same part over and over. I couldn’t pull over to stop and write it. So I was in the moment. “BETTER DAYS” was the same thing. 

He’ll be making the beat and I’ll be playing PS2 or something, and I’ll hop on the beat. Or he’ll do something, and I’ll just wait until he’s done. He likes to record a little more privately, so I just won’t give any attention to it.

Is there already new music you’re excited to release? 

LOUIE: I want to drop immediately after this. We just gotta figure out a bunch of life shit. It’s funny how that part never stops, the part where I’m like, “I gotta figure out where I’m gonna live.”

You’re moving out? 

LOUIE: Yeah, where we’re at right now, it’s hard to record.

FELIX: We live with a few friends. One of them helps us shoot the promos as well, and helped write the “Orientation” video. We’re just trying to find any place that’s decent, where we can get a little loud, just to really lock in.

Have your schedules filled up recently too? Are you taking a lot more meetings with people in music? 

FELIX: Yeah, we’re meeting a lot of people.

LOUIE: People were way more impressed than I thought they’d be.

FELIX: Yeah, actually that part too.

LOUIE: That part is very interesting. A lot of people were impressed, like whoa. That’s what kind of blows me away, where I’m like, really? I was impressed when I was making it, but… It’s just certain people where it’s like, when people meet us, certain people of certain calibers, they’ll be impressed. I’m like, “But you’ve done this.” 

FELIX: I think people get to a certain level and do things for so long that it becomes really formulaic, and you forget certain things that aren’t perfect can still be good. 

People are used to a certain thing. Sometimes, people do this thing where they chase the imperfection. Musically, that won’t work. Or it’ll work, but you’re going to get frustrated with yourself. You got to just accept that there’s going to be new stuff, and whatever you might’ve done, more than likely, has inspired what’s happening. I think that’s a really good thing to acknowledge. The trail that you’ve blazed, people are walking along it, maybe in ways that you don’t even know. 

And there’s so much music out there, so not everybody’s going to be in your little path. But some might just hear this certain kick drum and be like, “Wow, that sounds crazy. Who made that beat?” I might go home and subconsciously make something in the vein of it.

It’s always exciting to know what people are doing, because inspiration can just be put out in so many different ways. Sometimes it’s exciting, the same thing [Louie] was saying, it’s fresh. This is new. I think it just takes a while to see how it grows and how it’s going to seed out there. See who’s there later.

Who likes being early, and who actually likes the music.

FELIX: Exactly.

LOUIE: That’s why the next thing has to be. I don’t want to put pressure on myself, because even the shit we’ve been doing when we’re just fucking around, it’s been so fire. It’s kind of stupid—how are we still this fire?

How much can we talk about what’s coming up?

LOUIE: I don’t want to spoil it. This is the first time I’ll say this: You will know where it’s coming from, where I think the previous record you don’t know. It’s still crazy. People will listen to it and go, “Now I get it.” Because I think with BOY ANONYMOUS, we were going for that, but there’s only been one person who was like, “This is who you guys are influenced by, this is what you guys are doing.” And this is the first time where it’s like—not even on the nose. This is what it is, and it might be more fire than what it took from. Hopefully.

Louie, are you still using the same guitar? 

LOUIE: People ask me about a lot of the brand shit, and I never know.

FELIX: He just picks it up. The homie has a guitar in the crib, and he just uses it. He’ll just be like, do you have a guitar?

What happens when you’re recording vocals? There’s such a wide range of vocal tones and textures on BOY ANONYMOUS.

FELIX: It’s just whatever I think sounds good with the beat, and I just try it. I don’t want to do what’s expected all the time. I just be winging it.

LOUIE: I think what makes us very interesting is that we’re good at voice acting. I think on none of those songs people can identify who’s who. There’s also that weird, “Huh,” when they meet us and we talk. Like, I just never thought that was you. 

Even “HEAVY METAL,” that’s the first time I heard Felix sound like that. And then he’ll just do something else the next time.

Do you guys do the thing where you record a bunch of takes and then listen back, or stick to one melody once you find it?

LOUIE: For me it’s more in the moment. For him, he’ll do hours. Everything I do is first take, it has to be fire, or I’ll leave the whole song alone.

FELIX: In this weird way it’s like, I am against myself, featuring myself in a way. I’ll hear one playback and then I’ll do just another take of another random idea. In a weird subconscious way, I think I’m trying to do better than the last one.

Are there more movies in your futures? Any plans for a feature film?

LOUIE: After two more projects, I got one. I already know what we’re doing. It’s going to be a short film, and I might get an Oscar.

FELIX: Yeah, he’s actually going to do a film. Not music-related.

LOUIE: It’s going to be extra fire. I already know the concept. It’s going to be probably really hard transitioning, but if I start it now it’ll be good. But not with Ditch-Maid.

FELIX: The Ditch-Maid people are dead. It was a quick death.

Last question: Louie, how’s your nose feeling? 

I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine. It’s my little Nelly badge.