COUCOU CHLOE and COBRAH Talk Day Jobs and Haters
Music

COUCOU CHLOE and COBRAH Talk Day Jobs and Haters

In one of those "I can't believe this hasn't happened sooner" sort of collabs, the dark nightlife-laced glam of French producer, singer and DJ, COUCOU CHLOE, and Stockholm's queer latex-loving club sensation, COBRAH, have collided for a remix of "WIZZ."

Following up last year's boundary-shifting ONE EP, CHLOE has returned with a bevy of remixes that expand on the release's wide range of musical influences with contributions from the likes of Eartheater, Tony Seltzer, Brodinski, Modulaw, Kelvin Krash, CLIP, Bruki and DJ Q. Enlisting the talents of the "Good Puss" singer, CHLOE and COBRAH have joined forces for a souped up revamp of the EP's lead single.

Turning the original screeching bass-house barn burner into a full-throttle electro banger, COBRAH amps up the energy on the heart-pounding club anthem with super-charged basslines and a seductive verse. With lyrics like, "I should wait and find a wifey/ A good dom with deluxe duplex," and, "I should fuck less and have more sex/ But I likе to keep life complex," COBRAH adds an erotic twist to CHLOE's ode to letting go and hedonistic pleasures in a combination that feels dizzying and deliciously indulgent.

To celebrate the release of their "WIZZ" remix, PAPER put COUCOU CHLOE and COBRAH together to talk about writing music, old day jobs and how they deal with the haters.

CHLOE: Imagine that tomorrow you want to release an EP that's completely different, like you singing sad songs on the piano. Imagine you wanna do that. Would you want to release it as COBRAH or something else?

COBRAH: It would be cool to do it as COBRAH, I’ve secretly always wanted to write sad piano music. I like when everything falls under one person, artists shouldn't be "projects." Would you switch?

CHLOE: No, I never really questioned whether I should change my name or release as another project because I just love the fact that I can make sad or emotional tracks of me singing and still be like, "Yeah, this is me." Because this is also a side of myself I want to express. This is sincere. And I think this is beautiful, you know, to witness an artist that shows so many facets, so many things at once. I feel deeply naked, a bit when I'm going to release more sad things that I'm like, "Oh shit, I'm being soft. But fuck it, I'm being very sad and soft and I want to express it." Why not?

COBRAH: You're very soft.

CHLOE: We are very soft.

COBRAH: It's always like that. It's the same with people that have a very off-putting or harsh expression. Most if not all of those people are always really nice. It's like people that have lots of tattoos or like metal heads. They're so nice. Just completely nice.

CHLOE: Do you feel like you've found liberty in writing for other people?

COBRAH: Yeah, I think it's really about this: you get more and more entangled in yourself and in everything about the music when you write for yourself. Your music becomes like a little corporation where you just run the business, even in the studio, which is very, very boring. Even when you make music, it doesn't feel like making music. It doesn't feel like it used to feel like when you felt really creative and then you had a big urge to try things. So at those rare times when I do actually write for others, it feels like I do music again.

CHLOE: I think this is sick, like regarding what you just said about you feeling like you have fun again. You feel like you allow yourself to have fun because you don't think about you anymore and you just express things knowing that you don't have to attach it to you.

COBRAH: And it can sound shit and it doesn't matter. Because if no one likes the song, it doesn't matter. And you can just move on.

CHLOE: Do you feel like you're even doing that writing for the people and finding that this experience also feeds your own music and your own stuff as a writer?

COBRAH: Yes, and also writing with others. I think that I only do it in very rare times, but it always blows my mind. I’m like, "Oh fuck, yeah, we could do that melody or rhythm! That sounds really cool. I would have never thought of that idea."

CHLOE: Do you work with a lot of people in the studio?

COBRAH: No, I don't. I don't like to have a lot of people around me. I just pick like two or three max. I recently worked with a new producer and I just cried because the idea of being bad felt so embarrassing. But you have to be bad, right? You have to be really shit when you work in music because that's how you figure out the good stuff. You have to play around with it.

CHLOE: Yeah, I really understand that because it's the same for me. I meet people at sessions and it is initially very difficult for me to write in front of them, because I need to be in my space to write or whatever. Then eventually sometimes I manage to do it and even record in front of someone.

COBRAH: It's really unique when you find those people that you like to work with and you develop your sound. I think there are lots and lots of great artists out there that are just kind of waiting to find someone to collaborate with.

CHLOE: We need to go into a session together.

COBRAH: Yeah!

CHLOE: I think we should definitely have a session together, because the remix is fantastic, but let's do something more.

COBRAH: What's the best job you've done before music?

CHLOE: So I worked at this pizza place and I'm not going to lie, it was kinda fun, it was really nice. But before that I did some work as a waitress at a private beach. That was an experience, but I really didn't like it. I hate holding things and I don't have balance. I also worked for the Film Festival. At one point I was in the cloak room. I loved it because I was just there, hanging out and sometimes talking to people. And sometimes I was just saying to people like, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry we lost your thing!" Or, "You already took it," and they were like, "No, no, no."

COBRAH: Did you do it to mess with people?

CHLOE: Yeah. Like, "I'm so sorry, but I think you need to dance for me before I give something to you." They’d be like "What? Are you serious?" I was like, "Yeah, a little dance and I give your stuff back.“ I think I'm happy to make music right now if I’m being honest. I'm thriving a bit more than at the restaurant, even though that was kind of nice too. At one point I was in London there was this "hello" girl at the entrance of the club where I was just there to say "hello."

COBRAH: Oh, okay!

CHLOE: Do you want to smile? I'm like, "No, I'll just say 'hello.'" "Well, what are you here for?" "Just to say hello and make it nice."

COBRAH: How long were you a "hello" girl?

CHLOE: Oh, that was really short. Not very long. Long enough.

COBRAH: Long enough [laughs].

CHLOE: Honestly, look, you arrive and I'm like, "Hi." You kind of wonder what's going on in this club, you're like "wow."

COBRAH: I'd be happy if you said hi to me at the club.

CHLOE: Did you work as anything else then?

COBRAH: Yes. I've done a lot, a lot of jobs. For one, I used to work at McDonald's. Or, like the Swedish version of McDonald's. That’s why I was mad when I got so much hate on Tiktok for my McDonald's video. People thought I was so disrespectful to the staff, but all I wanted to say was that I’ve fucking worked there! Do you get a lot of hate?

CHLOE: I used when I started to make music, I used to have a lot of hate because I was skinnier. I used to wear contact lenses that were all blue or whatever. And people were commenting on how I look, saying I look like a crackhead eating Xanax, while I was actually so sober. They were trying to say that it's not good to show someone like that, because I was so "unhealthy."

COBRAH: Oh, you're not being a good person or representative.

CHLOE: I'm just doing my shit, but it kind of triggered me at the time because I was just like, "Why don't you focus on the music? Why are you talking about how I look?"

COBRAH: Nowadays, I don't think about negative things. And I wasn’t used to seeing negative things said about me, but people at the beginning, especially when "Good Puss" was released, did not like me at all.

CHLOE: What were they saying? What was the main thing?

COBRAH: That I'm really fat, I'm just so fat. It's insane to them. I replied one time, one time! That was the only time I replied. On the McDonalds video someone wrote something like, "What could make you do this?" And I just answered, "Your mother." And the backlash was so bad! That was the only thing I said because I thought it was really funny. Right? It's funny. And the guy replied like, "I found out your address. I'm going to kill you and your parents."

CHLOE: I forgot that one time I got so much hate because I gave advice.

COBRAH: But you're not a representative, you're not a politician. You're an artist.

CHLOE: In general, I'm just like everybody else. I don't want to be the face of something. I don't feel like I represent anything. But there’s this pressure of feeling like you have to represent something when in reality, I started making music in my room and I expressed what I needed to express. And then eventually, some people found a home in their feelings through what I express and that's so special.

COBRAH: I think the artists that I really like are the ones that don’t put a filter through much of what they do. I think everyone puts a big ass filter on everything they do, especially if you're a commercial artist. But the ones I think that really break through are the ones that don’t do that.

CHLOE:One of my favorite artists who’s like that is Daniel Johnston. Do you know him? So basically Daniel Johnston is just like this guy. It's so raw and rough what he does. He used to record himself on the tape, just like playing piano or whatever. I think it's touching, he’s singing songs about this girl he has never been with and he did that his whole life. Talking about love. Or whatever, or wanting to, and I mean he’s just so raw and so honest.

I don't have idols or people I really look up to. I don't have people like that. I have good people that make me feel things. And sometimes it's just one song that makes me feel something. And sometimes it's their art and there is a sort of, I'm going to say change, that takes place after finding them. But there is also this thing where sometimes people have expectations about the music you're going to make. For example, you release a bunch of stuff and there is one track that's very different from the rest. And then people are going to want you to do more of this type of things. And sometimes I’m like, nope. It's one song.

COBRAH: There's a core that you have to stay close to as you progress. I think it's really easy to lose it too, to sit in too many meetings. You get in this mindset where you don't think of yourself as yourself. You think of yourself and your music from an outside perspective, right? Because that's how people talk about you and with you. It's not about you anymore. It's about everything around you. It's just weird.

Stream the "WIZZ" remix by COUCOU CHLOE and COBRAH, below.

Photos courtesy of Coucou Chloe/COBRAH

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