First of all, welcome back to our site!
Due to some technical issues it’s been a while since our last proper update, but within a week or two we should be back to normal! However, some things can’t wait that long. During our break we recently had a little chat with the fabulous threesome XELLE, who are about to release their second single Hologram this week. We first heard about the New Yorkish girl group back in july, when we fell in love with the amazingly fun video for their debut single Party Girl. At first we assumed this was just a cute one-off project, but once we discovered these girls were only just getting started we decided it was about time to find out a little more about Mimi Imfurst, JC Cassis and Rony Goffer…

Hello ladies. We’ve faithfully watched all the video diaries on your site, so we got the feeling we already know you a little bit, but for those who don’t: who are XELLE?
When people ask us who XELLE is, we like to jokingly quote the movie To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar and say “We are three young career girls from New York City.” We are a girl group with a twist. We are everything you love about pop music plus many things you’ve never seen before. We are taking over the world, one party at a time.

We’ve read your name stands for the ELLE (french for ‘she’) with something X-tra. But is it on purpose that it’s being pronounced as ‘excel’? Do you feel you excel at anything?
We love the name XELLE for our band because it encompasses so many different aspects of who we are. We’re a girl group with a drag queen, which works with the “x-elle” meaning. We love everything we do to be huge, including fashion, music, shows, etc, which works with the “XL” meaning, and we work hard to make everything we do amazing, which works with the “excel” meaning. Our name tells you everything you need to know about us…if you can pronounce it correctly.

What’s the thing each of you individually excels at?
In addition to singing and dancing, each of us excels at different things. JC is always quick with a joke and knows how to pick out incredible fashion pieces and wear them with the right amount of attitude. Rony is the best friend anyone could have and will kick the butt of anyone who tries to mess with you, and on stage she’s the biggest tease. Mimi has a bottomless imagination and is always coming up with amazing ideas about fashion, makeup and how to keep an audience begging for more.

XELLE was born during a karaoke night, where you sung the Spice Girls’ Wannabe together, which then inspired you to make your own girlgroup. What made you decide to work together?
Each of us has been a performer and artist since childhood. We’ve all done our fair share of almost every type of performance. We all did theater growing up, which is why our music and shows tend to be theatrical. Each XELLE girl loves creating art of all kinds and being on stage and screen, so when we formed XELLE, we knew it would be another exciting and fun way to express our creativity. We’ve had a blast so far, and we expect it to only get more fun as we go along.

Before the three of you decided to pair up all of you had your own projects going on. Is XELLE something you just do on the side for fun, are you still working on your own things until XELLE properly takes off, or is life all about the band now?
IDespite our eclectic past, we’ve come together to form XELLE, and this band is our focus. XELLE is not just about the music, it’s about the belief that no matter what your past might be, you can create any future you want.

If instead of forming your own band, you could join any existing girl group, past or present, which one would you choose?
There are so many awesome girl groups that we love, but the Spice Girls would probably be the best fit for our outrageous personalities and megapop music.

Well, let’s pretend you have indeed joined the Spice Girls, and you all get your own nicknames like Sporty Spice, Baby Spice, etc.. What would yours be?
Rony would be Sexy Spice, since she tends to have the most cleavage on stage at all times and loves to flirt with all our fans. JC would be Rebel Spice, since she does whatever she wants and always goes her own way. Mimi would be Fantasy Spice, since she’s so imaginative and can suspend an audience’s disbelief better than anyone.

Back to reality and XELLE: you entered the scene about a year ago with the release of your first single, Party Girl. Was that song about the three of you, or about party girls in general?
Party Girl is about the feeling you get when you tear up the town with your best friends and are the center of attention anywhere you go. It’s the perfect guilty pleasure pop song about having fun and being a bad girl having a great time.

Which one of you would you say is the biggest party girl?
We’re all party girls in our own way. Mimi gets wild on the road, blasting pop music from her convertible while driving in drag with the top down through the streets of New York City. She loves to cause a scene. JC is the one who will wear the least clothing to a party and then get up on the go-go dancer stage and work the pole with crazy energy. Rony’s parties tend to be a little more private, but she could tell you some unbelievable stories…

The great thing about living in New York is that if a night out is ever bad, it at least gives you a great story to tell. You’ll have to ask us about our wild nights in person, though, because the stories we could share are really not fit for print…

We’ll leave those questions for another time then!
But while on the matter of parties: if you could pick any (famous) person in the world to go partying with for a night, who would you take?
We’re all big Britney Spears fans, and we’d love to take her out for a wild night in New York City. We’re sure she’s been to some amazing events in her time, but we don’t think she’s ever thrown an impromptu party on the subway like we did in the Party Girl video!

That video was amazing and completely sold you to us.

(For their first video XELLE hijacked a subway train and turned it into a riding underground party.. we could try to describe it, but you should really check it yourself!)

The whole video was shot in one take, but we did gather that you did a few takes to get it right. Will we ever get to see the other ones?
We rehearsed so much for the Party Girl video that the other takes that we shot are very similar to the one that ended up being used, except that there was just a slight mistake or something that wasn’t captured quite as well as it was in the take we used, so there’s no real reason to release them to the public.

So despite being shot in one long take on a riding train there were no funny moments or blunders at all? That’s quite impressive.
Well, the funniest moment that happened during filming happened behind the camera, so it wasn’t caught on film. We were filming the first take of the video, and everyone in the cast and crew was so excited to watch what was happening that they all forgot to hold on to the poles in the subway car. We were dancing through the first chorus of the song, facing the rest of the cast and crew of the video, watching them smile excitedly at us, when all of a sudden, the train turned sharply and everyone just fell down on the floor like bowling pins. It almost ruined the take right there, because the three of us almost burst out laughing. We managed to continue the take, but in the end, it wasn’t the one we used.

Now the party in the music video was obviously carefully planned and directed, but do you ever dream about spontaneously bursting into song in a public place? (We know we do)
Of course we do! We’re singers, performers and musical theater lovers, so that would be a dream come true. The trouble is, it’s hard to make sure everyone around you knows the song you want to sing and will sing the backup parts for you.

Hijacking a train to throw a party was quite a way to kick off your carreer. Do you have any ideas how you’ll ever be able to top that?
We have an incredible idea for our next music video, which we can’t talk about just yet. We’re already working on it, and we should be bringing it out in the next few months. Buckle your seatbelts…we always top ourselves.

Are there perhaps still places left you’d like to take over with a XELLE party?
We look forward to one day performing at New Year’s Eve in Times Square, or maybe throwing a party on a plane, or on one of the double decker tourist buses in New York, or at the White House. There are a lot of places that are desperately in need of an XELLE party.

Now your own songs make quite great partystarters, but what would you say is the best party song ever?
Wow, it’s hard to think of which of the great party songs out there is the best, but we love any song that makes everyone jump on the dance floor as soon as the first beat drops. Some songs like that include “Show Me Love” by Robin S., “Mamma Mia” by ABBA, “Toxic” by Britney Spears, and the list goes on and on.

Some great choices there!
(You’ll be able to read more about XELLE’s favourite songs in another piece we’ll be posting next month.)

We were very glad when we found out Party Girl was only just the beginning of your carreer. When can people expect to hear more singles, or perhaps even a full album, from you?
The new single will be released this month (November) and the music video for it will be coming shortly thereafter. This music video is going to be incredible and we can’t wait for our fans to see it. The album (which will be called Queens) is halfway done and we’ll continue to record amazing songs for it until it’s a complete megapop masterpiece, ready for our fans’ deserving ears.

Will it be one big party album or will there also be other themes, and perhaps even some ballads?
We know that a great pop record has party-starting dance floor bangers as well as heartfelt, emotional ballads, so we’ll be including both on our album. Themes will run the gamut from songs about partying, seduction and pickup lines to songs about empowerment, loneliness and breakups. We’ll make sure our album has it all.

We know JC recorded an album of selfpenned songs before, did you write any of the songs on the XELLE album?
Actually, everyone in XELLE is an experienced songwriter. JC and Rony have both written music for themselves and other artists, Mimi is a master of sassy lyrics, and our producer, Zach Adam, has a long track record of successful songwriting in Israel, Europe and the US. The four of us wrote our song Queen all together, and we will be doing much more of that in the future.

Speaking of the future, where do you hope XELLE will be this time next year? Will you have had a tour, international releases, a Greatest Hits, a split?
Haha, there would never be a split! Like we said, we are all so excited about this project and we know it’s going to take over the world. We are currently touring and will continue to do so for a long time. We still have a lot of places to go in the USA, and we can’t wait to get over to Europe and South America as well. With digital distribution, every release we do is international. This time next year, we’ll have a few more amazing videos out, tons of international press coverage, a big tour lined up, possibly some TV projects on the air, and lots more!

We can’t wait. Thank you very much ladies!

Xelle’s new single Hologram will be on iTunes very soon. Their debut album Queens will follow swiftly in 2012.

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