“Her type of voice could work surprisingly well with our music”: Celeste (the black metal band) want to make a song with Celeste (the soul singer)

The metal band Celeste and the soul singer Celeste — (Image credit: Jonathan Bouillaux | Jo Hale/Redferns)

It should be pretty hard to confuse a metal band with a soul singer. However, when both of those things have the exact same name, those waters get much, much murkier.

Last week, it was reported that fans of the soul/jazz musician Celeste had mistakenly shown up at the show of some experimental black metal aggressors, also called Celeste. The story made national headlines and everyone had a bit of a laugh at the poor, duped fans, who travelled about 100 miles to get unexpectedly brutalised with riffs.

However, perhaps these two seemingly disparate artists have more in common than anyone’s given them credit for? So, we reached out to Celeste (the metal one) to see if they had a favourite song by Celeste (the soul one). Surprisingly, they did. And this is what they said.

“After diving into her discography a bit, I’d pick A Kiss as my favourite,” came the reply from vocalist/bassist Johan Girardeau. “It’s probably one of the saddest tracks she has, and that fits pretty well with the vibe we go for with Celeste. There’s this beautiful melancholy in it that resonates, even if our music styles are worlds apart.”

Girardeau continues, going so far as to call for a collaboration between the two identically named artists. “Actually, her type of voice could work surprisingly well with our music in a feature – maybe that’s the perfect way to wrap up this whole mix-up and give fans what they deserve!”

Until that “Celeste feat. Celeste” crossover rocks up, the band have a new EP, last year’s Epilogue(s), for you to wrap your ears around. Meanwhile, the singer recently put out a new song called This Is Who I Am, the title theme of Sky TV series The Day Of The Jackal. Her sole album, Not Your Muse, came out in 2021 and a recent press release said she is currently “prepar[ing] to tell the next chapter of her story”. So watch this space.

YouTube

Watch On

TOPICS

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.