Gojira is a French heavy metal band from Ondres. Founded as Godzilla in 1996, the band's lineup—brothers Joe (vocals, guitar) and Mario Duplantier (drums), Christian Andreu (guitar), and Jean-Michel Labadie (bass)—has been the same since the band changed its name to Gojira in 2001. Gojira has been known for its progressive and technical death metal styles and lyrics that often feature themes of spirituality, philosophy, and environmentalism. The band has gone "from the utmost obscurity during the first half of their career to widespread global recognition in the second".
Gojira's first two albums, Terra Incognita (2001) and The Link (2003), and powerful live performances established its reputation as a leading French metal band. Maciste All'Inferno was a silent film score composed and performed for a one-night show in Bordeaux. Its third album, the critically acclaimed From Mars to Sirius (2005) with "Backbone", "The Heaviest Matter of the Universe", and "Flying Whales", was covered in the British metal press. The band then signed with Prosthetic Records, which gave it visibility in North America. The follow-up album, The Way of All Flesh (2008), charted on the Billboard 200, and Gojira later launched its first overseas headlining tour.
The band began recording the Sea Shepherd EP in a collaborative framework involving several metal musicians. In 2011, Gojira signed with Roadrunner Records. The band released L'Enfant Sauvage (2012) and Magma (2016), which peaked at numbers 34 and 24, respectively, on the Billboard 200 and were certified gold in France. Gojira shelved death metal in favor of a more straightforward style on Magma, the band's breakthrough album. In 2020, it released its first single, "Another World". The chart-topping Fortitude (2021) was the best-selling album in the US during its first week. In 2022, Gojira attained arena headliner status in Europe, the UK, and South America. With a DIY approach, the band produces its albums at its own recording studios in France and New York City.
Gojira has released seven studio albums and three live DVDs, and is the first French band to top the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart. The band has received Grammy nominations for Best Rock Album for Magma and Best Metal Performance for the singles "Silvera", "Amazonia", and "Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)". Throughout its career, the band has been involved in environmental, human rights, and animal rights activism.
Gojira also became the first heavy metal band to perform at an Olympics opening ceremony during the 2024 Summer Olympics in France.
History Background and formation (1993–1996) At the age of seventeen, while in high school, vocalist and guitarist Joe Duplantier formed his first band called Eclipse after discovering heavy metal three years earlier. His brother, Mario, started a band at the age of twelve and had already demonstrated his capabilities as a drummer. Over time, the two brothers embarked on jam sessions after school.
Joe and Mario Duplantier, aged nineteen and fourteen respectively in 1996, decided to start a technical death metal band emphasizing melodies and recruited nineteen-year-old guitarist Christian Andreu. According to Mario, Andreu was "a passionate [fan], like we, of Metallica". They began practicing with guitars and drums in the Duplantiers' garage (where the group had set up a studio) in their hometown of Ondres in southern Landes, on the outskirts of Bayonne. The band soon recruited bassist Alexandre Cornillon, a friend of Andreu from Hossegor. Joe Duplantier said, "We wanted to go fast and strong. We had no plan, no pressure ... We didn't even have a [band] name".
Early years and Terra Incognita (1996–2002)
In 1996, the band settled on the name Godzilla. The idea sprang from the original 1954 kaiju film Godzilla and "the myth of the big furious atomic lizard ... It was, in our heads, a symbol of devastating power". The band first performed in Bayonne bars (four months after its formation), selling cassettes at shows and to their friends. Playing straight-ahead death metal with elements of thrash metal, Godzilla self-released a pair of demo albums (Victim in 1996 and Possessed in 1997), and toured southwest France.
Cornillon left the band in 1998 and was replaced by Jean-Michel Labadie, a "young bass player very active on the Basque scene", according to author Marie-Hélène Soenen. Godzilla won the tremplin Ultrasons (Ultrasound Springboard, a regional festival for emerging artists) in early 1999. The band toured regularly, serving as the opening act for Cannibal Corpse, Edge of Sanity, and Impaled Nazarene. In September 1999, the band supported Immortal during a ten-date tour in France that ended in Lille. While touring with Immortal, Godzilla received national exposure, developing a reputation on the French metal scene for their "incendiary riffs". The band recorded Saturate, their third demo album, which was released in the Fall of 1999.
The band released Wisdom Comes, their fourth demo album, in 2000. Godzilla then began writing what they intended as their first full-length album, a project planned since 1996. According to Joe Duplantier, Mike Oldfield inspired his songwriting.
In 2001, Godzilla was legally compelled to change its name. They became "Gojira" , the rōmaji spelling for the original Japanese name for Godzilla. Inspired by the production quality of an album by Watcha, a Parisian metal band, Gojira moved to the same Brussels studio to record their debut album, Terra Incognita. Before entering the recording studio, they asked friends and family for donations. Although Joe Duplantier said that Gojira took a long time to write the album, it was recorded in ten days.
After finishing recording and mixing by Stephan Kraemer at Impuls Studios, Gojira had no label, record company, or management. Joe Duplantier said that after the tour with Immortal, Gojira became "a real war machine". However, Soenen wrote that record labels called them "too ambitious" for their style of music. Labels advised them to abandon death metal and sing in French; "The door was clearly closed", said Joe Duplantier. The band realized that their way out was to consider an independent infrastructure; they established Gabriel Editions (their own label) as a limited-liability company. Andreu said that they could now "manage the band's activities, financing everything ourselves".
Gojira released their debut studio album, Terra Incognita, on Gabriel Editions in March 2001. The album "made significant waves", according to John D. Buchanan of AllMusic. Do-it-yourselfers, the band had a shipment of 1,500 albums delivered to the Duplantiers' parents' kitchen and persuaded a small store in Bayonne to sell them. Gojira then signed a contract with Sphere Management, and Richard Gamba became their manager. The band went on a nationwide tour to promote Terra Incognita, sharing the stage with French death–thrash metal crossover acts such as Scarve, Hertz and Silence, Nihil, and No Flag. Gojira later signed with the independent Boycott Records–Next Music for national distribution.
The band acquired what became Le Studio des Milans (Red Kites' Studio), a recording studio and rehearsal space in the Landes forest, in November 2002. The studio was originally a derelict barn, which Gojira rebuilt over a two-year period between tours and recording. On their investment, Joe Duplantier said that "The budget is important for this [second] record, but for the next one, it will be minimal", and further noted that they could "henceforth produce" their music "from A to Z".
The Link and From Mars to Sirius (2003–2007)
Writing The Link, Gojira's second studio album, took a year. Mario Duplantier said about his approach to the album that "it was a period during which I wanted to play fast: I was starting to master the grind parts and the double bass pedal properly". Newly purchased equipment had not been delivered to Le Studio des Milans, and the scheduled recording start date for the album had passed; it was hastily self-produced and recorded with Laurentx Etchemendy, the band's live engineer. The songs were conceived without delay on the vocals or reverb; Joe Duplantier called it "all very raw and very honest". In April 2003, Gojira released The Link; 2,500 copies were shipped to French stores with the same self-distribution as Terra Incognita. The Link was well received. In June, Gojira played at the Furyfest (an earlier version of Hellfest Summer Open Air) as part of a lineup of hardcore bands. Renowned for their live performances, Gojira was developing a fan base through a 40-concert nationwide tour. The band also performed beyond metropolitan France, including Belgium, Switzerland, and Bilbao.
In March 2004, the band played with Loudblast, No Return, Scarve, the Old Dead Tree and Garwall at La Locomotive in Montmartre. A reviewer described this Gojira concert as "timed, with millimeter precision, of a phenomenal power ... With a gigantic sound! ... the Landais cataclysm has just struck at La Locomotive". Gojira continued to promote the album and toured with the Swiss grindcore band Nostromo. Joe Duplantier (alongside singers of Loudblast and Scarve) appeared on the 2004 April issue of Rock Hard, which marked Gojira's first-ever magazine cover. The band released The Link Alive, a concert DVD from The Link tour, in April 2004. The DVD was filmed by a team of seventeen cameramen during a sold-out 2003 show for an audience of 800 in Bordeaux. The Link Alive, self-produced and self-distributed, was marketed without a major distributor and was followed by a 500-copy album version. In late May 2004, the organizers of the concert venue Le Florida in Agen invited Gojira and Yat-Kha for a three-show one-night stand of metal and ethno-rock music. Both bands played separately (Gojira toning down their performance) before playing together. In July 2004, Terra Incognita and The Link had sold 7,000 and 8,000 copies respectively. The Link era ended after a successful tour of almost two years, with significant financial difficulties. Gojira signed with the Mon Slip label (which gave them a higher financial advance), followed by a contract with French-based Listenable Records in December 2004.
The band entered Le Studio des Milans to compose their third album, From Mars to Sirius, focusing on an "irreproachable sound". "Gojira wants to control all stages of creation, from composition to mixing", said Labadie. For the album's themes, Joe Duplantier was influenced by the possibility of other worlds and dimensions. He devoted his time to reading The Celestine Prophecy and books by Baird T. Spalding and other spiritual seekers. Writing the album took seven months, reinforced by Labadie and Andreu. The band performed "Backbone" and "The Heaviest Matter of the Universe" from their forthcoming album at the twenty-ninth Printemps de Bourges in April 2005. Gojira released From Mars to Sirius, their self-produced album, in September of that year; it received positive reviews from French music critics. Pascal Bagot of RFI wrote that "the public and critical acclaim is phenomenal". Fifteen thousand albums were shipped to French stores. Entering the Top Albums chart in France at No. 44, it remained on the chart for three weeks. After the album's release, Gojira toured France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. That year, Listenable Records re-released The Link.