French synthpop trio Hyphen Hyphen loves finishing each other’s sentences. Like a symbiotic mind on pretty much all matters, vocalist-keyboardist Samanta “Santa” Cotta, guitarist Romain “Adam” Adamo and bassist Laura “Line” Christin hop around when talking about the band’s origins in school: calling themselves “misfits” to their music, often using the word “empathy” to describe the content of their songs and declaring their goal, which is to take over America.

“This is the main goal for us; to reach a new kind of audience, and to conquer hearts all over the world,” Cotta said in a video interview, flanked by her bandmates.

Formed in Nice, Hyphen Hyphen won the award for Best New Live Act at the Victoires de la Musique Awards in 2016. The band has released three albums, most recently January’s C’est la Vie, its first produced by an outside collaborator in hit songwriter Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, many others). Ballard, in turn, introduced them to Mike “Spike” Stent (Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Coldplay) and Dan Grech (Halsey, Lana Del Rey) opening up the trio’s world even further.

Their previous albums, including 2015’s Times and 2018’s HH were entirely self-produced, but it’s not like the band had zero musical background. Cotta’s mother, an American who moved to France, was a singer. Cotta’s gravelly, powerful voice recalls that of MS MR’s Liz Plapinger, while the band’s sound blends modern electronic-tinged dance-pop with the wistfulness of ‘70s Fleetwood Mac. The three also cite the band America and Supertramp, as well as newer acts like Franz Ferdinand, Half Moon Run, Lana Del Rey and Wolf Alice as influences.

They’ve been labeled a queer band and don’t shy away from the moniker.

“I think it’s more and more important … because silence can kill,” Cotta said. “We want to speak out and stand for our values more than ever. I think the LGBTQIA+ fans are a key to our success. The community is one of the safest places for us, and we try to create a safe place also for our fans, and even more for our teenage fans because it’s our way to lead now and not be ashamed. And it’s our way of life.”

She said that many of the songs on C’est la Vie have a “queer vibe,” with messages for listeners to let go of the things holding them back, such as shame.

“It’s like; the misfits we were, ashamed, in high school, take a huge revenge on life,” she said.

RIFF: Have you spent time in the U.S. before? What were your experiences?

Samanta “Santa” Cotta: Actually, the last experience was in New York in the middle of Central Park. So it was kind of another dream, like a huge achievement. We were like, “We made it.” We were in the middle of the park. We played with Glen Ballard because …

Romain “Adam” Adamo: He joined us on stage.

Cotta: We played our song we wrote together called “Don’t Wait For Me,” which is one of our biggest singles so far in France on this album. It was kind of a dreamy experience, like a trippy one because actually it rained, so it was kind of a bummer. People showed up, and it was a big party, though. The public went crazy, and by the end of the song were singing along with us, which is completely new for us. In France, half of the audience [thinks we’re singing] “blah, blah, blah.” But, they feel the emotion. That was new and exciting.

Laura “Line” Christin: But we have a special relationship with your country, actually, because all of our influences come from the U.S. That’s what brought us together. … It was a dream, since we were like 15 to come and play there. I’m so excited.

Cotta: Because we are best friends, and when we met in high school, when it was like a meeting of minds. Our main goal and our dream for the bunch of misfits who we were was to conquer the world.

Adamo: To create something together. We found out that music was the best way to take all this rage we had in us and to spread it to other people.

Cotta: This is why we started the band together. Years later, we are coming. Also, because my mother was American, and I used to come back and forth, so strong bonds.

You have some pretty big-name collaborators on the album with Glen Ballard, Spike Stent and Dan Grech. How were you introduced to them?

Cotta: Actually, when we met Glen, it was at the end of one of our shows in Paris at the arena. He was there backstage waiting for us because he had a huge crush, and he wanted to meet us. So we were, “Oh, my goodness! There is Glen Ballard backstage.” It went like a huge boom.

Christin: It was such a perfect match.

Adamo: Yeah, we fell in love, artistically. Two days later he invited us in his flat … and we started writing “Don’t Wait for Me.”

Cotta: It was at the beginning of a history.

Christin: He injected a really new energy in our project. It totally changed the way we wrote songs.

Cotta: Ever since, he acts like a mentor to us, and put a huge stamp on the project.

Christin: He helped us to connect with other people.

Adamo: He opened many other doors.

Cotta: Spike, for example; it’s the first mix he’d ever done for a French band. It was thanks to Glen because he opened new doors, and thanks to the music, because I think he helped us to push our boundaries further, and achieve another level of writing.

What were the stories you were trying to tell on the new album and the themes that carry over from one song to the next?

Christin: Empathy is at the heart of everything we do, so we try to craft very personal songs. That’s what we tried to achieve in this album. It’s very important to us to clarify the emotion at the heart of each song so everyone can understand it. I think it’s a base from the writing.

Adamo: This is really the core of our band.

Cotta: Like, “Stop apologizing for everything.” We are from the LGBT [community]. We are a queer band, and we stop apologizing for being here. We are standing for our values. We are stronger than ever, and we wanted to speak out.

Christin: And the world is such a mess right now. What we want to do is to connect people with their emotions, with their feelings, connect them to beauty. That’s our goal.

Cotta: There is always light somewhere; there’s always hope. One of our songs, “Too Young,” is about that. Yet, there is always a light, a path somewhere, and if we can help people to accept themselves, it’s already a success.

Most of your touring has been in your own country as well as Belgium. How have those audiences reacted to the anglophile songwriting and singing?

Christin: They don’t understand it directly.

Adamo: No, not directly.

Christin: [They read] the lyrics and then come back and see it sometimes.

Cotta: It’s not instantly. In New York, what we felt was some kind of a direct bond. It was direct from my voice to their hearts. … in Germany also. …

Adamo: We are in the middle of the tour in France, and it’s been like the best shows of our lives so far. The show is amazing. The energy we put into it is on another level.

Christin: On stage we are fierce and proud. This is our goal. We come from the stage; we learned to play as a band on stage. This is how we grew up.

Cotta: Literally, we grew up on stage.

Christin: We played everywhere—on boats, we played on the train to pay the tickets to go to a gig. …

Cotta: This is where I’m so excited to come [the U.S.], because I know when we perform, [there’s] something in the energy, in the electricity in the air. I think we can create a new relation with this country, and I’m really excited about that.

Was it a big change from producing HH by yourselves to having so many other people on board? Is that something you want to continue, or was it a one-time deal?

Cotta: No, it was the best time of our lives.

Christin: It kind of depends on the songs, I think, because there’s a lot of songs on the album that we just wrote the three of us, but we sent it to Glen.

Adamo: We asked what he thinks about it.

Cotta: He really helped us to precise our words to speak more directly.

Adamo: Like Santa said, he was like a mentor. He got in and gave us a new state of mind on how to create songs.

Cotta: Somehow it felt warm to open our hearts to new energy and to a new way of working with people.

Adamo: This was the really first time we included someone in our little clan.

Cotta: We love to play with different layers of emotions, and I think Glen, for the example, helped us to add some layers with his words, with his way of thinking. It was new to us, and hopefully, it won’t be the last one.

Santa, you come from a musical background. Your mom, an American, was a musician and artist in France. I’d love to know more about Line’s and Adam’s backgrounds, and what brought you together.

Christin: Well, my parents are not musicians, but they love music. There was always music in my house, so I was lucky. Seventies music, like Talking Heads, Supertramp, America. So I work with that. And then at 14, I’m like, “I’m going to play bass, all right?”

Cotta: Tell him the story of how you learned to play bass!

Christin: I had to learn bass without an amp because my parents were trying to see if I was really into it.

Cotta: You know, playing bass without an amp is…

Adamo: It’s awful!

Cotta: It’s the worst, and even the sound of it is like, “plunk, plunk, plunk.”

Christin: I was kind of a loner going up, and then I met these two in high school, and it really changed my life, because I recognized myself in them. And it was just a match. I realized I could be myself for the first time.

Cotta: She’s one of us.

Christin: It’s cheesy, but it’s true, and since then, we never let go of each other.

Adamo: We’ve got kind of the same musical background. The bands that Line was talking about; this is the same bands my parents were listening to. We know each other since we were little kids, since we have memories. Our parents already knew each other before, and they were friends.

Cotta: I met Line during recess.

Christin: But we had ambition already. When we started the band, we were like, “It’s serious.” We never did covers. We were like, “We need to conquer the world.”

Adamo: Since the first song.

Cotta: We never left each other since then. It’s been over a decade now since we’ve been sending shocks to the French music industry, and hopefully [soon] to yours.

And now you’re coming to San Francisco. [Editor’s note: The band canceled its planned summer 2023 U.S. tour].

Cotta: I’ve been there! [She pulls out a denim San Francisco baseball cap and places it on her head.] I spent some time with my mother over there, and we have friends over there, and it was like a massive shock for me. But it’s one of my favorite cities in the world. I know I’m gonna live there sometime. … Last time I went there, there was no fog, so I felt like kind of a lucky girl. The people said to me, “You cannot imagine how lucky you are, because this is unbelievable.”

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.