Together, Jean Divorce and Demi Lune have created a heater of a track about how stupid the Olympics are. Why do they exist? Is it just for a country’s point of nationalistic pride? A tactic to distract the greater populace while the world burns? All of the above? Backed by a motorik punk rock chord progression, DVTR amplify their satirical take on the Olympics with a wacky music video featuring the duo dressed as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer and “Miss Canada.” The video is hilarious, sometimes feeling like something you’d watch before taking off with Air Canada – only it’s more of a fever dream. 

This divisive song is sure to get a response on social media, and that’s completely DVTR’s point. We caught up with Divorce and Lune to talk with the punk rock champions about the new track, the Olympics as a social construct, and swimming in Paris’s poo-filled Seine River. 

What inspired you to make a punk rock song about not caring about the Olympics? 

JD: We had the chance to play Paris and some cities in France recently and we saw how much trouble people over there are going through because of this supercool elite sports festival. Paris might be the worst possible place in the world to hold the Olympics, on all technical levels, seriously. Nobody there gives a shit, they’re all leaving, and those who can’t are probably preparing for riots. We mean, building everything from scratch every two years and leaving all the installations and shit to rust, like at Lake Placid or Sochi, or any other place… we ain’t saying they should stop the Olympics, but they could just pick a spot and build a frickin’ douchey and awesome over-the-top Olympian village-stadium-city of the future somewhere and stick to it for a couple of decades, couldn’t they? At the bottom of Mount Olympus maybe, wink wink? In the actual economic, political and ecological situation, we feel like it’s a bit stupid to focus on this right now. 

DL: I don’t like sports, I don’t like competitions, and I don’t like the Olympics.

Was the song kind of to get a rise out of people, like the song against the milk industry?

JD: Well, the song about milk ain’t recorded yet. But at least everybody knows that the Canadian milk industry is a scam put up by farm lobbies, so that was an easy target. But the Olympics, a lot of people enjoy it. Some people on TikTok might freak out about the new song. Should be great!

DL: Milk is for white people.

Why do you think so many people do care about the Olympics?

JD: Bread and games! Classic answer: like most entertainment stuff, it might be for forgetting about how much shit we’re going through in the world. But personally I’m usually OK just going out to the dive bar to “forget.” Not asking a whole country’s population to spit four billion euros and put their lives on hold for three months.

DL: It feels like a pretext to gather around some patriotic pride. Come out to see shows au lieu de checker des Apollons à la télévision.

Did you read about people wanting to swim in the Seine during the Olympics? Hilarious.

JD: Yeah, was it Macron who wanted to swim in it to prove it was clean, and then there was a movement of people who wanted to go shit in the Seine just before that? To have their president swim in shit? A bit vulgar if you ask us, but it shows how much people are fed up with all these Olympic preparations, in an already overcrowded city that absolutely does not need more tourists, right?

I love the new video, the mockery of Canadian pride with the RCMP and Miss Canada costumes. Who had that idea? 

JD: Well, we did, we also aren’t overthinking too much, you know? The idea there was more about looking like we’re the official representatives of the fine country of Canada, bearing this very simple message to the rest of the world: “We don’t care about the Olympics.” We also got a bit inspired by those super-patriotic and cheesy videos during the security brief, you know, at the beginning of a flight with Air Canada?

DL: I just want to wear my nice purple dress.

Has the songwriting process changed, or is it still about getting drunk and writing songs quickly early in the morning?

JD: Right now I gotta admit we don’t have that much time to write songs with all the summer festivals, meetings, videos, and all the action. But we just might take it up a notch for the next sessions, try to work with some outside collaborators, mess up with things a bit and get out of that “DIY demo” era maybe. Put a mic in our stomach, get an orchestra, or a kids choir. Dewey Cox stuff. By the way if Zach from Crack Cloud is reading this, please call us.

DL: We only do good stuff when under the influence of something though.

In this day and age of streaming and TikTok, it must be weird to be a band with an online presence. Can you speak to that? 

JD: We kinda love it though. Back in the days you had to go on the road to do corporate radio shows and signature sessions and whatnot – now you can just sit on your ass at home and speak directly to the people. We’re not technically any good on social media actually, we just have fun and don’t care that much about how it comes out.

What is next for DVTR?

JD: We’re releasing vinyl for our extended EP, BONJOUR (BIS), and putting on our biggest show ever at Les Foufounes Électriques in Montreal in December. And we’re having this pretty crazy tour in the fall, going to South Korea, Japan, Germany, and more. I can’t understand much about what they like about our low-key francophone duo though.

DL: Citizens of the world, we are.