GOJIRA's MARIO DUPLANTIER On Band's Growing Popularity: 'We Just Keep Our Heads Down And Keep Working'

In a new interview with Ireland's Overdrive, drummer Mario Duplantier of French progressive metallers GOJIRA reflected on the band's growing popularity, with each album bringing him and his bandmates closes to their goal of eventually headlining arenas around the world.

"We can see how our popularity has really begun to grow, especially in the last five years," he said. "But also, people have to remember we've been a band for the last 25 years, so it's not like some bands who get huge exposure from their first album in some other genres. We are all 40 years old now and we understand the world a lot more than we did when we started out back all those years ago.

"We know we're not Michael Jackson or METALLICA," he continued. "You're talking about millions of albums sales there, and METALLICA, they sell out stadiums. We know it was a very different industry back then, but we have learned a lot on our journey and we're still learning. We have played so many little clubs and then slightly bigger venues over the years. It's taken a lot of hard work, and we're still not done.

"Our success to date is not a huge surprise, but we've learned to take distance from it but also it's justifiably as we've been working so hard playing all over the world in venues small, medium and then slightly bigger. We just keep our heads down and keep working."

Duplantier also talked about the challenges of being an artist in the digital age, at a time when technology and social media are so prevalent. He said: "I can see how it's very tough these days. If you have a talent it's easy to be lost in the massive amount of noise that is on social media these days.

"It's all very unbalanced these days. There is a lot of injustice, with loads of amazing bands that never get their music heard, and then, on the other hand, there are bands with not so much great talent, or they just sound like so many other bands, and for some reason they have a big following on their social media.

"We started out when there was no social media and we did things the old-school way. We were judged on the quality of our shows and our records, et cetera. Today it's all so different. People are judging other bands within seconds of a video or an album being released, and it's just not right."

Read the entire interview at Overdrive.

GOJIRA's new album, "Fortitude", will be released on April 30 via Roadrunner Records. The disc was recorded and produced by guitarist/vocalist Joseph Duplantier at Silver Cord Studio — GOJIRA's Ridgewood, Queens, headquarters — and mixed by Andy Wallace (NIRVANA, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE).

The band initially laid the foundation for "Fortitude" last year with the surprise release of the 2020 single "Another World".

GOJIRA's widely anticipated tour dates supporting DEFTONES have been rescheduled for 2021.

Photo credit: Gabrielle Duplantier