He had ten days left in Paris, so fittingly we got an interview with Jeremie Khlat, DJ at Le Montana. He’s moving to New York, but he’ll be back in town for Fashion Week and Cannes, at least.  He’s best friends and sound design partners with Adrien Wend, loves tequila (“I’m drinking patron every night,”) and let’s just say we’re not the first to call him a playboy. Who better to give our readers some love advice?

I met him at his St. Germain apartment, where he was still in his pyjamas at 2 in the afternoon. He ate eggs and smoked cigarettes; we drank champagne.

So first tell me a little bit about what you do.

So I’m a DJ. Mostly I’m DJing right now, like every night, kind of, and traveling a lot. But I used to be an art director, like Adrien. I ran ChaCha at the beginning, for the first two years before it was sold. And then I’m also a journalist; I work at Jalouse magazine, I’m still writing for L’Officiel. For them, party stuff, fashion stuff once in awhile. But mostly now I’ve begun a career in sound design, for shops and stuff, plus fashion shows. And DJing, DJing a lot! Clubs, after parties, in Paris, and a lot in New York, and that’s why I’m moving, because it’s working super well in New York. I need a change, and I’m trying different places.

And you’re at Le Montana full time now. 

So the thing is that when I stopped ChaCha I was searching for another place, kind of cool, and I was friends with people from Montana, so I took over Montana. I began as a DJ a few nights a week, but then it became more intense, so I became the music director, like booking DJs and sometimes parties, especially for fashion week. Mostly I’m doing three or four nights a week.

What’s the best pickup line you’ve heard in a club?

I’m using a sentence which is kind of cool, it’s funny. I really like this movie Cocktail; it’s this old one with Tom Cruise, from the 80s. It’s kind of cliché, the guy has just arrived in town, he wants to be a bartender, he becomes a bartender, he wants to open a club. He becomes kind of hype and everything. He moves to Jamaica to make money, and there’s this scene in Jamaica, the girl that he loves comes back. In like probably two years, they haven’t seen each other. The girl’s sitting at the bar, it’s like beachy and sunny and everything. The girl’s saying like, “Hey.” The bartender’s saying, “What do you want to drink?” She’s saying, “A beer,” and he’s saying like, “My kind of woman.” But the thing is in French, the translation is “Une femme selon mon coeur,” and it’s kind of funny, so when a girl is like, “I want a beer,” I’m like, “Mm, femme selon mon coeur.” It’s kind of funny and the girls are all like, “Mm, love him.”

Worst would totally be, “You’re beautiful. Want to have a drink?” Shit like that, like everybody’s saying.

Do you flirt at work, or do you think it’s distracting?

No, actually it’s part of the job. When you are director, you have to flirt, every time. But it’s not like flirt sexual stuff, it’s seduction. You need people to love you, to think you have something. When you’re a DJ it’s different because you’re mostly busy, every minute, doing something, touching buttons, so you don’t really have time. But at the same time, when you DJ, there is all those girls who are watching for you and thinking, “Oh, he’s cute, oh he’s cool, blah blah.” So you don’t even have to do anything. They’re coming. They’re trying to find a pretext to talk to you, a song, whatever, a friend in common, to just be around and hang in the booth. It’s kind of funny. But yeah yeah yeah, I’m flirting a lot. I mean when I’m single, obviously it’s night life you have beautiful girls, so yeah yeah, it’s like smiling, touching, dancing, whatever.

So what’s the best pickup line a girl has used on you?

Every night, a girl has come and said to me like, “You’re cute, but you know that.” Shit like that. That happened last week. And I’m like playing the naive one, like “No, I don’t know.”

They always like to say like, “Oh, I saw you last week at this party” and I’m like, “I wasn’t there.” You have to know that about me, I’m super bitchy. I’m not really cool. Because I’m seeing so many people and they try to like talk to you and be around you. It’s funny though–fashion people fascinate all the others, like actors or whatever. They’re looking at you in a different way. You’re just normal people, you hang out you work, you have fun, but they think you’re different. It’s boring. At some point you have to put a limit, because if not there’s a hundred people coming to talk to you every night, and you’re just tired of talking, that’s all. So you become kind of bitchy, to put this barrier. At some point people said I was like pretentious and everything, but you have to do that.

I don’t know, last weekend a girl came and she was in the booth and she was a model and she was kind of cheesy, like hang out at VIP room and all the stuff, you know, so I’d never seen her. She came and talked to me and asked for a song and I was like, “Nah, I don’t have that.” And she was like, “Yeah, but still can I talk to you?” And I said, “Yeah, sure.” And so she came in the booth and she sat and she like kept asking questions, and I was DJing and so busy and not being able to really talk, you know. And she said to me, well it’s cool to meet you and I’m like “Yeah, I haven’t seen you at Montana, it’s weird.” And she was like, “yeah, this is the first time.” So I’m like, “Well, cool. Also I’m moving to New York so this is probably the first and the last time,” and she’s like, “When are you moving to New York?” I said, “I’m moving in two weeks.” And she’s like, “No, it’s not going to be the last time I’m going to come every night.” So that’s a funny thing.

Yeah, that’s cute. 

We’ll see tonight, though.

I mean, they’re not really good at that, girls. I think we’re better, boys. We grew up that way [having to flirt], so we needed to know. Girls, they just come with the heart and the smile and the, “I like you.” And you’re like, “Cool.”

Right, they don’t play the game as much. 

Nah, not really.

So what’s your favorite thing to see on the dancefloor? Is there a certain sexy way a girl could dance?

I really love the New York style, like how a girl wears clothes, and how a girl dances. It’s less girly, it’s more crazy, gay, punk dancey stuff. I used to say I met a girl once and I fell in love with her actually because she wasn’t dancing in the beat. It was the opposite. She wasn’t in the beat, and it was so cute. [At this point he puts his arms up to imitate her]. So yeah, I love to see girls dancing, and how they move like crazy, punk, underground stuff. I don’t like girls dancing bitchy; I hate that.

Wait so dancing bitchy is like what, like hips? All the hips?

It’s horrible! It’s unattractive, it’s unsexual, it’s vulgar, and I hate vulgar.

I’m trying to think though, what does that entail? Like getting down on the ground kind of thing?

Yeah, like [Jeremie stands up and sticks his ass out] ass, like trying to be sexy. I think we like more–like with this generation of hipsters–we love people dancing with rock and roll. It’s more aggressive, it’s more telling a story, living the song. They’re not trying to impress, they’re just happy about the song. Even if they don’t really know how to dance, it’s cool. It’s just like, moves. Moves are always better than trying to make a dance. Moves are the best.

I remember not during this fashion week, probably the September one, I met two girls, two Italian girls, they’re doing fashion, launching some magazine. I don’t know which one, they were hosting a party at Maxim’s a few days after and so they’re coming to Montana. And I’m like, “Damn, it’s been a long time since I’ve met people like you.” Two girls–I thought they were straight but they weren’t–dancing together but in a punk way. So into it, like on Joy Division stuff, like on drugs, like in a fucking other galaxy. And I was like damn, this is so amazing just looking at you. I’m just happy, my night is done now.

Sometimes you meet some people that have an aura, something different that lives in themselves. And it’s really cool. Sometimes I meet people [who’re] kind of crazy. Drugs help, I’m sure.

Okay, so you think American girls are better dancers than French girls? 

Uh, you can’t say that because in America they’re all slut dancing, but cool American girls coming to Paris are better, yeah.

Is song requesting ever a good thing?

This is the nightmare of DJs. The joke about that is like at Montana, we wrote a paper where it’s written, “No Requests. I’m not a jukebox.” And everybody sees it and now when people come ask I’m just showing the paper and I’m not even talking. So yeah, it’s a nightmare because it’s always bad songs, it’s always like, “You have to play for the clients!” You don’t. You’re the boss. They don’t understand that. It’s inappropriate, it’s annoying. They don’t understand also that sometimes I’m trying to explain: “You come, but you know a hundred people come. What if two hundred people come, every night, asking for a song? I’m playing what I want!” Still, sometimes when people are cool you can talk about music stuff and play something they’ll like if you like it, and if it’s cool if it fits the atmosphere or the moment of the night.

Right now, if a girl were to a request a song, what would you be happy about?

Actually I have a super amazing joke about that. We were at a Purple party, I’m DJing with Adrien during this fashion week. Party is amazing: best people, crowd, dancing a lot. And at the end of the night, it’s less crowded, and there is this amazing girl. She’s a model, she’s French, she’s dancing. And she’s that beautiful that we keep looking at her for like 20 minutes and we’re like “Who’s this girl, we need to talk to her.” And right after we said that, the girl is coming to us: “Hey, do you have like deep minimal house?” And we’re like “Okay whatever go, go away now.” And so it was the thing. Like sometimes when girls are cute but they’re asking you shit songs, you don’t like them anymore.

But, what about they come and they ask you the best song ever? You’re like, oh my god she’s cute plus she’s probably cool. So the cool things are mostly rock and roll, indie stuff. The girl who comes and asks me for New Order? I’m like come come come. Come here and give me your number.

I don’t know, like rock and roll stuff. It proves you’re simple, you’re cool, you have this way of thinking. And I’m really happy when girls ask for indie because it’s not really dancing music and people listen less to indie music here in France than they do in New York. And it proves also that we have kind of the same taste. So yeah, indie music is cool. I kind of love disco, like super happy mood. So I’m DJing a lot of disco. And also I love when people ask me for old hip hop, like 90s, 2000s stuff.

What’s the hottest thing a girl can wear in the club? What clothes do you like to see?

I said that to a girl, a week ago too. She was flirting with me, and asking me that: “What turns you on the most?” My answer could have been really sexual, but actually I said to her, I love a girl in pants, with a white [tank top], without a bra, dancing. And I’m just like, that’s fucking beautiful.

So yeah, simple. I really love girls wearing man’s stuff, or being kind of manly. My ex-girlfriend was super hot, tall blonde, cool girl, but she was wearing pants and a t-shirt going out. And that’s the cool thing, like you’re grunge, you don’t give a shit. I love like girls without big boobs or whatever, like manly like Lou Douillon. Like, you know, those girls just wearing a perfecto and it’s fun. But still, like an amazing dress on a  girl can be amazing and super sexy, there is no rules.

Do you think it’s possible to find love in the club?

We have this discussion often with friends of nightlife because we’re like, we’re meeting a lot of girls–we have an amazing job for that–but at the same time, could we meet the right one because this is nightclubs? And even if she’s here, she’s not going to be in this mood. She’s here for having fun, she’s here for like a make-out, getting drunk, meeting people. I would say two answers: obviously not, because you don’t even think she’s cool if she’s coming to hang out that much. But at the same time, what about this girl, she’s working that day, she’s never going out. And there’s this dinner thing, and then after she goes to a bar, and then after she doesn’t want to go to sleep, and at 1 am she’s saying, “Whatever, let’s just go to a club and dance!” And this is this night. You never saw her, you meet her. She never goes out, but tonight she’s here, and she’s cool.

I met my other girlfriends a lot in nightlife because we were in the same world of fashion and nightlife, and DJing, too. You meet people because they’re doing the same thing as you, they hang with the same crowd and everything. I don’t know if I’m going to find the girl of my dreams in a club. But the thing is, I’m not working in an office. I’m not having lunch every 12 am day. I’m in clubs every night, so this is my territory, this is my job. So I hope cool girls will come in clubs too. And there are cool people coming in clubs, but there are also girls you never see because you spend your life in clubs, and you miss all the others. You can’t have everything.

article: Ella Riley-Adams