Four rockers and a deadline

FOR its first two albums, the Paris-based band Phoenix meticulously fine-tuned each track to create its ultra-stylized brand of fizzy but soulful disco-pop. “We took two years to record ‘Alphabetical,’ ” vocalist Thomas Mars says from a tour stop in Mexico City. “There was something very neurotic about it. I know that record perfectly.”

On its third album, “It’s Never Been Like That” (released in May), Phoenix decided to try a completely different approach. The band members showed up at Planet Roc studios in eastern Berlin late last year with nary a note written, nary a lyric committed to paper. “We lied to our record company [Virgin] and told them we had songs,” says Mars. “It was a real gamble ... but we wanted to change the way we recorded an album.” The band set a goal: Create a record in three months, start to finish.

It wasn’t a pretty process. Everyone in the band got sick with colds, and, as Mars says in his occasionally quirky English, “it was a bad experience in terms of sanity.” But “It’s Never Been Like That” doesn’t betray a hint of trauma. Instead, it’s a collection of blithe and straight-ahead guitar pop. Absent are the meticulous arrangements of “Alphabetical,” the sonic soundscaping of the band’s debut, “United.” The new album finds Mars singing with effortless abandon; brothers Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai intertwine ringing but forceful guitars.

How does a band go from taking two years to three months to create an album? Well, a solid history helps. The four, all around 30, grew up together in Versailles and now live in the same building in the polished arts district of St. Germain. Bassist Deck D’Arcy and Mars first played together when they were 10 years old. “We sounded crazy but loud enough to destroy my stereo,” Mars says with a laugh.

In the studio, the band relies on an almost telepathic bond. “There are a lot of things that are not said that just happen,” Mars explains. “Every time we try to bring someone else in the recording process, it’s always a nightmare. It’s like the U.N. translation problem or something. Suddenly we need to explain things that we never explain.”

For “It’s Never Been Like That,” Phoenix wanted to capture a rough and unstructured sound. “These are the first takes,” Mars says, “so there are mistakes and imperfections, but we thought it was telling more about us than something perfect. For this record, we wanted to do something that represented us in the moment, like a Polaroid.”

Being Phoenix, “It’s Never Been Like That” still sounds like well-curated pop with sharp melodies that betray the Frenchmen’s love for all genres of music. Glossy synth flavors “Long Distance Call,” and “One Time Too Many” has a jazzy new wave punch, something Spoon might create if it were listening to a lot more Steely Dan. An American casualness breezes through everything, including the playful title and conversational lines such as “long time no see, long time no say.”

Phoenix’s videos are as playful as its music, many of which it made with filmmaker Roman Coppola. For “Long Distance Call,” Coppola paid homage to the 1968 French cop movie “Le Pacha.” In the video, Phoenix’s song is completely interrupted by a scene in which a detective enters the studio, asks the engineer a question and jots down some information. Then the song resumes.

For Coppola, the video is all about context. “It’s like a scene from a movie that you want to know more about,” he says. “The whole goal was to create an intriguing, charged situation that looked a little dangerous but not too far.”

Of course, Coppola’s relationship with Phoenix, a band he says he connects with musically more than any other, goes beyond a working one. Mars and Roman’s sister Sofia Coppola are expecting a baby, something Mars politely declines to discuss. Phoenix also appears in Sofia Coppola’s upcoming film “Marie Antoinette,” decked out in 18th century garb.

It’s not the first time Phoenix’s music has been used for the screen; it also had songs featured in HBO’s “Six Feet Under” and in the films “Fever Pitch” and “Lost in Translation.” Mars feels squeamish when hearing his work -- “it’s like kissing yourself; it’s just totally wrong” -- but also finds it exciting to be part of something bigger: “When you do a record, you have this very small moment where it’s just yours and you share it with the band. Then it ends up in the best places, as well as supermarkets and such. That’s the beauty of it.”

margaret.wappler@latimes.com

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Phoenix

Where: Wiltern LG, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

When: 8 tonight

Price: $25

Info: (213) 380-5005