L.E.J., short for Lucie, Élisa and Juliette, sometimes Elijay, is a French band composed of three women from Saint-Denis, a city in Paris’ suburbs. All three members were born in 1993: They are childhood friends and have known each other since they were toddlers. Their passion has always been music: Juliette studied cello at the Conservatoire de Saint-Denis, and Lucie and Elisa studied vocal technique at the Maîtrise de Radio France, a prestigious French singing school, acquiring solid classical training. Lucie Lebrun also plays the piano and the saxophone, and Elisa Paris plays the piano and the harp. In October 2013, they competed in a contest organised by the French band Tryo, covering one of their songs with vocal harmonies. It was the first time they had all sung together as a band. They won the contest and got to perform for a large audience; at that point, according to one source, the group did not yet have a name. They decided to go on with the band and kept posting videos on their YouTube channel, covering various artists and posting their first summer mashup in 2014. To a large extent, the group connected with listeners through social networks.
On 1 August 2015, they posted a mashup of 11 worldwide hits of 2015, Summer 2015. It was an immediate success, getting hundreds of thousands of views within two days. On 3 August, Time magazine shared their mashup which launched a craze around the video and brought them millions of views on YouTube in less than a month. French and international media took an immediate interest in the three young women, who were a bit overwhelmed by this unanticipated turn of events. Indeed, they had never intended their video to have such an impact and had not foreseen such a success. Elisa said in an interview that the women would not have worn their pyjamas when recording Summer 2015 if they had known that the video would go viral. Juliette plays the cello and sings backups while Elisa and Lucie are the main singers.
They signed a contract with Live Nation Entertainment, and started opening for artists in France, such as Grand Corps Malade. On 22 June 2015, they played as the opening act for Pharrell Williams in Monaco. In December 2015, L.E.J released their first album, entitled En attendant l’album, which contains 11 tracks, all cover songs but La Dalle, their first original composition. This collection includes a cover of Hanging Tree, the song from the Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. L.E.J also performed Hanging Tree at the 9 November 2015 Paris Premiere of Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.
During 2016, L.E.J went on concert tours, both in France and abroad. In total, L.E.J played around a 100 concerts in the year 2016. On 4 August 2016, they posted Summer 2016 on YouTube, which is a mashup of 2016’s hits, the same way they had done in 2015. It contained 23 songs and got more than 5 million views. In September 2016, their second original composition, Le Verbe, was released on YouTube. It features Dave Crowe from Heymoonshaker, and the video was shot in the form of an advertising spot for Audi. In December 2016, they released an EP entitled Christmas Hors d’oeuvre that contained three tracks. Game Of Bells is a medley of Carol of the Bells and the soundtrack for the TV show Game of Thrones; On 10 February 2017, the band won the award for Stage Revelation at the 32nd Victoires de la Musique ceremony, a French award ceremony that recognises achievements in the music industry. It is the French equivalent of the Grammy Awards.
Their first original album was originally announced for 2017, but due mainly to their tour, the band postponed it to early 2018. It will be composed of songs the three women will write, mostly in French, and they expressed feeling tremendous pressure not to disappoint anybody. Paris said that recording this album would be the band’s greatest challenge. In an interview they gave to Purecharts, the women of L.E.J said they were proud of their work so far. They teased the new album, explaining that some songs will be a lot more produced than previous tracks, with a greater exploitation of Juliette’s cello. They announced their upcoming original album for March/April 2018. In January, they toured Australia for three shows in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney as part of the French acts of the 2018 So Frenchy So Chic in the Park Festival. They were well received by both audiences and press reviews. The first single “La Nuit” was released on 6 April 2018.
