Vive la Fête was founded in 1997 by Danny Mommens (guitar, vocals) and Els Pynoo (vocals); when Mommens (then still playing in his former band dEUS) met Els at a party hosted by or for her sister. He had previously been an acquaintance of Pynoo’s sister whom photographed Els naked and showed it to Mommens. As Els stated in a 2005 interview; Mommens had approached her in a normal fashion and said randomly: “Hey I saw you naked!” Mommen’s recorded a few demos with Pynoo on his 8-track recorder. These demos were released on the EP Je ne veux pas (sometimes also referred to as Paris) which gathered some attention for its resemblance to ’80s new wave music. Their first success came with their debut Attaque Surprise (2000). Later records such as République Populaire (2001) and Nuit Blanche (2003) made them popular, especially in the fashion world, where Karl Lagerfeld is one of their fans, and has enlisted them to perform at a number of his big shows in New York City and Paris. In 2005 they released Grand Prix and toured all over Europe and played some shows in Brazil and Mexico.