Joe Duplantier – Gojira
French-born New Yorker Joe Duplantier is the guitarist and lead singer of the metal band Gojira.
Gojira were formed in 1996, then called Godzilla, and became Gojira in 2001. The band’s line up includes Joe Duplantier on guitar and vocals, his brother Mario on drums, Christian Andreu on guitar, and Jean-Michel Labadie on bass. Gojira has released seven studio albums. Their 2021 album, Fortitude, was a best-selling album in the US, debuting at number 12 on the Billboard 200 and selling over 27,000 units in its first week. It was also critically acclaimed, being named “best album of 2021” by multiple metal and rock outlets.
Joe Duplantier has said that if he wasn’t in a band, he would be an environmental activist. In fact, Gojira has played shows to raise money for Sea Shepherd. Joe’s lyrics address many issues such as animal rights, the environmental crisis and social injustice and inequality.
It’s unsurprising, then, to learn that Joe has been vegan since around 2014.
Although he didn’t become a vegan until adulthood, his concerns for the environment started much younger. He told alive.com: “I would go to the beach as a kid and I would have black stains on my feet when I came home. I asked my parents, ‘What is this?’ And they said, ‘It’s oil.’”
Joe originally became vegan for the animals and planet but also says his energy levels have improved since being plant-based:
“… since I quit animal products and I eat plant-based [foods] only, my energy increased by ten or a hundred […] Every time we finish a show, I’m still full of energy and I keep going. I can keep going and going and going. And back in the day, before I changed my diet, at the end of the show, I was at the end of my life.”
On animals, he told the Irish Times:
“… something’s wrong with us […] The extinction of so many species is going to be one of our legacies. It took billions of years to create these species and in 40 years, boom, thousands and thousands of species are extinct because of us.”
