The Power of Music, Exploring Feelings, and International Love - The Grand Bain Interview

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The sunshine blazed across a clear sky when I arrived at the Mama Shelter, one of Paris’s trendiest locales. In the mid-afternoon heat everything moves slower, even the servers who polish knives and the few patrons who sip Perrier through black straws. I’m here to meet Erica and Jules, who make up Grand Bain. As we start talking their message hits home for me. Erica, an American, and Jules, a Frenchman, creating art together. And not just music, it’s a story of intercontinental love. 

Erica was always passionate about culture and music, focusing on history and French when she studied at UCLA. Her passion for France brought her here to Paris, where she worked as a cook in a top restaurant. 

Jules was brought up in a musical family, his father being a musician, and he had been involved in many projects throughout his lifetime. It was during the time that he was working on a new wave project that they sought a singer. 

Erica was also looking to get involved with a musical project. She had been writing songs but was hoping to find something more. Calling her roots more “soul” than their current music, her background is more musical theater, soul, and R&B. Despite the potential mismatch, she auditioned for Jules’s old group, and they immediately got along. 

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That old new wave group did not share the same fate however. Soon after the group dissolved, and Jules and Erica struck out together under the new name, Grand Bain, in early 2014. 

Jules’s father has a studio, and Jules works as a sound engineer, two great advantages for an emerging group to get music out to the grand public. Both Erica and Jules consider themselves perfectionists, so it understandably took a while before they had something they were confident enough to share. There was one thing they were sure enough about though, each other. They recently got married here in Paris. 

The result of their partnership are three tracks currently available on Soundcloud (my personal favorite being the catchy and powerful “No Country”). They have put the finishing touches on their first EP, to be released sometime in the fall, preceded by their first single and music video which will come out in September. 

Jules describes their musical creation as “starting with lyrics, melody/chords, whereas before it was rhythms.” What’s important is to identify cool potential, recognize the beginning of inspiration when it strikes. If it’s not there, you wait. They often go to Burgundy to work on their music together, to take a break from city life. 

Not limiting themselves to constantly creating new sounds, they also take bits of older music and re-purpose those songs. Erica said that their upcoming single is actually the first song they co-wrote together. It sat on the sidelines for a while before they came back to it. 

Their music could be classified as sad, but Erica’s sunny philosophy changes what that might mean to some people. “I don’t believe that people are sad. Sad things happen to people. The important thing is to not hide it or let it fester. Release it.” 

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If they could open for any group touring right now, they don’t hesitate when they both said Arcade Fire. They also mentioned Interpol as an inspiration. One listen to “Leonie’s Dream” will confirm that. If there is one driving theme for Grand Bain as musicians, it’s to be powerful. Explore feelings, don’t run from them. 

Now that they have a nearly-finished EP and have started working on songs for a full-length album, they are looking to make the move across the world to Los Angeles. Since they sing in English, it makes sense to reach a wider audience who can appreciate the music more quickly. They will be looking for a manager and a way to get set up there. 

In the meantime, you can still catch Grand Bain here in Paris, they play tomorrow night at Le Motel and the big release party is October 9th at the Bus Palladium. 

Track of the Weekend #139: Kendrick Lamar - “Alright”

Is “AlrightKendrick Lamar’s most political song? It does fit perfectly well into America’s modern narrative of black vs. police. One thing is for sure, it’s another visceral experience whose music video is a visual masterpiece featuring Kendrick flying through the streets and rapping atop streetlights before getting shot by a white cop. It’s the latest in his string of hits off of “To Pimp A Butterfly” confirming what we thought all along: 2015 is the year of Kendrick Lamar. 

Thanks to Dans Ton Casque for getting this one to us! 

Man Is Not A Bird: Help Them Crowd Fund Their First Studio Album

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For those of you who have been with us for a while, then you might have had the pleasure to meet one of the most genuine, helpful, and thoroughly good-natured Frenchman in all the 101 departmentals: our Lead Software Engineer, Adrien. Adrien not just a PhD in Computer Science, is also a furious drummer, and his epic post-rock group Man Is Not A Bird - who regularly top the Whyd hot tracks and who just released their first official music video - has been solidly gaining in notoriety in France and abroad. Now, after being together for a few years, they are going to release their first, full length studio album “Survived the Great Flood,” and they need your help. 

Keep reading

Interview with Quiet Please: Paris Indie Pop Group

Quiet Please is an Parisian Indie Pop group that just released their debut EP in March! 

1. Who are the members of the group, and where do you all come from?

The group is composed of Raphaël, the lead singer and guitarist, Allan is the drummer and rhythm box, Etienne on the keyboard and synths, and Olivier on the bass. At the beginning of the project, it had been about three years that Raphaël and Olivier tried to form a group rooted in the ashes of Raphaël’s previous pop-rock group “Realymade.” Etienne, an old friend of Raphaël and keyboardist for the progressive rock band “5oclockinthemorning,” joined the group in order to bring a lighter touch. Finally, Allan came back to France after studying at the Berklee Music Academy in Boston, and joined the group a few months ago, alternating between the drums and the rhythm box. 

We recorded and self-produced our first EP with 7 tracks with Aurélian Rambach at the controls, and the album has been publicly available since the beginning of March. You can listen to it here on Soundcloud

 

The release of the EP came with our first official music video for the song “Pray for me” directed by David Cocciante, Tom Ségur, and Raphaël Pazoumian. 

 

We’ve been playing gigs in Paris at places like L'Espace B and Oh No! Yoko and we just performed a show at La Boule Noire with the groups So Called Wise and Apollo.

2. Who are your primary influences?

Our compositions are resolutely pop, in the sense that the melody and the voice are at the heart of our efforts. We are huge fans of Radiohead and the entirety of their body of work, and we can also cite The Notwist and Youth Lagoon as big influences on us. People often compare our tracks with The Strokes, Pheonix, the XX, or even Grizzly Bear, four groups that we love equally, notably Grizzly Bear for their work with vocal harmonies. 

However, apart from Raphaël, we rarely listen to pop music, but much more electronic, notably the new English electro scene and guys like Gold Panda, Mount Kimbie, and James Blake, who have succeeded in tying together songwriting with the universe of electro arrangements that might seem to be opposing. 

Finally, Apparat and Moderat, German DJs and producers, are also big influences for us. 

3. Who should listen to your music?

Everyone! Honestly we don’t care, what’s important is that people take pleasure from listening to our tracks and come see us play live. When we are composing, we don’t try to satisfy everyone at all costs. We play this music because we love it. To share it is obviously essential, but never do we ask ourselves what people want to hear. The proof: the 7 tracks from our EP can be labelled as many different styles. It is a strength, but at the same time a big difficulty to try to change the style of a song. We like diversity and we try as hard as we can to not get stuck in one style. Quiet Please could be reserved for listeners with very open spirits, who are not looking to listen to a uniform album, but a more eclectic work, recalling maybe the path of a film or a life, through which all of the different human emotions pass, ending on a sweet and sensible note. 

4. How do you find the Parisian music scene?

We are not going to complain: most of the best international bands and artists regularly visit Paris. The most well-known concert halls guarantee solid line ups and the different festivals bring us the best of the best every year, whether you’re talking about mainstream or indie artists. The flip side of the coin is that the price is often excessive and you have to be rich to be able to see all of the concerts that you want to see…

Aside from all the big stuff, Paris is a little bit of a jungle. Tons of concert venues, tons of groups, difficult to differentiate, we hope that we are going to be able to make our mark! We say that one can never have enough music!

We agree, thanks for the interview and make sure you subscribe to Quiet Please on Whyd

Tired of squinting? Full Screen in your face!

Whyd is all about music; the steady relentless penetrating beat that makes our hearts look like tired old jumping beans. But music is art, and art is as undefinable as the universe itself. Art is image, sound, emotion. Sometimes, the music is better with a visual accompaniment. While Whyd remains a purely music service, our fearless lead developer and Whyd groupie Adrien put up a little feature for those in the know: when a video is playing and you want it full screen: just press the F key. 

Yep, then press it again to return to the regular view. 

Never stop jamming!