Da Brasilians

A few years ago we were talking about a so called Rock and Roll come back and along with it the rising of a new Parisian scene full of bands that have learned how to play the guitar by opening a My Space account. As part of this chapter of pop music history, the chapter telling the Da Brasilians career would seem completely out of context.

To start with, even though they live in the Capital, the band was born in Normandy. Then because they are not what could be considered as a “sprinter” band since they’ve left the music mature long enough to finally be ready to release their first album today.

Created at the dawn of the new millenium, the band is composed of former schoolmates: Vincent also known as Frabou, Rémi, Jeff and Benoit plus Gregory the keyboard player who was recently added to the band. Before music, it was their common love for the skateboard that made the first four members be together. “Then we turned eigteen and we all wanted to do something else. We created a band because we listened to a lot of music”.

Maybe because the western part of France is close to England or pure coïncidence, this region has often celebrated the wedding between France and Anglo-saxon Indie-pop with all its festivals (Route du Rock, Art Rock), its labels (Rosebud in Rennes with The Little Rabbits, Katerine) and its concerts venues like Le Normandy where the band has often played.

In the nineties, the discovery of the first Stone Roses’ album, the La’s and Teenage Fanclub’s Scottish harmonies or the Pavement rock helped the band find their first influences- guitar based bands whose musical background would soon allow Da Brasilians to discover the hidden side of Rock mythology. “We listened to many contemporary bands, and while going through interviews, we came across a bunch of musical references we didn’t know. We started listening to bands like The Zombies, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Gram Parsons...We discovered those bands together”.

Playing music as a team effort is so crucial for the Da Brasilians that it has become their first asset: no leader, shared sung parts and a rich vocal harmony inherited from a common love for West coast style choirs such as Crosby Still Nash & Young or Buffalo Springfield. However it’s out of the question to fall in the trap of an attachment to the past: if playing happy families the band would probably go for the modern cousin's card hold by Phoenix or Tahiti 80.

Made by all those influences, one piece, In The Morning, has been selected by the Inrockuptibles CQFD competition in 2007. " It has been a real bless for us and made us want to take things realy seriously".

Seduced by his work inside his Palmtree Family, the boys invite Tahiti Boy to join them at the keyboard and multiply the rehearsal in his Mains d'Oeuvres studio in Saint-Ouen, haunt in the year 2000 of some French pop artisan such as The Married Monk or Herman Dune.

One bright maxi, About You, make the place shine in 2009, and the public, which grows bigger and bigger after each performance (Rock en Seine, Inrocks Indie Club Tour, gigs in Scottland), is able to wait until this very first album :

Achieved on live by Samy Osta, studio engineer of the parisian music label Third Side (Cocosuma, Fugu, Flairs) and seen as a part of the folk Domingo, this album, carried by a smooth and classic songwriting ( " If I conceed maybe some fussiness, my writing is definitely more about accuracy" explained Rémi, whose in charge of most of the writing), give us at first look some vintage spontaneity, due to an high fidelity of the US variety from the 70's. " Even if the term might sound a bit ridiculous, we like to say that we have a roots side. For this album, we wanted to feel something organic, lively. Maybe not as perfect as it could have been, but truly the reflexion of the way we express our feelings and our music. " Roots but never old school, this first record, shiny enough to bring together again, in front of a sunset on some Santa Monica beach, Midlake and the Happy Mondays, Fleet Foxes and Sébastien Tellier, express some really audacious part to the production ( the conclusions of Revolution and Please Stay, the groovy arrangements of Greeting From America ). Flirting both as the American side and the English pop (Janis, I'll be blue), this opening album dive into the drunkenness of the beginnings in a more modern shape , and set itself both as the bright conclusion of the past decade and the promising foreword of the story to come.