Les Wampas
Encyclopedia
Les Wampas are a French punk rock
/psychobilly
band, who refer more exactly to their music as "Yé-yé
-punk". The band was formed in Paris in 1983.
(Les Wampas love you), released in 1990, contained the popular single "Petite fille", whose video
was played on French TV channel M6
, and crowd favorites like "Ce soir c'est Noël" (a personal version of the Christmas Carols, available all year long on stage...) and "Quelle joie le rock'n'roll"; following this album's release, they were signed by the major label BMG.
However, a shadow was cast across the band for many years when guitarist Marc Police committed suicide
in December 1991.
) was recorded at London's Roundhouse http://www.stardiamond.com/roundhouse/ and Abbey Road
studios
and featured the London Session Orchestra
.
Recorded one year after guitarist Marc Police's suicide, probably their most inspired album, it includes a heart-breaking, breathtaking — and yet hilarious — tribute song to their friend (Les îles au soleil, "Islands under the sun").
The video to the band's "Comme un ange (qui pleure)" (1992) was directed by Michel Gondry
.
, made fun of Manu Chao
, who was a member of the successful punk band Mano Negra
in the early 1990s (like Wampas guitarist Jo Dahan), but who now, according to Didier Wampas, "had accepted the system. You're inside of it, you profit from it, you're not going to criticize it 'on the side', or else you might not get back in."
With a riff
similar to The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated
", it was the band's most popular single to date, reaching number 20 in France in June 2003 http://top40-charts.com/song.php?sid=7174&sort=chartid&string=Les and features as a bonus track in the European version of Rock Band
. Les Wampas played at the Eurockéennes
and Vieilles Charrues
festivals in that year, and a rockumentary
about them, For the rock, was made in 2004.
On Rock'n'Roll Part 9, Les Wampas' ninth album (not including two live albums), they released the controversial single "Chirac en prison" in January 2006. The song contains the lyrics:
"Elle ne pense qu'à ça, elle n'en dort plus la nuit [...]
La seule chose qui lui ferait plaisir
Ce serait de voir Chirac en prison."
"She thinks only of this, she doesn't sleep anymore at night [...]
The only thing that would give her pleasure
Would be to see Chirac in prison."
However, Didier Wampas said, "It isn't really a song against Chirac
[...] I just wanted to see how far freedom of expression can go". "Chirac en prison" was mainly banned
upon its release by French TV and radio; some TV advertisements for the single were even populated with bleeps and on-screen rectangles, to disguise the fact that the song was about the president. It was played by radio stations Ouï FM and Le Mouv, however, and achieved much more publicity when Les Guignols de l'info
, a satirical puppet show on Canal+
television, made a video for the song.
"Rimini" was the most notable success from Rock'n'Roll Part 9. This song has become widely popular among the fans. It is about the death of the famous Italian cyclist Marco Pantani
who was found dead in an hotel of the Italian seaside resort of Rimini
.
, with a song called Faut voter pour nous (You gotta vote for us), but did not win the vote.
energy, and crowd surfing
, hoisted and hauled up on garden chairs, are major features of the band's live shows, which frequently end up in a complete mess, Didier Wampas singing among the audience, and a large part of the audience going onto the stage. Since the release of the album Kiss (2000), he comes to hug members of the audience at the end of the show and kiss them goodbye on each cheek.
In interviews, Didier Wampas often repeats that he earns approximately a quarter of his private incomes from his activity as a singer, and the rest from his job as a mechanic at the RATP (public transportation service in Paris), which he kept in spite of the increasing fame and success of the band. He frequently asserts his opposition to the French system of giving grants to professionals in the performing arts — this attitude is remarkable in the French culture.
. In May 2008, the band headed off to Sweden at Pelle Gunnerfeldt's (The Hives
) for their next record to be released in 2009.
Les Wampas have toured in most western European countries, as well as Quebec, Japan, India, and La Réunion
. However, they have seemingly never played in English-speaking Canada or Great Britain, and only once in the United States (in Austin, April 1995).
Commercial success has mainly been in France, perhaps because Les Wampas mainly sing in French
; although it should be pointed out that Noir Désir
, massively popular in France in the 1990s, sung many English-language songs without "breaking through" in English-speaking countries.
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
/psychobilly
Psychobilly
Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and other genres. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, trashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly...
band, who refer more exactly to their music as "Yé-yé
Yé-yé
Yé-yé was a style of pop music that emerged from France, Québec and Spain in the early 1960s. The term "yé-yé" derived from "yeah! yeah!" The style expanded worldwide, due to the success of figures such as the French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg....
-punk". The band was formed in Paris in 1983.
Les Wampas vous aiment
The band's third album, Les Wampas vous aimentLes Wampas vous aiment
...Vous aiment is the 3rd album by the French rock group Les Wampas, released in 1990.- Track Listing :...
(Les Wampas love you), released in 1990, contained the popular single "Petite fille", whose video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
was played on French TV channel M6
Métropole 6
M6, also known as Metropole television, is the most profitable private national French TV channel and the third most watched television network in the French-speaking world...
, and crowd favorites like "Ce soir c'est Noël" (a personal version of the Christmas Carols, available all year long on stage...) and "Quelle joie le rock'n'roll"; following this album's release, they were signed by the major label BMG.
However, a shadow was cast across the band for many years when guitarist Marc Police committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in December 1991.
Simple et Tendre
Simple et tendre (19931993 in music
This is a summary of significant events in music in 1993.-January–February:*January 8 – The U.S. Postal Service issues an Elvis Presley stamp. The design was voted on in February 1992....
) was recorded at London's Roundhouse http://www.stardiamond.com/roundhouse/ and Abbey Road
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
studios
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
and featured the London Session Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
.
Recorded one year after guitarist Marc Police's suicide, probably their most inspired album, it includes a heart-breaking, breathtaking — and yet hilarious — tribute song to their friend (Les îles au soleil, "Islands under the sun").
The video to the band's "Comme un ange (qui pleure)" (1992) was directed by Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
.
Never trust a guy... and "Manu Chao"
Having been back on the 'independent circuit' since their contract with BMG ended in 1998, Les Wampas released the single "Manu Chao" in 2003. It, along with the album's full title, Never trust a guy who after having been a punk, is now playing electroNever trust a guy who after having been a punk, is now playing electro
Never trust a guy who after having been a punk, is now playing electro is the eighth album by the French rock band Les Wampas, released in 2003.-Track listing:# Le télégramme de Brest – 3:37# Manu Chao – 2:49# Comme un Kényan – 3:49...
, made fun of Manu Chao
Manu Chao
Manu Chao , is a French singer of Spanish roots . He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages...
, who was a member of the successful punk band Mano Negra
Mano Negra
Mano Negra was a music band in France, during 1987–1995, fronted by Manu Chao.The band, founded in 1987 by Chao, his brother Antoine, and his cousin Santiago Casariego in Paris, France, was very influential in Europe during the early 1990s. Although it reached mainstream success in countries...
in the early 1990s (like Wampas guitarist Jo Dahan), but who now, according to Didier Wampas, "had accepted the system. You're inside of it, you profit from it, you're not going to criticize it 'on the side', or else you might not get back in."
With a riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
similar to The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated
I Wanna Be Sedated
"I Wanna Be Sedated" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It is one of the band's best known songs. It was originally released on their fourth album, Road to Ruin, in September 1978 and was the b-side of the UK single "She's the One" released on January 10, 1979. The song was later...
", it was the band's most popular single to date, reaching number 20 in France in June 2003 http://top40-charts.com/song.php?sid=7174&sort=chartid&string=Les and features as a bonus track in the European version of Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
. Les Wampas played at the Eurockéennes
Eurockéennes
The Eurockéennes de Belfort is one of France's largest rock music festivals. The Eurockéennes, a play on words involving the words rock and européennes , is a festival based in a nature reserve in Malsaucy near Belfort...
and Vieilles Charrues
Vieilles Charrues Festival
The Vieilles Charrues Festival is held every year in mid-July in the city of Carhaix located in the west of Brittany.This festival is the largest music festival in France, attracting more than 200,000 festival-goers every year . This festival was created in 1992 in Landeleau, a small village in...
festivals in that year, and a rockumentary
Rockumentary
The term rockumentary is a neologism denoting a documentary about rock music or its musicians. The term was used by Bill Drake in the 1969 History of Rock & Roll radio broadcast, and by Rob Reiner in the 1984 mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap....
about them, For the rock, was made in 2004.
Rock'n'Roll Part 9
"Elle ne pense qu'à ça, elle n'en dort plus la nuit [...]
La seule chose qui lui ferait plaisir
Ce serait de voir Chirac en prison."
"She thinks only of this, she doesn't sleep anymore at night [...]
The only thing that would give her pleasure
Would be to see Chirac in prison."
However, Didier Wampas said, "It isn't really a song against Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
[...] I just wanted to see how far freedom of expression can go". "Chirac en prison" was mainly banned
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
upon its release by French TV and radio; some TV advertisements for the single were even populated with bleeps and on-screen rectangles, to disguise the fact that the song was about the president. It was played by radio stations Ouï FM and Le Mouv, however, and achieved much more publicity when Les Guignols de l'info
Les Guignols de l'info
Les Guignols de l'info is a satirical latex puppet show broadcast on Canal+, a French subscription-based television channel. Hosted by a puppet facsimile of TF1 news anchor Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, Les Guignols is similar to the 1984–1996 British show Spitting Image...
, a satirical puppet show on Canal+
Canal+
Canal+ is a French premium pay television channel launched in 1984. It is 80% owned by the Canal+ Group, which in turn is owned by Vivendi SA. The channel broadcasts several kinds of programming, mostly encrypted...
television, made a video for the song.
"Rimini" was the most notable success from Rock'n'Roll Part 9. This song has become widely popular among the fans. It is about the death of the famous Italian cyclist Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani was an Italian road racing cyclist, widely considered one of the best climbers in professional road bicycle racing...
who was found dead in an hotel of the Italian seaside resort of Rimini
Rimini
Rimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
.
2007 Eurovision entry
Les Wampas competed against nine other popular French acts for the honour of representing France at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007Eurovision Song Contest 2007
The Eurovision Song Contest 2007 was the 52nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was won by first-time appearance as an independent country Serbia and was held at the Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Finland from 10 May to 12 May. The host broadcaster was YLE.Finland earned the right to host...
, with a song called Faut voter pour nous (You gotta vote for us), but did not win the vote.
Didier Wampas
The group is best known for its frontman, real name Didier Chapedelaine, main lyricist and singer. He deliberately sings off-key and often high-pitched, so has a recognisable voice. His on-stageConcert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
energy, and crowd surfing
Crowd surfing
Crowd surfing is the process in which a person is passed overhead from person to person during a concert, transferring the person from one part of the venue to another...
, hoisted and hauled up on garden chairs, are major features of the band's live shows, which frequently end up in a complete mess, Didier Wampas singing among the audience, and a large part of the audience going onto the stage. Since the release of the album Kiss (2000), he comes to hug members of the audience at the end of the show and kiss them goodbye on each cheek.
In interviews, Didier Wampas often repeats that he earns approximately a quarter of his private incomes from his activity as a singer, and the rest from his job as a mechanic at the RATP (public transportation service in Paris), which he kept in spite of the increasing fame and success of the band. He frequently asserts his opposition to the French system of giving grants to professionals in the performing arts — this attitude is remarkable in the French culture.
International reputation
Simple et tendre (1993) was recorded in London; Les Wampas vous aiment and Never trust a guy... both had English producers, Andy Lydon and Clive Martin respectively, and Trop précieux was recorded in Austin, TexasAustin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
. In May 2008, the band headed off to Sweden at Pelle Gunnerfeldt's (The Hives
The Hives
The Hives are a Swedish garage rock band that first garnered attention in the early 2000s as a prominent group of the garage rock revival. Their mainstream success came with the release of the "greatest hits" album Your New Favourite Band, featuring their most well-known song "Hate to Say I Told...
) for their next record to be released in 2009.
Les Wampas have toured in most western European countries, as well as Quebec, Japan, India, and La Réunion
Réunion
Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...
. However, they have seemingly never played in English-speaking Canada or Great Britain, and only once in the United States (in Austin, April 1995).
Commercial success has mainly been in France, perhaps because Les Wampas mainly sing in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
; although it should be pointed out that Noir Désir
Noir Désir
Noir Désir was a French rock band from Bordeaux. They were active during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, and have had two albums certified double platinum in France and three certified gold. They have been an influence on numerous French musicians including Cali, Louise Attaque and Miossec...
, massively popular in France in the 1990s, sung many English-language songs without "breaking through" in English-speaking countries.
Famous phrases/Glossary
- Les Wampas ont inventé le rock'n'roll - "Les Wampas invented rock 'n' rollRock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
" - Didier Wampas est le roi ! ! - "Didier Wampas is the king", the main message from the song Oï !, and a classic shout of cheer, from the audience, while in public.
- Tout à fond ("everything up to the max") - this is a phrase the band often say: the first words we hear on the album Les Wampas vous aiment are "le rock, c'est tout à fond!" ("rock is everything cranked up to the max"); the name of their 1997 live album is Toutafonlive.
- Chicoutimi - Les Wampas played a memorable show in Chicoutimi, QuebecChicoutimi, QuebecChicoutimi is one of the three boroughs of Saguenay, Quebec, Canada, and was a separate city in its own right until 2002. Chicoutimi had a population of 59,764 in the Canada 2001 Census, the last census in which Chicoutimi was counted as a separate city....
, and named their 1998 album after the town.
Discography
- Tutti frutti (1986)
- Chauds, sales et humides (1988) (live album, but with previously-unreleased songs)
- Les Wampas vous aimentLes Wampas vous aiment...Vous aiment is the 3rd album by the French rock group Les Wampas, released in 1990.- Track Listing :...
(1990) - Simple et tendre (1993)
- Trop précieux (1996)
- Toutafonlive (1997) (live album)
- Chicoutimi (1998)
- Kiss (2000)
- Never trust a guy who after having been a punk, is now playing electroNever trust a guy who after having been a punk, is now playing electroNever trust a guy who after having been a punk, is now playing electro is the eighth album by the French rock band Les Wampas, released in 2003.-Track listing:# Le télégramme de Brest – 3:37# Manu Chao – 2:49# Comme un Kényan – 3:49...
(2003) - Never trust a live! (2004) (live album, DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
also released) - Rock'n'Roll Part 9 (2006)
- Les Wampas sont la preuve que Dieu existe (2009)
External links
- official website
- Les Wampas' Myspace page
- [ Les Wampas at Allmusic]
- Les Wampas videos: "Rimini" on Taratata music TV show, "Petite fille" video, "Manu Chao" video