Dear ‘SUP, my old friend,
It’s been a long time since I’ve written to you. Remember the first time I told you our name? I had to pronounce it again and again, and then spell it. Guess my French accent wasn’t helping!
Things have been changing so fast for us. It seems so long ago when we were only playing in and around Reims (our small French city)! We just finished a U.S. tour (Chicago, NY, and Austin for the SXSW festival), and met so many interesting and inspiring people and bands. We’ll keep such good memories of it. I’m sure you remember how badly we were craving to play in America. Let me tell you one thing: the way the public welcomed us, the shows, the love people gave us, all of it was really beyond our expectations. I keep a vivid memory of the last SXSW show, when people stood up and started to sing in that church… a church.
Now that we’re back to our land, I can’t stop thinking about how we got to here. Do you remember, at the very beginning? We were 11 humans in the band, and we felt like we were in a happy summer camp. We were all already musicians, but we all had such diverse influences that we never thought it would end up so well (trying to mix up Beach Boys with Roxy Music or the Kinks). Now we’re six, one woman for five guys. It might be tough sometimes, but together we found a way to express ourselves, to speak and, well, to sing (we all do on stage)!
I can’t help thinking how funny it is to see how people describe our music: In France, they liked to label our singing as lyrical and bright (we’re happy as long as they stop calling us hippies), whereas in the U.S., they always relate us to Arcade Fire with a baguette and without the theatrics, and compare our song to surfing rock rainbows. U.S. journalists are definitely more creative than French ones! One guy from the NY Times even wrote he was ready to catch a jet plane to France to see us live. You do know you’re actually all free to come over and be our guest whenever you want! We love U.S. music and are proud to add our French pop touch to it.
So for now, back to Reims – we’re finishing our first album, to be released very soon. I like to see it as a synthesis of our whole life as a group, and I’m so happy when people tell us our rock songs are joyful because we really try to have fun while working on music.
Every good thing comes to an end. I have to leave now. We’re about to celebrate our glorious return home with lots of cheese and champagne, and I’m sure you’ll understand – I cannot miss it!
From: Reims, France
myspace.com/handsbewitched
