Fabulous Sheep, fabulous flock
Every page you’ve turned will no longer need to be read. All the better, I say. Some of us spent our teenage years envying the fame and glory of MTV’s young and talented superstars, in the hope that one day, that’ll be us, always knowing that day to be a pipe dream. When you’re nearing your twenties, you tell yourself you’ve still got time. And then when your thirties come along, you tell yourself it’s too late. You begin to feel a bitter taste in your mouth. You begin to let go of your carefree youth that’s becoming more and more blurred and hazy, like that last line of letters you struggle to decipher at the opticians. You scrunch up your eyes, you imagine the letters, to finally blurt out bloody stupid things, crap that will set you up with pebble glasses you’ll be proud to choose a wood frame for, which will go perfectly with your five-day-stubble and your suede clodhoppers because you, too, want to be cool. This frustration can ease you into the social masses, like here, or slowly kill you. But that’s another discussion altogether.
Perched high up on our disillusionment, we look down on the next generation – that we still feel we belong to – hanging out after school, proud and oh, so typically French, with soft, clear skin, meeting up in one guy’s garage or another guy’s room. They surf the social networks that were absent in our childhood, promote themselves for nearly nothing, cram themselves into a bus for their first festival, and radiate their joie de vivre across four strings, drums and microphones that are happily splattered with sweat and spit. It seems so simple. “We met when we were 13, Piero (singer and guitarist) and I. It was during a secondary school end of year party, he asked me if I had any music on my MP3 player that could be played on the sound system. I was already listening to The Clash at that age, he too. That’s what brought us close. The idea of starting a band came to us quickly. Soon after, Gabriel Ducellier (keyboards/saxophone) joined us, then the Pernet brothers, Jack and Charles, on drums and bass”, says Tim, guitarist and singer with the band. Beyond the rock music they create, Fabulous Sheep is also a story of true friendship: “We grew up together, we’re all in our twenties today, and the band’s adventure is continuing even stronger. We play rock music, we have fun doing it, and at the same time, we do things properly! We do odd jobs here and there, and as soon as we have some free time, we play music, we set up our own tours, and we record. We have played more than 150 concerts in 3 years, and we plan on playing ever more, anywhere we can, until we die.” Don’t die too fast, though! Your music is a successful fusion of 60’s garage rock that spawned The Stooges and a not yet wrinkled Iggy Pop, and melodic punk (a blatant, but true, oxymoron) born in the shackles of the aggressive sub-genre in today’s States that we consider to be United.
“We recorded “l’Entreprise” (their second EP, Editor’s note) in a church, and we composed it at home in Béziers (South of France). This EP enabled us to play all over France, in small club-bars, but also in bigger venues, and festivals. We’re really happy, it’s an incredible human adventure, we’ve met loads of people, played with many bands, just the five of us on the road… That’s a childhood dream come true!” And the same things are planned for 2016, when the five youngsters will be releasing their new EP “Kids are Back”. Until then, listen and fill your head. Click on the available links; the videos and music speak for themselves. Meanwhile, if you please, I’ll go and feel sorry for myself, living their story vicariously. I’ll make up for lost time, maybe.
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A big thank you to Tim for his help. You can find all of Fabulous Sheep-related news on their Facebook page. Their new EP “Kids Are Back” will be released in February 2016, with “Athenian Streets” as their first single. “Une Jeunesse A Côté” and “l’Entreprise” are already available on their Soundcloud.
Interviewed by © Julien Catala
