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I was born in a musical environment (cousins of mine were musicians and my sister Magali played the piano and the violin), I discovered rock music quite early in 1981 with "A Night At The Opera" by QUEEN (which is still one of my favourite albums).Then I decided to get a bit more involved in music learning and I took clarinet lessons. .. ; God knows why....
During the years I spent at the secondary school I discovered other bands and other musical styles, i.e IRON MAIDEN , SCORPIONS , MSG , ZZ TOP . As my interest for the drums was getting bigger I played the tambourine with a friend of mine who was a guitarist and I thus formed my first band.
I convinced
my parents to buy my first snare drum (I was fed up with playing
the drums on cushions and saucepans with knitting needles), it
was a 14 x5,5" steel TAMA swingstar. My first real drum set
arrived the year after, it was a MAXWIN (very poor quality) the
rhodoïd was unstuck, the legs of the toms were rusted, the
heads had bumps But my dream was now about to begin, thanks to
the guitarist I've mentioned before I founded the band VESTATISTA , with whom I was to
play a few gigs in our area.
During this period I spent a lot of time listening to Heavy Metal
: JUDAS
PRIEST ,
STRYPER , SAXON and especially LOUDNESS (with drummer Munetaka HIGUCHI ), EARTHSHAKER and MOTLEY CRUE (with drummer Tommy LEE ) and I bought a double pedal.
VESTATISTA split, I joined the
band FREDDY and took part in real
concerts , discovered stage fright and changed my drum kit : I
found my CAPELLE Turbo . A friend of mine who had subscribed to
MODERN DRUMMER
magazine
presented me with jazz-rock drummers such as Dave WECKL , Steve GADD , Billy
COBHAM ,
Terry BOZZIO , RUSH and Neil
PEART as
well as all the great american drummers. I then decided to take
real drum lessons as I thought my playing was flawed . Then I
formed the band EMPIRE and discovered odd time signatures and
70s progressive rock thanks to bands like YES , ATOLL , MONA LISA , GENTLE GIANT and ANGE . As EMPIRE was sort of getting out of breath I joined the
band LAST
DREAM (with
whom I was to play for 2 years) and I got back to my first musical
love : real American Hard Rock, and I bought a second bass drum.
After my military service ANGEL DUST contacted me to play along with them. I was very
much involved in this project, so much so that I organised concerts,
took part in a few festivals and even wrote a few lyrics. That
suited me well : lots of double bass drum and fast rhythms...
During a festival from which I had come as a mere spectator a
drummer who was to come for a demo didn't show up , so I was asked
to replace him on the spot. Though I suffered from flu and I was
not quite prepared I managed to show my technical competence of
that time : double bass drums galore ! Members of the band
VARECH
noticed me and wanted me to be their drummer. Concerts, festival
and recording sessions were to follow, which proved to be quite
successful as far as the local « metal » audiences
are concerned.
I discovered a musical style which was quite unusual to me : rather
slow tunes, heavy guitars, complex structures, death singing.
Thanks to the band's members I discovered bands like CANDLEMASS , OSIRIS , CYNIC , WATCHTOWER , VICIOUS RUMORS , MEMENTO
MORI and
drummer Snowy
SHAW who
influenced me a lot. I also rediscovered GENESIS , Terry BOZZIO in UK . Noël, the drummer
of a local band called MELEM
gave me a few lessons during that period and I learned a lot of
things thanks to him.
Some of VARECH ’s members left the band and I then discovered DREAM THEATER and Mike PORTNOY . I worked out…took a few extra lessons, practised ostinatos, odd time beats… And VARECH became ENNEADE .
The arrival of new members ant the wish to play a more personal kind of music brought us to create more technical music, coloured both with metal AND progressive elements. I was getting particularly interested in vintage drum kits and got hold of a few books on this topic.
Thanks to MAGNA CARTA , MUSEA and other record companies progressive metal got more and more democratic : CAIRO , SHADOW GALLERY , BI KYO RAN , IVANHOE , LEMUR VOICE , EMPTY TREMOR were signed up and distributed all over the world, Terry BOZZIO participated in EXPLORERS CLUB and BLACK LIGHT SYNDROME . Mike PORTNOY took part in the tribute to RUSH with WORKING MAN and later to LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT . I then really rediscovered the great bands KING CRIMSON and MAGMA .
1998 was the year of THE show, among others, but this one was very important to us since we played for the after show when DREAM THEATER played in LYON on 20th February . Much stage fright for a concert which eventually passed off quite well and which remains one of my best memories (yet it was quite a lot of emotion to play for more than one hour with pre-programmed sequences in front of an audience that had been amazed by the great band they had just been watching.
I resumed drum lessons at a school in LYON which turned out to be working like a factory, so I bought methods, educational videos among which the one by Virgil DONATI , an amazing Australian drummer who is certainly not of this earth , I also bought videos by Akira JIMBO , Terry BOZZIO , Simon PHILIPS , Billy COBHAM …and changed my drum kit. Alongside ENNEADE , the band MACBETH (U.S Hard Rock) asked me to help them occasionally and replace their drummer who had quit. After a series of concerts, ENNEADE recorded a 5 track demo in which progressive rock met jazz rock and even acid jazz(!!!)
I'm involved with the KABBAL KARMA project too.
I have recorded a five track mini-album with the jazz-rock band IGNEM in 2004
ENNEADE is out from the abyss since 2003 and the band is alive and well ! The first album is available on the MUSEA label.
I'm a MUSIC ACADEMY INTERNATIONAL graduate, animates master-classes in LYON with french guitarist Jean-Claude RAPIN , I' m an active drummer in the LYON area and available for studio recordings as well.
You can check my web site too :
I am a proud TAMA drums endorsee !
This video was taped at the MUSIC ACADEMY INTERNATIONAL music school of NANCY (FRANCE). Julien ESTEVE (bass) & David VIVIAN (guitar) are great musicians and performers as you can see.
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