2023-12-15 18:00:09
The FFF group in Paris, October 2023. From left to right, Yarol Poupaud, Marco Prince, Krichou Monthieux and Nicolas “Niktus” Baby. BENJAMIN LOYSEAU
Behind the door of a building in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, there are sometimes unsuspected worlds. In a comfortable recording studio, the floor covered with colorful carpets, guitarist Yarol Poupaud, Johnny Hallyday’s traveling companion for his latest tours, tries to make his singer friend from the group FFF, Marco Prince, appreciate the subtle nuances a leather jacket. “But what’s the difference between this one and that one? asks the last one in front of the computer screen. They are exactly the same! » “You feel the difference when you wear it”, replies Yarol, enigmatic. The two lads will soon have to take care of their look and get back on stage to defend their new album on tour, I Scream, published at the end of November. Their first Olympia, in Paris, on April 3, 2024, is already sold out.
The two musicians, with their unwavering complicity, had not recorded a record together for twenty-three years under the banner FFF – Fédération française de fonck –, a group they created in 1987 with bassist Nicolas “Niktus” Baby and drummer Krichou Monthieux. With songs like Marco, New Funk Generation et Barbèsode to their neighborhood, France entered the era of fusion rock and groove, a buzzword in the early 1990s.
They followed in the footsteps of the Americans, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Living Color and other Fishbone, but above all participated in the cultural broth that La Mano Negra had started, with its rocks in Spanish or its raps in Franglais, maintained by all the creative troublemakers who squatted the ephemeral Hospital, temple of young fashion stylists like Isabel Marant, Xuly Bët… An artists’ squat which punctuated the life of the 18th arrondissement throughout the 1990s before becoming a hospital specializing in geriatrics: “But how lucky we were to know this place! »recognizes Marco Prince.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The French Fonck Federation is back in action
Until 2001, FFF played together constantly, recording four albums, before going on hiatus. “At the end of the tour which accompanied the fourth discVirgin, in September 2001, remembers the guitarist, we said to ourselves: what are we doing? Are we back for a new record or are we taking a break? Nicolas, the bassist, had already started to distance himself, then we felt that everyone needed to experience things elsewhere…”
“A very good quality drug”
Yarol Poupaud locked himself away in the studio for five years to work, among others, with Adan Jodorowsky then with a Congolese group from Kinshasa, Jupiter & Okwess. After a trip to the United States, the guitarist finally launched the Black Minou evenings in the Lautrec cellar, in Pigalle, then he was poached by “the boss”, Johnny Hallyday. Marco Prince worked in cinema, composing film scores or acting on screen in Paris (2008), by Cédric Klapisch, was a juror on the show “New Star” on M6. Nicolas Baby invested in his label and Krichou Monthieux left for Spain to launch into theater.
You have 40% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#FFF #French #Fonck #Federation #relaunched #orbit