Eurorock is at home in France today, exploring Shudderwall a band from Nice in the sunny south. The trio is a family affair of two brothers, Christophe (guitar) and Emmanuel (main vocals, drums), and their sister Florence (bass). Having played the local bars and clubs around the lovely Cote d’Azur region they took the plunge and recorded a demo.
They sent it far and wide in the hope that someone would give it a play. Then none other than respected San Francisco based producer Scott Mathews responded and contacted the band. Not only that, he made arrangements to fly over from California to Nice and work with them.
Grammy award winning Mathews has worked with an impressive stellar cast list that includes Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Keith Richards, Carlos Santana, David Bowie, Ry Cooder, and The Beach Boys. It reads like a who’s who of anyone who has ever been a who!
When you add to that George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Jerry Garcia, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Roy Orbison, John Lee Hooker, Brian Wilson, and Barbra Streisand, you begin to trust the man’s judgment and appreciate Sudderwalls excitement at the prospect of working with him.
He arrived in August (always a good time to go to Nice) and set to work with the band on the eleven tracks that now appear on this, their self titled, debut. He completed the mixing and mastering back home in San Francisco. Since its first digital appearance in January 2008 the band has clocked an impressive 300,000 plus plays on their MySpace and boast over 30,000 fans.
Big on the France live circuit, they also regularly play the UK and Italy. They have even followed their album to California. They have even followed their album to California and played gigs there too.
So what did Scott hear in that demo? The band sounds like their name. A wall of shuddering sound, heavy on drama and loaded with intensity. They are also a band who are not afraid to take risks and defy any perceived trend.
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