France de Griessen is a half Dutch, half Belgian singer, musician and artist.
She has grown up and lived in Brussels, Paris, New-York and New-Mexico.
She now reside in Paris, but has never parted from her multicultural influences which have led her to sing in both French and English.
With influences ranging from Hole, L7, Nirvana, The Velvet Underground, Johnny Thunders to Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen or Marie Laforêt, France has - with the collaboration of Shanka ( No One Is Innocent, Destruction Incorporated)- developed her own sound : a strong and poetic combination of folk-rock, grunge, punk and country music.
She sings in both French and English, as she feels each of these langages allows her to express her emotions and play with rythms and energy in their own specific ways.
« I’ve found out about country music it when I was living in the USA, and I was struck by its ability to convey emotions without any kind of artifice : the voice, a guitar, and that’s it. I always keep this in mind when creating music : I believe a good song should work with only voice and guitar. Everything else is a bonus.
I like punk and grunge because they come from the same source : sixties music. And sixties music very often had great melodies.
Then punk and grunge musicians re-interpreted it with different sounds, saturated guitars, different speeds and a different social context.
Being a rebel by nature, I was of course drawn to it ! »
Currently recording her first solo album, France de Griessen has previously released in collaboration with Michaël Gadrat under the band name « Teen Machine » a concept-album called « Billy » (2005), which was inspired by the life and death of American outlaw Billy The Kid.
« I loved that story because it’s really about a man’s quest for freedom and finding one’s identity and place in a harsh world.
The fact that he was a boy and that I’m a girl did not matter to me at all, I feel powerful stories can be told regardless of gender. So I performed as a female version of Billy. »
With this album, France won several scholarships and awards : Fondation Belge de la Vocation award-winner in 2003, she was also supported by Défi-Jeune (Direction Départementale de la Jeunesse et des Sports, France), Music Manager Forum (France) and the Division Culturelle de la SACEM (France).
« Billy », got indie radio airplay in France, Canada and USA, the song « J’ai Tué » was even amongst the heaviest rotations for two month on Radio Néo, and one of the top requested songs.
Teen Machine was also invited to perform two songs from « Billy » on the show « Studio 5 » on Channel 5 of French television.
In summer 2006, she started working on a 4 tracks mini-album with Shanka.
A few weeks later, it evolved into a full-lenght solo album project.
American singer and musician Elliott Murphy and his son Gaspard Murphy, drummers Pierre Belleville (Lofofora, Destruction Incorporated) and Yann Coste (No One Is Innocent, Marcel Bellucci Quartett, Doppler), bassist Bastien Burger ( Blackstrobe, Destruction Incorporated), punk singer/author Vérole, and violonist Agnès Davan, theremin and organ player Olivier Daviaud later joined the project.
When Kemar, No One Is Innocent frontman & singer heard the songs, he offered France to open for the band’s Parisian concert at La Cigale in october 2007.
A modern gipsy, dreamer, story-teller, poet and independant woman, France de Griessen has created a world of her own, in which romance walks hand in hand with both rage and sweetness, provocation meets poetry, and melancholy is cathartic.
Her upcoming solo album « Ballerina », is inspired by her own life as well as those of female icons such as Marylin Monroe or Calamity Jane.
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Photos (c) Magali Boyer
live album 1
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