SongVault Artist Profile

Quotes:
"Not Only my Piece of Cake, but very much my Cup of Tea" (Adam SIEFF)
"Beatle-esque to the hilt with a touch of good ol' Neil Young..." (Blues Rock RICH)
"Chapter 9' s musical arrangements take you by the hand and slowly lead you to the friendly psychadellic strawberry fields of the Beatles that make the songs easy to swallow and will leave you hungry for more afterwards" (Laurent CARIS)
"Chapter 9 is the joy of watching a child ride a bike on their own for the first time" (Kristen WOOD)

End Quotes

Start Blurb

Dear beloved ones,

Let me introduce myself to you all. I am Marc, and I'm the singer songwriter of Chapter 9. I'm also in charge of promoting the band and make our music go to new ears everyday.

Our music is English pop, as you may be noticing at the moment, when you listen to our songs. It has also hints of American folk (I am a big fan of The Beatles and Neil Young, to name two...). I was raised in a happy family, all around the world (England, France, Spain, Brazil) and was fed to British and American pop, rock, and blues by my father. Naturally, when I first took a guitar at the age of 12, I began singing tunes from The Beatles and playing Eric Clapton. My father bought me Neil Young tabs when I was 15, and I discovered the Jayhawks. This mix of influences is reflected in the songs I write.

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Start seriously boring piece of writing

Do you still want to know more about Chapter 9?
Well here it goes! In 2002, Thibaut and I met during our Business studies. We decided to create a band with a fab' bass player and a great friend of ours, Raphael, who decided to lead the drums. It was a bunch of friends playing covers, mostly. But after 6 months of playing, we decided to play our own songs. That's when I started to write lyrics and find melodies. They came really naturally... I wrote my first song on a Sunday afternoon, on the campus. I still remember it was freezing cold outside and everybody was gone for the week-end. No wonder the song is called Suicide...

Well, anyway, with this new orientation, everything was beginning to get serious. I met a guitar player, François, and I liked his playing, and his vocals. We began playing just the two of us for a while, and then I decided to try and form a new band with him, Thibaut and Raphael. I would take the bass. We created Backwater in September 2003. It was very blues-rock oriented, as Francois was more into this kind of stuff and myself I was more into bands like The Jayhawks at that time. So, for me it was all about vocal harmonies and big guitars. In the meantime, we changed drumers, Geoffroy joined us and Raphael left the band. I took my acoustic guitar and we "hired" a bass player, Antoni.

We recorded 2 albums with Backwater: "Bar Lights" and "Living Circus". Living Circus was a 12 track album we recorded during the Summer of 2005 in just 3 days... We were just crazy. We didn't sleep at all during those days, and you get this feeling when you listen to the songs on the album. But by that time, it was clear that I was getting more and more into pop music. Thibaut had never left the Beatles, and he was listening constantly to "Pet Sounds"... We really wanted to move back to the British Shores...! Francois also wanted to follow this trend, but it was clear to me that it was not his thing. His thing was rock solos and I really can't blame him for that, because it's AWESOME too! So in the winter of 2005, we decided to split. Backwater was dead. I still wanted to keep on making music, specially with Thibaut, who's always been to me the best Arranger I've ever met so far. So, with Geoffroy and Antoni (who were still up to following me), we decided to create a brand new band with a new name, and that was when Chapter 9 was born.

In February 2006, we recorded a first EP, 5 Songs, and I had to leave the band to go to London for 5 months, were I met diverse people, all of them were so nice and so receptive to my music I decided this is what I wanted to do for a living.

When I came back in Paris in August 2006, we were welcomed with open arms by great live venues, comforting my thoughts of a possible musical future. La Flèche d'Or booked us 4 times in a row, we signed a distribution contract with a promising label, Reshape Music, and everything was ready to go. Then the winter came, and things settled down, we decided to move to a next level, by recording a 6 track EP "professionnally", and give it all the deserved attention. During 5 Months, apart from acoustic touring, we were rehearsing hard and arranging the songs for the next album. We wanted to make it perfect. We found a perfect recording place, just right below my appartment, in Eric Serra's recording studio, and in March 2007 we entered the studio.

We recorded 6 songs, with the help of Stéphane Brossollet and Philippe Rinino. The songs were then mixed by Julien Bassères @ home. We did the mastering ourselves, and we began knocking on doors to find some people to help us turn into real professionnals and get the word out!

So far, so good. Everything is moving smoothly. It's better like this. We also know that it takes time to get our name out there, and we count on live shows, Sellaband, and a bit of professionnal help to get things started for us.

If you managed to read until here, you're a star.
Cheers
Marc

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