Plasticines
If you’re looking for eye candy in the grunge aisle at your local cd store you’ll have to put on your breaks when you come across French all girl band Plasticines. The quartet of barely US drinking age, gorgeous rockers (Anais Vandevyvere, Katty Besnar, Louise Basilien, Marine Neuilly) told the Guardian recently that they couldn’t even play their instruments when they started about 4 years ago in Paris.
“We did gigs to learn how to play our instruments,” laughs Marine Neuilly, the band’s lead guitarist. “For the first whole year we were together, we never even changed our guitar strings, which is just stupid, but we didn’t know we had to do that.”
Unloved by the press back then, they now hang out with Dave Grohl, aquired Pink’s producer, Butch Walker, for their second album “About Love” and even have a cameo appearance on the hit US series Gossip Girl scheduled this month. “Sonic Youth were on it before us, so we’re in good company,” says Neuilly.
She gives bands such as the Libertines, the Strokes and White Stripes credit for inspiring them to to give the rock n roll life a try, as well as modelling themselves on Blondie and the Kinks. “We saw the Libertines playing in Paris when we were about 17 and thought they were magical and looked cool. By being really young and crazy on stage, they showed us that we could play, even if we weren’t actually that good.”
The band was formed back in school with Neuilly and her classmate Katty Besnard and friend Louise Basilien. “We thought it looked simple – a guitar, a bass, singer and drummer. We basically started playing because we thought it would be cool.” Anaïs Vandevyvere is a more recent addition as drummer. “Our first drummer wasn’t good enough. I don’t think she liked it.” They started off by gigging in Paris. “It was so exciting. We were playing in small bars, not even very good songs, and our friends would come along and scream while we played. We don’t have a rock’n'roll history in France like you do in Britain and young people don’t play in bands.”
At first the band had a tough time being taken seriously – “People thought it was funny to see girls in a band, but they didn’t think of us as real musicians” – but within a year they’d signed to both Nylon (the publishing arm of the American style magazine) and Virgin for a record deal. Their noisy gigs and outrages vintage outfits had drawn the needed attention of journalists and fans.
Barcelona, first single from NYLON Records’ own Plastiscines! Directed by Marvin Scott Jarrett
Their cult fashion status has also been set in stone with their TV appearance. “We love 60s fashion,” say Neuilly. “I’m always going round to my gran’s house, trying to find the fur coats and vintage things that my mum wore back then.”
The group is obviously being taken more seriously in music circles now. “When we played at Coachella, Prince was playing the same night. And we supported Iggy Pop and the Stooges and we really expected to be booed off stage, but at the end of the night, Iggy came over, in only a towel, and said, ‘Girls, you rocked. I love your music.’ And now, whenever we’re at the same shows or festivals, he’s like, ‘Where are the Plastiscines, where are my friends?’”
Recently, Vandevyvere met Dave Grohl and Neuilly met the Eagles of Death Metal. “We tried so hard to stay cool, but inside we were, like, ohmigod, ohmigod! We are just 21-year-old girls, you know, and this is all so big we can’t take it in.”
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