Cal
Harry
Morris
François
Shots by Wendy Lam
“Surrender, Surrender – but don’t give yourself away..."
--M. Robespierre
The French have a long tradition of surrendering, and it is in this tradition that…Nous Non Plus is born.
…Nous Non Plus (meaning “We neither,” and/or also “Neither do we,” as well as, literally, “Us No More”) is composed of former members of the Paris-by-way-of-New York band, Les Sans Culottes. After numerous years of performing as Les Sans Culottes, the band formed in the summer of 2005 after [this portion of the bio has been removed for legal reasons]. Rather than continue fighting in [this section has also been blacked out], Céline et al decided it was best to fight this fight on the slightly more affordable Boulevard d’Opinion Publique. Justice is blind, the band can tell you this firsthand…
The members of …Nous Non Plus hail variously from Paris (chanteuse Céline Dijon), La Jolla (guitarist Calvino "Cal D’Hommage" DiMaggio), Westport (chanteuse Bonnie Day), San Francisco (keyboardist Morris “Mars” Chevrolet), Denver (chanteur, bassist Jean-Luc Retard), Pittsburgh (drummer Professeur Harry Covert) and Boston (Keyboardist, trumpet genius François Hardonne). They met at the Rhode Island School of Design in the early nineties, drinking in the sounds of 60's French yé-yé pop from Gainsbourg, Dutronc, and Ferrer. After an extended post-graduation stay in Ramatuelle, they relocated to New York in 1998.
Their sound was crafted off the drunken vapors of French pop, as heard through the ears of (mostly) Americans. After years of playing together, the band has grown, matured, ripened—like fine Bordeaux. …Nous Non Plus sees the opportunity of launching a new band as a way to highlight this maturation: What was once a band performing imitations of retro French icons has become the ne plus ultra of French rock and roll, as performed by (mostly) non-French peoples.
The result: mind-altering, elegant, sexy, bi-lingual Grand Guignol.
While the band's continued passion for singing in French in the USA might appear at first blush to be quixotic or even absurdist, as time goes on more and more people seem to realize exactly what the band is saying regardless of what language they are saying it in, and even while it is filtered through assumed personas. And perhaps there is still something revolutionary in that.