Cédric Floc'h, Matmatah's singer and guitarist, better known to French music fans by his stage name Sammy, says the group owe much of their success to their fans in Brittany. "There's a real concert culture in Brittany. In Brest, like everywhere else in the Finistère region, young musicians play a lot of gigs in local bars, either performing solo, or in duos or groups ... We've been living in Brest for three years now and we have a lot of contact with local people, you know, people say hello to us in the street and all that. I don't think the fact that we've suddenly sold 200 or 300,000 albums is going to change anything much. People might start nudging each other, and saying they've seen us on TV, but that's about it!".
Sammy recently underwent a radical change of image and now wears his dark hair cropped close to his head. Apparently, Sammy used to have flowing long locks and a beard like fellow Matmatah member Tristan Nihouarn (aka Stan), but last July he made the great mistake of betting on the outcome of the World Cup with a friend. Sammy thought the chances of the French football team walking off with the 1998 trophy were so slim that he (rather rashly!) vowed he would shave off all his hair if France actually managed to win. On 13 July 1998, as tens of thousands of French football fans took to the streets of Paris to celebrate their victory, Sammy picked up his scissors and started chopping! But Sammy's act appears to have brought Matmatah as much luck as the French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez's bald pate (which the French team used to kiss for luck before each match). Since Sammy shaved off his hair, Matmatah - who were extremely popular in Brittany but had never been heard of elsewhere - suddenly exploded onto the national music scene, rocketing to the top of the charts within just three months.
The Matmatah success story all began with a simple guitar riff - in fact, the same catchy riff which dominates the group's current hit single, Lambé An Dro".
"When I originally came out with those notes on my guitar, back in '92, '93, says Sammy,
Stan immediately said they reminded him of Celtic music. I couldn't see it myself. As far as I was concerned, it was just a straightforward blues scale ... But then I started looking into Celtic music a bit more and I suddenly discovered this whole new culture." Interestingly enough, Sammy's sudden interest in traditional Celtic folk coincided with something of a nationwide revival. Surely it's no coincidence that just a few months after the group Manau shot to the top of the singles charts with their catchy mix of rap and Breton folk music ("La tribu de Dana"), Matmatah should triumph with their Celtic rock album "La Ouache".
Matmatah have certainly played a major role in the Breton folk music revival. Indeed, the group's sound revolves around a modern re-working of the traditional Breton genre known as the ékan ha diskané - a traditional style of singing in which two vocalists perform a kind of verbal jousting match, their voices answering one another in rapid succession until the whole song runs away in a mad, frenzied rhythm. Matmatah had the brilliant idea of replacing the traditional vocals with squealing electric guitars (plus feedback) and the group's modern style of ékan ha diskané features Sammy and Stan performing amazing electric guitar solos while the rhythm section goes wild in the background. From the opening song "La fille du Chat Noir" until the rousing instrumental finale "Ribette's", Matmatah's album "La Ouache" delivers a fast and furious mixture of 'hard rock'n'folk'. And it looks as if French music fans can't get enough of the group's traditional rhyming slang ("lain'o"), judging by the reaction when the group launch into numbers like "Les moutons".
"Don't get me wrong, though, warns Sammy,
we don't want to get too carried away with the whole Celtic thing. Celtic music is just one of the many different musical sounds we're into." It's true - you only have to consider the origins of the group's name (Matmata, without the final H, is the name of a troglodyte village in southern Tunisia) to realise that the group's sound is actually made up of a whole mix of styles. Indeed, several tracks on the group's album have a strong Middle Eastern feel. The most impressive Middle Eastern/Breton folk fusion on "La Ouache" is "Troglodyte" - a song which recounts the experiences of a Tunisian immigrant from Matmata who comes to work in Paris. The song ends on a tragic note when the Tunisian worker is caught up in the carnage of the terrorist bomb attack on the Paris 'métro' (in November 1995). Matmatah don't mince their words on the track either, ending the song with the hard-hitting, blunt lyrics - "And now I've only got one foot".
The story of Matmatah's formation is a classic tale of rock music and adolescent rebellion. The foundations of the group were laid in 1992 when Sammy/Cédric (who was about to enrol at the Institute of Technology to study electrical engineering) met Stan/Tristan (who was about to go off to university and study maths). The two budding guitarists hit it off immediately, and began getting together on a regular basis to write songs and play covers of Led Zeppelin tracks on the local bar circuit.
Stan had actually started out his career as a committed rocker but in the end he was slowly won round by traditional Celtic sounds.
"In the beginning it was just an act of teenage rebellion, really" he says, "I got fed up with my parents taking me to all these traditional Breton folk festivals when I was a kid. In fact, I got so fed up that I rejected the whole Celtic music thing, lock, stock and barrel". Stan ended up getting so interested in traditional folk music, however, that he even took a course in "ékan ha diskané" at university. The second decisive moment in Matmatah's early career was when Sammy and Stan heard folk hero Alan Stivell's comeback album ("Again") at the end of '93. Stivell, the man who had launched the first Celtic music revival in the 70's with hits such as "Pop Plinn", was about to inspire a whole new generation of folk music fans.
"We actually bumped into Stivell three or four times when we played at concerts where he was performing too, Sammy and Stan remember,
But we were never brave enough to speak to him ..." Matmatah finally got round to sitting down and chatting with Stivell, however - when they performed one of the folk hero's legendary hits on stage with him at a concert in Blois in October this year. By then, of course, Sammy and Stan had got together with bass-player Eric Digaire (a geography student) and drummer Jean-François Paillard (a fishmonger) - in fact, the foursome had officially formed the final version of Matmatah in September 1995.
Matmatah rapidly went on to make a name for themselves on the local Breton music scene. But then this was hardly surprising - the group performed an average of 150 concerts (!) a year between '96 and '97. After playing together for just six months, Matmatah got their first big break, supporting the famous French funk group FFF when they appeared at the biggest concert venue in Brest in March '96. Matmatah's reputation soon spread by word-of-mouth and the group also got a lot of support from the local radio station (Radio France - West Brittany), where French singer Yvan Etienne is in charge of the station's musical programmes.
Following their success on the local Breton music scene, Matmatah went into the studio in July '97 to record a 2-track CD single ("Lambé An Dro" and "Les moutons") which they produced themselves. Much to everyone's surprise, the single became an overnight smash, selling over 30,000 copies in Brittany in just ten months. Encouraged by this success, Matmatah (who at this point did not even have a record deal) went off to England to record their debut album "La Ouache" (in just three weeks!)
Needless to say, it was not long before talent scouts Marc Thonon (from Tréma Records) and Francis Zégut (from the French radio station RTL) came to call. Matmatah went on to sign a recording deal with Tréma in May of this year, then set off on an extensive national tour. By July teenage music fans up and down the country were humming the chorus of "Lambé An Dro"
"Si tu veux un peu de gaieté/ Viens donc faire un tour à Lambé"("If you're looking for a bit of fun/ Then get yourself down to Lambé"). And the rest, of course, is history!
Following the overnight success story of the French rock group Louise Attaque, Matmatah can now claim to be the latest French music phenomenon. And deservedly so! After the rise of the teenage Boys Bands and their saccharine pop, it's refreshing to see French school kids getting into good-quality Celtic rock at last!
