The Wankin' Noodles, four boys from Rennes who sing about girls
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Romain, Regis, Jean-Sylvain and Guillame went from being graphic design, cinema, information technology and literature students, to being backed by big names as France's latest post-teenage kicks band. Quick catch up with the twelve-eyed foursome at the Transmusicales festival in their hometown
Why 'The Wankin' Noodles'?
Romain (drummer): How would you translate it? (Les nouilles qui se branle...They clap.) Et bah voila.
Jean-Sylvain (guitarist): You can't say that on French radio, that's why. It's got to provoke. Noodles is very nice to pronounce.
How long have you been together?
Jean-Sylvain: We started playing together two years ago. But we only really started focusing six months ago.
Romain: We liked the same music and decided to start something together.
Describe your music.
Romain: To be honest, our music talks about girls all the time.
Regis (singer): Sometimes we talk about power,
Jean-Sylvain: ...money
Regis: luxury.
How do you work together?
Romain: All four of us work together equally, with the songwriting, composing, being onstage. It's all done collectively.
You all come from Rennes, and you were discovered at the Transmusicales in 2008. How do you feel to be playing this year as homegrown talent?
It's really great.
Jean-Sylvain: It's the festival where you discover this week and this year we're one of those discoveries. Plus the festival organiser Jean Brossard believes in us and is behind us.
Romain: We're very very proud.
What's next?
Romain: We'd like to go via Europe to conquer the world!
Jean-Sylvain: Musically there's a certain buzz going on around us right now so if we could we'd try to grab the attention of certain other important people, or go on a little tour after this, just show our music.
If you had one piece of advice for any other music hopefuls, what would it be?
Jean-Sylvain: work, work.
Regis: Try and do better than us.
Jean-Sylvain: No, work. You have to be talented but really get together every night and work, even if it can be boring to do that.