Meet Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse: where Jimmy…
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Comprising Louisiana-born singer and musician Greta Valenti and guitarist and British Blues Hall Of Fame inductee Robin Davey, California-based Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse are currently taking their blend of blues, rock, country and soul around Britain on a 19-date tour.
You must be sick of explaining the band’s name, but… please spill the beans.
Valenti: [Laughs] Our song What’s My Name from our first album Love & Murder semi-explains that had I been a boy my name would have been Beaux Gregory, and that my dad always liked his boy children much better than me [laughs]. Also, I wanted a band that was all about Louisiana, where I’m from, and the beautiful gumbo of cultures that make up that incredibly unique place.
In these ADD-affected days, people scroll past something they don’t recognise. Has the name’s obscurity had any negative impact?
Davey: At first we did wonder if we had made a mistake, that it was so long, or too weird, but the opposite has happened. It stuck in people’s mind as unusual, even if they can’t pronounce it…
Valenti: …It’s ‘Gree Gree’, not ‘Griss Griss’. It’s French, people!
The band’s intriguingly titled third album, Hot Nostalgia Radio, was written over a four-year spell, and you had more than a hundred songs to choose from. What were you looking for in the final fourteen?
Valenti: After such a long wait, every song had to be a banger. We’re an independent band, we run our own label and we really need to get our name out there and in front of more people. I wanted an album of songs that you could hear on the radio.
Satisfy Your Queen, the first single from the album, is powered by a dirty, Led Zeppelin-like riff that sticks in the brain.
Davey: My influences are the same as those of Jimmy Page. The intro riff is based around something Lightning Hopkins or Guitar Slim would play, but revved up a little. Which is basically what Zeppelin did.
The video for that track has Greta in mock vampire teeth and wielding a broad sword. It looks like it was a lot of fun to make.
Valenti: The song itself is a bit aggressive. I’m a woman demanding people to satisfy their queens, whether in a sexual or relationship way. I wanted a fun video to reveal my true nature as a New Orleans vampire.
As well as being musical partners, you guys are a couple. When and how did you meet?
Davey: Through YouTube, of all places. We were in separate bands, and both had videos in an early YouTube music video competition.
What was Robin’s chat-up line?
Davey: We knew each other a while before we got together, so there was no definitive chat-up line, though I did cast Greta as the lead in a Buckcherry video I was directing.
Valenti: That was very casting-couch behaviour. He also sent me some scandalous photographs. I guess it worked. Together sixteen years this fall.
The press info talks of “epic, one-of-a-kind live shows”. What makes them unique?
Davey: Sometimes our show approaches three hours, and although we have a list of songs, we never have a set order. It all depends on the room, the audience and how we are feeling.
Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse are on tour in the UK until May 7, and return in July. For dates and tickets, visit their website. Hot Nostalgia Radio is out on May 3.
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