Their first performance was to be a single event. For 28 years the exception has been replayed every night.
Les Tambours du Bronx was born in 1987 in Varennes-Vauzelles, a small town near Nevers (Nièvre). A district of railway and other workers, this local Bronx gives birth to a bloc, a pack amidst the machines. The rhythm of the factory and workshops will be its tempo. The grid street layout will become a pattern and the music will proceed from their raw material, metal. Oil-drums, pick-axe handles : being radical is indeed « starting from the root ». Revealed in 1989 by Jean-Paul Goude on the occasion of the Bicentenary of the French Revolution, Les Tambours du Bronx then carried their 225-litre musical coat of arms out of their native district. They recorded their album Grand Mix, composed by Ris and Sauvageot, with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Pays de Loire and with the Voix Bulgares. In 1995 the Festival of Roskilde (Denmark) discovered them as the support band of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin). In 2000 they were acclaimed by Johnny Halliday’s audience under the Eiffel Tower. In November of the same year Les Tambours du Bronx invaded American soil : from East to West the horde travelled across the United States to give 38 wild performances in a 60-day tour. In 2005 the audience in Budapest applauded them as the support band of KoRn at the Sziget festival. In 2006 Les Tambours du Bronx galvanized the Stade de France. In 2007 they joined forces with the Orchestra of the Laureates of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and with the Young Gods and Didier Wampas, and thus the oil-drums rang out in the Paris Zenith. In 2008 they created 3 tracks with Jaz Coleman (Killing Joke). In 2009 Les Frères Morvan and Les Tambours together swept the audience off their feet at the festival Les Vieilles Charrues. In 2011, for the first time, they joined Sepultura for a common show at the Rock in Rio festival. Metallica, for its part, only had to benefit from a heated overexcited audience. The impact of the duo was resounding : in 2013, 200,000 people waited for them for a deafening live. Their meeting will be reenacted in Times Square in September 2014.
Today, the musical synaesthetic upheaval caused by the fusion of Sepultura/Les Tambours du Bronx is immortalized on their album Metal VeinsAlive at Rock in Rio.
For 28 years, Les Tambours du Bronx, this 16head industrial monster has been spreading its rage and its sound over every continent, this herd of individualities has irrigated every country with its sweat, this horde with its animal-like look has raged on every stage. The United States, Brazil, the Arab Emirates, China, Morocco, Tunisia, HongKong, Greece, Reunion, the Republic of Djibouti, Egypt, Norway, Slovenia, Portugal, the whole of Western Europe have experienced their music and their fiery temper. Fukushima mon amour (2011) sums up this first quarter of a century of Les Tambours du Bronx, these 25 years of shows, of roads, of anger and encounters : the life of an exceptional independent band.
2015 : CORROS
Nowadays the band brandishes the emblem of its origins, the rhinoceros, and goes wildly back to its roots. With CORROS the tenacious anchored beast merges with the raven, the mythical bird with the harsh scream. This bestiary inaugurates a new scene and heralds a new century. Les Tambours du Bronx is a gathering force. More than a group, individualities without equal face each other, combine, unite and confront each other. Thus Les Tambours du Bronx gives meaning to the phrase « living art » : energy, flow, life itself
emerge from the sound of this 16-head band which, far from leaving you unmoved, is fascinating and overwhelming. Their number, their passion and their influences sculpt an energetic sharp music mingling rock, indus, techno and afrobeat and blending synthetic sounds and samples. A collective production of gestures and fever, a choreography in which strength intensifies, the tempo is electrified, voices turn into shouts, all of it in a violently aesthetic cohesion. Being there, whole, standing and striking the iron as though they were going to die tomorrow. And starting all over again. The sight of bodies heating up in the mechanics of a rhythm oiled to perfection is hypnotic and the show is cathartic. The audience and Les Tambours are interactive, the one feeding the others. The audience is indeed their capital. Exhaustion has vanished, each musician acting, striking, shouting with the energy of a transcended audience. The music becomes flesh and one exults with Les Tambours.