On the seventh and final day of the Music Interview Marathon, we speak to the French band Lee O’Nell Blues Gang. They share their unique musical creative process and their dream to perform with their influences and favourite artists.
Band Name: Lee O’Nell Blues Gang
Members: Gipsy Bacuet (vocals), Lionel Wernert (Guitar), François Barizaux (Keyboard), Philippe Dandrimont (Bass) & Pierre Alain Delaunoy (drums)
Genre: Contemporary Blues Rock
Founded: May 2019
Originated From: Reims, France
Discography: Different Shades Of Love (Album, 2020) & This is Us (Album, 2022)
How would you describe your music?
It is described by specialised press as some Contemporary Blues Rock, which suits us quite well. When Lionel decided to form his own band, he definitely didn’t want to be part of one anonymous band like many others who repeat what is already done.
It isn’t worth forming a new band to offer to the audience a sad and insipid copy. So, of course, we decided to play Blues, which is not a new flavour but we put into our music all the influences that we have, such as rock, blues, soul and jazz.
What is your musical creative process like?
Lionel is our composer and Gipsy writes the lyrics. For the rest of the creative process, it may vary depending on who of Gipsy or Lionel is initiating a new song. Sometimes, Lionel simply takes his guitar to improvise a riff and keeps working on it until he finds the right chord combination.
Then, this turns into a rich combination of chords for the verse, the chorus, the bridge, a melodic guitar solo, a great B3 Hammond sound to bring the 70s rock touch and that’s all.
Gipsy offers Lionel a large vocal range, so we’re not too worried about the tone of the song, and she can bring a jazzy sound into a rock piece for example. We really enjoy mixing several styles in the same tune.
With lyrics, we enjoy writing about human relations, its ambiguity, its extremes and opposites. That allows Lionel to mix more influences in the same piece. For example, Gipsy wrote a song about Lionel’s father who sadly died 10 years before they met each other. We didn’t want this song to be too sad and tearful, so we welcomed some rumba dance music.
And as English is not our native language, we sought some help from three close friends. The first is Neal Walden Black. He is a very great guitarist and songwriter. He is a Texan and used to open for Stevie Ray Vaughan when he lived in the USA in the 80s. He’s now living in France since the 90s and has a very great career here.
The second one is Alain Leadfoot Rivet who is also a very good songwriter and singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He’s French but his musical American culture is so large.
And the third but not least is Jade Macrae. She is a fabulous Australian singer and background vocalist for Joe Bonamassa. We first met virtually on social media during the pandemic and when we were working on the second album. We asked her to help with lyrics on a special song, the last of our album. She immediately accepted with such kindness. Now, we meet her every year when she comes to play in Europe with her own project.
We’re so grateful for these meetings, these working moments with such artists. But after two albums, which means 24 songs in two years, we admit that it becomes more difficult for us to write.
How did the band form?
It was just after a friend of ours, Fred Chapellier, invited Lionel and Gipsy as a duet as guests to one of his shows. He knew that we played some of his own songs, and asked us to share the stage saying, “Here are my musicians, play my songs for me and the audience please!”. It was such an honour and a great moment.
Two months later, Lionel called the best musicians in our area, all coming from different universes from blues, rock and even classical piano and jazz, to form Lee O’Nell Blues Gang.
We first played covers for only a few concerts, and Lionel composed the first album Different Shades Of Love between September and December 2019.
How did you come up with your band name?
Here in France, we don’t pronounce Lionel as you do. So if you pronounce it like Lee O’Nell, you will have the right pronunciation. And as we are not young musicians, we feel the idea of a gang was more fitting for us than simply a band.
Who influenced you within the music industry?
We grew up with Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Rainbow, Kiss etc… We think these years were the best ever. Really creative years where there was no limit, and so much to explore. The 70s were prolific years. We’ve listened to all these legendary bands, feeding our souls of their universes.
Many years later, we needed to come back to the roots of rock and study the Blues, listening to the likes of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Albert King among many others.
More recently we’ve been influenced by Joe Bonamassa, Christone Kingfish Ingram and Eric Gales…and of course our friend and brother Fred Chapellier.
We’ve also been attracted by Jazzy female voices such as Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald and blues artists such as Etta James, country with Bonnie Raitt, and more recently Joanne Shaw Taylor.
Have you performed live much and what was your favourite gig to play at?
Unfortunately, the pandemic has stopped our beginnings for two years with all the lockdowns imposed in France from March 2020 until July 2021.
Now, with this crisis, another problem emerges, which is the lack of attendance and so it means less money for the festivals. Sadly, a lot of great venues are stopping their activity. Anyway, each gig is a favourite until the next one.
We enjoy being headliners, but we also much appreciate being openers. For the new audience, it brings to us, the meeting with artists.
Another favourite moment is when you can jam with the headliner after their show. The meeting between voices, guitar styles, sounds etc. Music is sharing.
From our beginnings, we’ve only played in France, but we will soon start to play in Belgium, which is a great and interesting country for Blues Rock. They are really open-minded, much more than in France where music is closed in thin and strict areas.
What is the best thing about being in a band?
As musicians, we can express ourselves with our instruments. Lionel can make his guitar cry. Some chords can sound happy or dark.
We also enjoy every step of the production of an album. Creation is really interesting from its intimate part when you start a song until you can listen to it with your own CD in your hands.
But ultimately, being on stage is the side of a musician’s life we prefer. Recording an album is a great adventure, but on stage, you are alone with yourself, and you must be very attentive to everything that is happening, Mistakes and hesitation have no place. For the one or two hours of the show, you must be 200% ready! You can share a unique moment with so many people at the same time. A moment out of time.
You give a part of yourself and you receive a hundred times more! Smiles, looks and applauses. When writing lyrics, we tell stories, true or not and nobody knows, but in each one, there is a deep part of us, and we like to know that people can recognise themselves in the songs. You can write universal things but also such intimate feelings.
Music is also a way to meet a lot of people, some of them just like to say hello on social media, and some need to talk because you brought them something they needed without knowing it.
What’s the biggest problem you’ve had to overcome so far as a musician(s)?
The most difficult for us is that we decided not to belong to a label, so we have to put all the caps on our heads. We must be composer, lyrics writer, guitarist, singer, leader of the group and all these points are very great, pleasant and we love them. But the hardest is to have to find ourselves concerts and contact directly the promoters
Yes, we are producers, financial directors, booking agents, PR in France, we assure the distribution of the album too, and Gispy drives the van when we are touring.
What plans have you got coming up this year?
We will soon start to play in Belgium and are waiting for a little tour in Germany. We’re so excited by meeting the European audiences, even if we are already airplay in England, Holland, Germany, Belgium, the USA, Canada, Cuba and Japan.
What is your ultimate dream as a band?
We dream to play with Eric Gales, Joe Bonamassa and Jade Macrae.
You can find out more about Lee O’Nell Blues Gang by visiting their website and following them on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Spotify.
If you’re in a band or a musician and would like to appear on this blog, please contact me and I’ll forward you an interview template.
Also, check out my other Music Interview roundups from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022.
