Lung

Hello wonderful people,

Here's for you all to watch, “the behind-the-scenes” filming day 4. This day was also really special to us. Can you imagine being in Ernest Hemingway's home on your own playing music? Strumming your guitars in his lounge, and singing, "In the Key of West"…Unthinkable! But it really happened!

Key West and the Florida Keys; a place he loved so dearly.  Indubitably, his passion for deep-sea fishing was one of the many reasons why he settled down here in the early 1930s. What an era to settle down in Key West, don't you agree?

He used to say, that Key West and the Florida Keys were unlike any other place he'd ever been, and, the greatest place in the world anytime, any day. It's now 2023, and we have traveled quite a lot around the world and indeed, we also think it is a very special place in the world. A place but also a community that deserves many tributes! 

In late January 2023, as I was writing, Ric had just ended a call with the person responsible for the “Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum”, the wonderful, elegant, and very kind, Alexa Morgan. He said, with a big smile on his face,  “Chris please stop a minute! I have incredible news! We have the authorization to go film in Hemigway's home! The Hemingway Home and Museum liked the song and our initiative to use our music as a vehicle to help children in difficult situations;  

We will be in his house alone (with the cats) for two hours!"

 Ric and I, both at the same time, cried with joy and hugged each other. It was such a surreal and happy moment. We felt so encouraged. We have so much respect for the writer and the person that Ernest Hemingway was. 

Do you want to know a secret?  ('Course you do! We all love secrets.). We have a beautiful picture of Hemingway with one of his cats in our lounge. But this is not the secret!  

The secret is, every day waiting for the answer,  I was secretly watching his picture in our lounge and talking to Hemingway as if he could hear me (You may think am crazy and it's ok):  "Please Sir, let us go film a scene in your home", we love you so much and you are a legend of the Florida Keys, we know you loved people and artists, you helped so many down here on earth, and because of all the good that you did, you are mentioned in our song, please make it happen. It would be so supportive of you for our charity efforts".

It felt like Ernest Hemingway himself had answered the request made to him. Up to this day, we want to believe this encouragement came directly from him. 

Two months later we arrived at his home at 7 am on a very hot and beautifully sunny Monday morning. We were excited like kids. Although, our excitement changed to a sudden very calm attitude when entering his home.  We were received like royalty. It is so humbling when you think about what Hemingway had achieved throughout his life! All the team had cleaned the house for us. We were here for real now and ready to film! Only us… and the cats. We actually even had the chance to have one cat staying next to us during a take. It really was surreal all the way through. Like a dream. We are eternally grateful for these moments.

For some of you who have not yet visited the “Hemingway's Home and Museum” in Key West, we urge you to get there whenever you are in town. It's a fantastic place and you will love the stories the guide will share with you.

To finish this blog today we would love to share with you a very famous quote from Ernest Hemingway, which is in our opinion a very humbling one for us all:

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self”.  

Thank you all for your continuous support and don't forget to please feel free to join our "little angels" family. If you have not done it already! Just click on the link below to buy the song:

https://lungmusic.com/album/790822/in-the-key-of-west-keys-strong

You will automatically be part of our efforts to help underprivileged children. We are grateful for your support with this initiative and for being part of the lung community!

And as always… much much love,

Chris x and Ric x

Dear friends,

How was your Labor Day week-end?

The weather was perfect, we hope you all enjoyed friends, family, boating, and BBQ 's!

Now, my Labor Day week-end was somewhat eventful. Although, not really my kind of event…

The car key broke into the ignition, It was quite the test of patience to try to get the broken key out of the ignition socket. Not to mention that I was quite anxious to remove it in case a broken piece of the key was to stay in it!  After long efforts,  it finally worked, a pair of pliers and a kitchen cloth did the trick. But as if it wasn't enough, the next day it was the battery that gave up.

Thankfully all has now been resolved. It really was a Labor Day -:) 

You can now all watch episode 3 part 2 of Behind the Scenes filming the music video, “War Bird” at Florida Keys Flight Academy, Marathon F.L.

Please do share your thoughts with us!  Thank you for making the time for us.

 We send you much beats and love.

Chris x and Ric x

Great news! You can now also subscribe to our LUNG TV on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@LUNGTV1

Dear friends,

How are you all doing today?

“It is our pleasure to welcome you aboard flight “The Florida Keys flight Academy” with continuing service above the fabulous Florida Keys”!

Episode 3 part 1 took place in Marathon Airport where we filmed some aerial shots.

Our friend Sol, owner-operator, pilot, and flying instructor of the fantastic Florida Keys Flight Academy has been incredibly generous with us. He took us and Olivier Févin (director of photography) on a very early morning flight above the Keys filming from the stretch and all the way down to Pigeon Key!

We had never seen the Keys like that before. It is for us all an unforgettable experience that we will always treasure. We are forever grateful for all the beauty we have seen this day.

It was also such a fun day! Big thank you again to Sol Bradman, Kirsten Brown Hoskins, and all involved. Such kind, fun, and generous people. What a fabulous team they all are at the Florida Keys Flight Academy and Million Air in Marathon. If some of you are dreaming about learning how to pilot your own plane, don't think twice! Just go learn with them, you won't regret it.

As always, please feel free to join our "little angels" family. If you have not done it already! Just click on the link below to buy the song and share it with many around you!

https://lungmusic.com/album/790822/in-the-key-of-west-keys-strong

You will automatically be part of our efforts to help underprivileged children. We are grateful for your support with this initiative and for being part of the lung community!

We hope you enjoy this episode-:)

Much love and beats to you all!

Chris x and Ric x

Great news! You can now also subscribe to our LUNG TV on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LUNGTV1

Dear friends,

How are you all doing? Are you all enjoying the beautiful summer?

Let us know where you are and what you are all up to!

Here's today and as promised episode 3 of "Behind the Scenes" filming the music video “In the Key of West”.

We went to the famous “sandbars” in Islamorada. For the ones who have never yet come to visit the Keys, or the ones who came to the Keys but never had a chance to go to the sandbars, it is a shallow stretch of white sand, just offshore in the upper Florida Keys. 

The Islamorada sandbar is an extremely popular place for boats to anchor and swim in the crystal clear water. Gatherings on the sandbar can be calm and relaxing, or wild parties, depending on the day and the crowd. For us obviously, it wasn't a wild party! It was a fun day though, as always over there, but it was a very busy filming day for us all.  We had on board with us Olivier Févin, director of photography, and Jason Lucas who, brilliantly, operated the drone, our faithful friends of many adventures Sol and Barbara, and their beautiful dog Chief. It was actually sometimes hard to keep Chief out of the picture as he really wanted to contribute, one way or another-:). Like us all, he is always up to do something fun!

Until we send you the next Vlog we leave you for now enjoying a little glimpse of what was a wonderful day. We laughed a lot while filming the scenes. It was really hot and it was so enjoyable for us all to be on the water. We ended the day with a boat ride far away on the open ocean to enjoy the sunset. It couldn't get any better than that!

Now, we would like to let you know where we are out with the video editing; we are about 65% done. We are excited and cannot wait to share it with you all and the world!

Some other exciting news:  some important radios in South Florida love the song! More importantly to us, they also the initiative of “Little Angels” charity efforts to help underprivileged children. Lots of interviews are now also on the calendar. We feel incredibly blessed by how things are developing around this charity project. So thankful for the support we are receiving.

We will send you more updates when closer to the start of programmation dates so you can stay tuned with your favorite radio stations and newspapers. 

In the meantime, please feel free to join our "little angels" family. If you have not done it already! Just click on the link below to buy the song:

https://lungmusic.com/album/790822/in-the-key-of-west-keys-strong

You will automatically be part of our efforts to help underprivileged children. We are grateful for your support with this initiative and for being part of the lung community!

As we are now approaching the 4th of July national celebrations -we LOVE it!- we wish you all to have fun!

Beats and much love,

Chris x and Ric x

Dear friends,

How are you all doing and what are you up to this summer?

Last Monday night we enjoyed a night out to see the “Greater Miami symphonic band”. It was the 44th season “grand finale” concert. It took place at the beautiful Maurice Gusman concert hall at the University of Miami, Coral Gables.  The live performance of this amazing classic orchestra was divided into two parts. The first part was with guest conductor Barry Bernhardt and the second part was with conductor Robert Longfield. We had the pleasure to meet with them both after the performance. Two very talented & fine gentlemen! We were blessed to have been invited to this event by our dear friend and French Horn player, Kirk Steputis who played his part wonderfully among this incredibly brilliant orchestra of 95 musicians!  We are so grateful for the inspiring and fabulous moment of music this was for us. 

We don't want to give it all away just yet, but, our new upcoming album involves classical music.

But for now, we wanted to share with you another episode of -day 2- filming the “In the Key of West” music video.

 This one is actually the shortest of them all because you know what? we were all exhausted! Ric and I had just worked very hard for 2 months non-stop in the daytime to prepare for the filming and also performing live gigs at night, Olivier the cameraman was still very much jet lagged..and…you guessed it:  It was starting to be seriously  hot in the fabulous Florida Keys. We were absolutely cooking in the heat! 

This episode was shot right before we filmed some scenes at the world-famous "snappers", Key Largo, a venue where we regularly play since many years. The support we receive from the audience there is one of a kind!  Performing at Snappers is so much fun; the crowd is always fantastic, a local's favorite, which makes the whole experience very special. 

Other episodes filmed in other parts of the Keys will continue to be posted here until the video clip is released at the end of July. In the meantime, we thank you all very much for keeping up with us!

Please do not hesitate to leave us a note, or a comment anytime about what we share with you. We do it all for you, so we always love to hear about your suggestions and feedback.

Much love and beats,  

Chris and Ric xx

 Dear friends, 

We hope you are all doing well. 

The highly anticipated music video for the charity single "In the Key Of West" is finally underway and will be premiered at the end of July 2023! 

Many of you are requesting to see a glimpse of the filming period, so we thought it may be a good idea to introduce you to the people and places who have all contributed in their own way to make this music video possible. Until the video premiere, we will be posting here on our blog different short episodes of "Behind the Scenes".

It was early morning in Key Largo, after having played a gig the previous night. We were not quite awake when we all arrived on the dock, but we were all very happy and excited to start our first filming day! 

It was another very hot and beautiful day in paradise...

Please feel free to join our "little angels" family. If you have not done it already! Just click on the link below to buy the song:

https://lungmusic.com/album/790822/in-the-key-of-west-keys-strong

You will automatically be part of our efforts to help underprivileged children. We are grateful for your support with this initiative and for being part of the lung community!

You can share this song and information with your friends and family. Let's do this together, helping these children is much needed.

Beats and much love,  Chris x and Ric x

Dear friends,

So wonderful to finally find the time to connect with you all here today. How are you all doing?

We started filming the music video for the children's charity single “ In the Key of West” in early March and we finished it in early April. There were also some gigs in between, so it was a well-filled schedule! Not to mention my lower back gave up in the middle of the filming which imposed me to stay laying down for a full week unable to do much.  

We did it all by ourselves and had no big fancy filming crew. It was us both and Olivier Févin our director of photography who came all the way from Paris for the occasion. He absolutely adored the Keys and its Key people and was so sad to leave. Bless his heart.

Of course, it was quite exhausting at times but we also learned a lot in the process. We are very grateful for all the support we generously received from many and absolutely everywhere. This touched us. It was so encouraging every step of the way. Without the help of you all, we couldn't have done it.
 

Outstanding Mother Nature was the best actress ever: never late, never needy, knew her script, and was absolutely perfect and good to us every day during the whole filming period. Filming outdoors can be quite challenging at times, the weather, the light, the long drives. But oh My! How perfect it was every day!
 

It was so amazing to visit all of the Keys again from the stretch to Key West.

We also filmed on Indian Key a great historical place to visit if some of you have never been, we highly recommend you go! The history we discovered there haunted us for a long time after the filming, and it still does-:) The Keys are definitely full of marvels and beautiful surprises.

It was also incredible for us to fly above the Keys on a US Army W.W.2 training plane! Our friend and pilot Sol Bradman from “Florida Keys flight academy” in Marathon, was absolutely amazing. We are also praising the kindness of beautiful  Kirsten Brown Hoskins, of island warbirds “Florida Keys Flight Academy” who relentlessly drove the golf cart back and forth a million times along the tarmac under a boiling sun, as we had to get the perfect landing shot! 

Another fantastic day was to be on our own -but with the cats- filming at Ernest Hemingway's home & museum in Key West.  As you can imagine, quite precious and magical that was….

Our last day of filming was at Coral shores high school with all the students, the famous “ hurricanes”, who gave so much love and energy to the shot!  They sang with us with all their hearts. This is also unforgettable for us. 

We don't want to tell it all here as we want to keep the surprise intact for you until the video comes out.

We now cannot wait to start the editing of the video as we have great shots! But we please ask for a bit more of your patience as our schedule in May isn't light either!  

Mid-May after our gigs here in the Keys and as the season slows down a little, Ric will be going on a West Coast tour with Modern English. 

I will be there with him for the first week, but this time not to perform. It will be to keep writing the book of our story moving from Europe to the United States. 

Our arrival and start in America with the RV experience was in California. We feel it is quite beautiful to have this little moment in California, where it all started. This current schedule happens at the exact moment as we decided it may now be time to tell you the whole story through the book. You have been, and are, so many asking us every week for this. It wouldn't be fair not to tell this story. 

I cannot, unfortunately, tell it all at the gigs between songs as it would be more theatrical than musical-:)!

I admit, it is exciting and also a bit scary all at once;  it will be the first book I will write. It is also in English which is not as you all know my birth language. But the challenge and our story are I think all worth it! 

We are thinking about releasing the book with our new upcoming album. We have now decided on the title for the album but we will keep it secret until the release…sorry-:)

In the hope that our story, love, and vision of America can someday inspire many.

We will of course, and as always, keep you updated on all that we are currently preparing for you. In the meantime please feel free to comment, write to us, and share your thoughts. We LOVE hearing from you.

Also, we will soon post here on the blog the “behind the scenes” moments of the filming.

In the meantime….thank you all very much for all the love and support.

We love you all very much too.

Chris x and Ric x

                        1st day of filming. Ric handled the clapboard on Rachel's "cruisin' tikis, Key Largo.

                        Olivier Févin, director of photography, thinking about the next take.

                         The one and only, Ernest Hemingway. Thank you Sir for welcoming us to your home.

                        Historical Indian Key. Original signposts.

     Our friend Sol Bradman aka “the legend”, drummer, owner & air pilot “Of Florida Keys flight academy”.

                 pic: @ Olivier Févin.

           Our very special assistant, dear Kirsten Brown Hoskins “ Florida Keys flight Academy” & “Million air”   

                  Sweet friend Rebekah Suza, Pianist, performer, boat captain, and…our special mermaid!

 Olivier Févin with Melissa Pimentel and Tyler Peraza our wonderful actors for a few scenes. Lunch break.

                        Bird tree “Anne's beach”, Islamorada, FL.

The day we met Jeff Beck... 

Back in 2008, I was invited by virtuoso violinist Nigel Kennedy to take part in his quintet as a vocalist & songwriter alongside Xantoné Blacq, for his album simply named "a very nice album" (EMI classics). To this day I am deeply grateful and humbly thankful to Nigel for this unforgettable &incredible experience. We performed live at the jazz café in London for the official release of this amazing album. After the performance, as Ric and I were heading backstage, the door opened as I was trying to open it. It was Jeff Beck! He said "Wow! Are you Chris?!" 
I was completely taken aback and just responded "Wow! Are you Jeff Beck!?" 
A burst of big laughter and the hellos followed. I asked him: " How did you know my name? Nobody knows me here!" 
He innocently responded " But you just sang with Nigel and he introduced you on stage and I loved your voice and performance. That's how I know your name!" Then he invited Ric and me to seat with him in a quiet place in the busy backstage. After a while we stopped talking music, we talked about food &cooking! 
He asked me "So you French people all must know how to cook mushrooms properly can you please tell me how it works because I fail miserably when I do and it's unfortunate because I adore them." 
Of course, I did share with him a few recipes & cooking instructions. I remember vividly this very special moment... 
How can an apprentice guitarist and singer like I was then and still am- can ever forget this!? 
He was very kind, very humble, and a true gentleman. Such a great inspiration in choosing the guitar as an instrument too, and will remain all of our life one of our greatest inspirations as musicians. Thank God for him and his music. He will be cruelly missing down here. It's crushing. Obviously now for the rest of my life, I will think of him each and every time I cook mushrooms whilst I will be listening To his incredibly beautiful music playing in the background. We will be playing and cooking together when we will join him in the other world. Much love and respect Sir Jeff Beck for your astonishing contribution to music. One of your most memorable pieces of advice was to run away from applause and to never stay in our comfort zone as musicians. Up to this day, we followed this sound and wise advice. Our American adventure says it all. We would like to mention that he was a completely sober man and didn't do drugs. Additionally, to music, his passions were: collecting old cars, doing animal rescue & cooking. May you now rest in peace. Prayers & sincere condolences to his wife Sandra.

Hello beautiful souls! We hope you are well.  You all know that Ric and I absolutely adore children; Their candor and curiosity are always one of our greatest inspirations. 

Before Covid 19 came around spreading global suffering and disorder, we had the great honor to be invited by Jeanne d'Arc primary school in Figeac, Lot, France to do Q & A with the children. It was a fantastic experience! We discussed performing music in the United States, the importance of speaking different languages, the planet, Florida's wildlife, and fauna, hurricane Irma in the Florida keys which in the aftermath inspired us the song "in the key of West".  We are very grateful to our dear friend Clotilde St Poulof-Bonnardot who is in charge of children with learning and attention disabilities, and teacher Marie Heinrich for making it happen in the most wonderful ways.  VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/uobeEnAjUlc

Don't get fooled by the calm in the classroom they were very attentive to everything all the way through but afterward were asking a billion questions and didn't want us to leave....!  Beats & love from us. xx

https://youtu.be/uobeEnAjUlc

Dear friends-:) It was so much fun to entertain people coming to get vaccinated in Gascony, France.  

Music is proven to be the perfect anti-stress. Shot & Roll!!