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 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/track/1489287/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!!