What if the best-kept secret of American music was French? Originally from Romans-sur-Isère, a small town in the Drôme, Renaud Brustlein began music idleness at the age of 14. "Rugby was never my thing, so I fell into metal," he recalls. At the age of 14, he played guitar in an ad hoc band. Rehearsals every Sunday morning, discipline, rigor. "They fired me because I wasn't good enough, it motivated me even more." In a region arid in terms of cultural offer, the young man makes his musical culture by devouring the press, Metal Magazine and Rocksound, the one that buys records.
But it was his parents' albums that tipped H-Burns into American folk. "I discovered Cohen and Dylan at a very young age, then put them aside in my alternate phase before coming back and trying to play their songs on the guitar in my room." Dylan's diction marks him so much that he will unintentionally borrow it on his first two albums. "I was obsessed," he says. Recently, H-Burns made a pilgrimage to New York, following in the footsteps of the 2016 Nobel Prize: the clubs of Greenwich Village, the former Columbia studio and all Dylanian mythology. "For me, these guys are characters from novels, it goes way beyond music. I feel like we have less like that today."
The American Dream
After giving up metal, H-Burns dabbled in postrock before embracing the music he really loved. "Initially, I hid behind the effect pedals and instrumental flights. Then, one day, I started wanting texts." If he does not like his voice and it will take him three albums to support his way of singing, H-Burns quickly proves to be a major songwriter. "The text is more painful for me in the creative gesture, that's what comes a little at the last minute. I'm waiting to have a theme, sometimes even a common thread for an album." Quickly, H-Burns went to the United States to design his records, a way to rub shoulders with myths. He collaborates with Steve Albin, pope of the underground and former producer of Nirvana and PJ Harvey. "We worked hard before not to look like amateurs. he says. It was hyperformative, the pressure I put on myself by going to Albini. I wanted the songs to be good and the lyrics successful.
»From now on, it is in Los Angeles, in the house of Rob Schnapf, former collaborator of Elliot Smith and Beck, that H-Burns makes his albums. The latest, Sunset Park, is another success to the credit of this talented and sensitive artist. Before recording this album of original songs, H-Burns had rejuvenated himself at the Cohen fountain with a masterful disc of covers of the master, Burns on the Wire.
On April 14, at the Sirène de la Rochelle - one of the most beautiful concert halls in our country - H-Burns offered a very exceptional evening. This gourmet, a great lover of natural wines, had asked a great chef of the city to orchestrate a menu around his music. This allowed the public to taste delicious dishes while attending three different configurations: guitar and unamplified voice for the entrance, between two pillars of the basement of the room, amplified acoustic guitar, second guitar (electric, this time) and voice for the main course, in a beautiful space located on the first floor of the room, and 100% electric set with drums for dessert, on a central stage in a very rock atmosphere.
H-Burns will be on June 8 in concert in Paris, at La Maroquinerie, this time surrounded by a full band. Not to be missed.
