Terrenoire, a generous tour group – Liberation

The vertigo of highways, dates that we chain, cities that we forget as quickly as we salute them, on stage … « Thank you, Bayonne, Lyon, Strasbourg. » The duo of Terrenoire, a set of two musician brothersmale revelation of the Victoires de la Musique in 2022, decided to put the Holà. At each stage of the tour they have just started, Raphaël and Théo Herrerias take the time, two or three days, for dating-debates, masterclass, writing workshops. They had « Intuition and the need to slow down, not to see France as a scrolling landscape », explains Raphaël Herrerias, the singer and the elder. « There was a standardization, as if the tour was a single momenthe continues. Arriving, playing, sleeping in the same disembodied industrialized area. On tour, we visit very little, we meet very little (the public), it’s an above-ground world, an inter-self. ” They lived this maelstrom during the publication of their first album, they left rinsed.

Their second album in pocket, Protected. e, They try the roads. Like Monday, March 31, in Tourcoing (North). They arrived two days ahead of the big mix, current music room, where they only play on Wednesday evening. In the meantime, they take people’s time. This afternoon, they repeat with the Senior Choir of the Salle. The choristers will accompany the group on stage, on their best known title, Until my last breath. Raphaël Herrerias is addressed to the chatter group, mainly women, silver hair, many pairs of glasses on the nose: « This song brought us happiness. Sometimes it is the most intimate things that travel the furthest. We all wear an image of our neighborhood, from our birthplace. When you sing, I ask you to bring this primary territory to you: very naturally, an emotion will generate. Try putting images inside words. « The two artists question the participants about the identity of the city, where the workforce came from far away, where the textile industries closed en masse, where architecture-from master’s houses to workers-reproduces social order. So close to his identity in Saint-Etienne, where they grew up.

Their group bears the name of their childhood district, Terrenoire. The places where we live are at the heart of their music. « We come from suburban neighborhoods, France which is not too told, France of roundaboutswe come from these corners, specifies the eldest of the brothers. It is super important to decentralize the imaginations, to regionalize them. This is something that has become overwhelming, this “world music”… ” They organized a festival in Trenzoire, like a loop that closes, in the castle park, on the lawn of the airy centers of their childhood. Raphaël says nicely: “We all have a land, a corner which we cannot detach. Writing a song is unfolding your corner.  » The two are stories collectors. Théo records the voices of all those they have already met or will soon meet. It is a living material of creation, which gives them to think, to dream.

There is also in their approach a criticism of the music industry, even if they are signed with Universal Music, and a distrust of the stereotypes of the rock group, these guys on the road, the fun of the nights, in the hotel rooms. “It’s very neoliberal, the artist out of the world. Separated from normality, he becomes the hero of an imagination « said Raphaël Herrerias. Instagrammé, produces platforms, disembodied … “We don’t do the same concert when there is in the room of the people we met, when it is not a faceless crowd. When it is not an illustrious unknown who plays in front of strangers ”, he notes. Philippe and Françoise, two of the choristers, appreciate: “We feel an opening and a commitment at home. Usually, artists are touring, they are stars, and that’s it. They are interested in people. « 

To add to the tour of cultural action is also to live from another economic model: « We become a territory agent, we work by linking people socially », continues the singer. Manon Brunet, head of cultural action at the Grand Mix, confirms the scarcity of the approach on the part of a group of national scope: « If they did not have a tenacious will to do it, it would not be done. » For the duo, it is to assert resistance, in these times when cultural budgets are discharged. Raphaël believes it firm: “Culture, it has a role, it is not fair to consumption. It is about being linked, differently. ”