When a band has been playing together for eleven years they learn a lot, not only about themselves, but also about the art of making music and how to create an atmosphere with what it is you make. When that same band has had to live on their wits and their creativity for much of that time, those lessons are even more entrenched.
Back in 2001, the Gypsy Queens were busking along the restaurant terraces of Nice; playing to anyone and everyone they could in a town already over-populated with buskers and street musicians. In truth, even before they were known as the Gypsy Queens (the name was suggested by a leading Roman restaurant owner – though, actually, they’re neither), these five were a fairly unique package. In any circumstance, a band consisting of an Italian singer, a British double-bassist, a Mexican drummer, an American saxophonist and a Norwegian guitarist (and ex-professional footballer) is an outfit worth seeing. But when you add the dynamism that comes from being able to earn your living playing in the street or among busy restaurant tables full of people who might not want to be entertained, you end up with something very special.
Didier Casnati, Jason King, Manuel Polin, Jay Metcalf and Anders Klunderud don’t look like any buskers you’ve ever seen before, they don’t behave like any buskers you’ve ever seen before and they certainly don’t play like any buskers you’ve ever seen before. The Gypsy Queens draw from a huge repertoire of classic songs (California Dreaming, Volare, Satisfaction, Unforgettable, Tutti Frutti) and deliver an experience that, more often than not, provokes the sort of full-on sort of hysteria where people leap up to dance on tables and sing along to every chorus.
The Gypsy Queens have that intuition and camaraderie and brotherhood that can only ever be formed by spending years and years and years together perfecting your game. And until this point there has never been an agent or a manager or set-list, just their leader, Didier. This is a band who’ve practised and played for people every almost single day for the last five years and now they’re rehearsing again at their base in Nice. The next time they play it will be in Los Angeles as they record their debut album with Joni Mitchell producer, Larry Klein.
A guitar-playing English teacher was Didier Casnati’s first introduction to music. There wasn’t much of it at home, so he asked his mother to buy him a tape – any tape, as long as it had pop music on it. She bought him a Michael Jackson cassette and that was that. Guitar lessons followed and so Didier got into the habit of taking his instrument everywhere with him. As a teenager, his relationship with his father broke down into violence, so he upped and left. At first he wanted to go to university in Hawaii – his cousin was already there – but his family couldn’t afford it, so Didier chose Nice knowing he could busk there and make money for his law studies. At first he would play all his own songs, with maybe a cover of Knocking On Heaven’s Door thrown in, but he soon noticed that when he played all covers the money went up.
“I listened to the streets,” he says. “I got to know what worked, what the reality of the market was. I never forgot that lesson.”
At first no one wanted to busk with this strange Italian guy, so Didier would take his girlfriend down to the marina and they’d wander past the yachts. Someone would always spot the guitar and the girl and invite them on board and after three or four songs they’d have made 100 Euros. Word of Didier’s skills spread and he gathered the group around him. They played anywhere and everywhere they could until, freshly attired in new suits (“in Nice no one wants to see a scruff…”), they landed a residency at Le Petite Mason, a restaurant favoured by visiting super-rich and showbiz royalty.
It is as this point that the Gyspy Queens story takes a decidedly strange turn, for where they were once passing an old ashtray round after gigs collecting loose change, the band soon found themselves playing for Bono and Elton, for Robert De Niro and Chris Martin, for David Beckham, Prince Harry, REM and Quincy Jones. The restaurant gigs eventually gave way to an increasing amount of superstar-heavy private parties and last year the band played more than 200 shows all across the world (they’re actually offered over 600) often to some of the richest and most famous people on the planet.
“What we do is very honest,” Didier says. “That’s why it works. I guarantee you everyone we play to feels it. We started out as buskers and that’s what we are now, eleven years later. We know exactly how to negotiate with a crowd, how to tease them with songs. But we’re the opposite of rock stars, we’re humble in performance, never elsewhere! So this is the way forward for all of us.”
Now signed to Universal, the future for the Gypsy Queens will involve bigger performances, bigger productions, bigger lighting, bigger everything.
“Our repertoire is so big we could start at 10 at night and go on, easily, until 4am,” Didier laughs. “We’re musicians, so we could go forever just taking solos! Give us a shot of Captain Morgan and we’ll be ready to go all over again. I know that us making a record is a risk and I know that everything is about to change for us. Even songs we’ve performed 10000 times will change, but the music we play is eternal. The music is a gift for everyone to enjoy.”
