The two musicians, melted by cycling, ended up around a project mixing their two passions. To listen to the head in the handlebars.
Their roads had to meet one day. One is president of the Sétois sports handlebars and talented guitarists. The other spent his life on the alternative scene, with fourteen studios albums, two lives and a compilation since 1986. And a passion that has never died out for the bicycle.
When Chichois Production launched his vinyl purse, a proposal was made to Nicolas Grosso to participate in the promotion. “They asked me which song I wanted to put forward. In fact, I offered to write an express title. And by writing it, I told myself that it would be good to offer it to Didier. »»
A title whose tempo never weakens
This is how “the bicycle” was born, a rockabilly title to listen to (large) loop. A declaration of love at the bike that starts in a rush and whose tempo never weakens. And where everyone holds the other’s wheel for almost four minutes, with a natural complicity. “I wrote certain passages by telling myself that Didier could have written them. One of his songs, “Love is like the Tour of Italy”, is one of the most beautiful texts I listened to … “
It must be said that he likes it, the bicycle, Didier Wampas. “Unlike Nico, I don’t have too much time to ride. But, always, he has accompanied me. In Brittany, a land of bicycle, I spent my summer vacation for twenty years. Everyone chose their runner, I was Zoetemelk. I have bathed in it and it never left me. Even my dog Suzy likes bicycle! I lived in Paris, my first mountain bike dates from 1985. I was doing everything by bike, I had fun. It’s harder today, we are in a video game, you have to be all the time all the time … “
Bicycle children
“I’m going to coach him!” »»retorts Nicolas Grosso, who also grew up in this love of bicycle, from a Séto-Italian family “Where even the grannies were crazy about cycling”. Among the Di Nicola, from the family name on the mother’s side, we have that in the genes. “My great-grandmother Lucia and my grandmother Teresa had embarked my mother, in 1955, to go see Fausto Coppi in Sète, for the Grand Prix de la Renaissance. The opportunity to recall that the Sétois sports handlebars is the only club in the south to have had coppi! »»
In line, little Nico was fully on the Tour and the Giro. “Between Sète and Frontignan, I was all the time on my bike. I shed the mudguards to go racing bike. »» Then he devoted himself to music, until this day in 2019 when he bought a bicycle and where “Everything returned”.
A kitty to finance the album “Fausto”
Last October, a bicycle accident forced Nicolas Grosso to be hospitalized for several months. He then decides to look at his next album. “The writing took place over four years. I had put it a little aside because I was on many other projects next to it ”blows the guitarist.
In addition to “Le Vélo” with Didier Wampas, thirteen titles make up the album: five were co -wrote with Jean Fauque, parolier of Bashung for more than twenty years, and one was written by Sétois Laurent Cachard. “It’s the only love song,” says Nicolas Grosso. Otherwise the songs talk about the passage of time, old age, children … There are a lot of things on deaths too, like this text on Freddy Ley, the Sétois de -Elvis Presley “lookalikes”.
Another personality today died to whom he pays homage: the cyclist Fausto Coppi in the song Fausto which gave his name to the album. The son of the Campionissimo also sent him a message of thanks and asked that the album’s cover appears in a biography soon published on his father. “It moved me a lot and caused me insomnia!” I talk little about myself but there, I got worse everyone! »»launches the musician.
Note that to finance the album, the release of which is scheduled for September 13, Nicolas Grosso launched a crowdfunding kitty, to be found on Ulule.
Their roads had to meet one day, therefore. Music and bike make the lives of these two enthusiasts, even if only one of these areas does not lend themselves to discussion.
So, Van der Poel or Pogacar?
“Musically, we have a lot of common points: Jean Sablon, Charles Trenet, Towns Van Zandt … Between us, it sticks. But we bicker still on the bike. »» Verbal jousts can then begin. “Didier does not want to recognize the supremacy of Pogacar! »» “I prefer Van der Poel”retorts Didier Wampas. “It is true that Van der Poel is better pilot on a bicycle”concedes Nicolas Grosso. And Didier Wampas to chain: “Pogacar is boring. He leaves, we’re going to make a coffee and he wins. With him, there is spectacle … when he falls. I like cyclists that run anyhow. It’s like today’s groups, they play very well but it’s boring … “
The two friends have it under the pedal
On the other hand, it is far from being when the two accomplices take their guitar. “The bicycle” is the perfect illustration, a real declaration of humor to this authentic love they share. The collaboration is successful and, good news, the two still have it under the pedal. “There are two songs, by Jean Sablon and Django Reinhardt, which we could resume in our sauce”says Didier Wampas.
It would no longer be a question of cycling. But as long as the pleasure is there, and they are the ones sing it, “We are fighting the cooking”.
