Biography

Right from the start, THOM THOM has been a friendship story going beyond the frontiers and the cultures.

On the one hand, there was Sopoi, a Cambodian singer and guitar player who speaks French and loves French culture and on the other hand, there was Jean-Philippe a former professional musician who came to the “Land of the Smile” at the end of 2002 in order to teach French and English there.

The first encounter of the two lads took place at the Department of French Studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh on the occasion of guitar classes that was led by Jean-Philippe and to which Sopoi attended with the hope of learning new tricks that could give a new breath to his axe. The enthusiasm that the willingness of the Cambodian guitar player gave the French guy the will to give a hand in the creation of a rock band writing and playing its own material in a country where nobody is really used to that. Indeed, in Cambodia, seldom are those who write new melodies and new pieces of music; in the recording studios of the few major record companies, most of the time session musicians make cover version of popular Thai, Chinese, Korean or western tunes on which popular males and females singer always put the perpetual schmaltzy lyrics.

So at the autumn 2003, Véalsrè (Khmer for paddy field) was born; the band was made up by Sopoi, Jean-Philippe playing twin guitars, by a Khmer singer and bass player and another French guy playing the drums.

Between November 2003 and September 2005, the band produced and released two full bilingual albums entitled non, non, non, non… (no, no, no, no…) and le monde appartient à... (the world belongs to…). It is Jean-Philippe assisted by Sopoi who took care of the recording of the two CDs but the pressing was financed by the Services of Cooperation and Cultural Action of the French Embassy in Cambodia that also paid for the most part of the expenses for more that twenty concerts promoting original songwriting and French language in Phnom Penh as well as in many provinces of Cambodia.

The odyssey of VÉALSRÈ ended at the beginning of the autumn 2005 when the singer/bass player who had just passed his French BA went to city of the Angkor temples to work. So, because of the 200 miles separating the musicians, it was impossible to carry on the writing and the practice of new material and the band decided to “call it a day”.

In October 2005, Sopoi flew to France to be on a training course of sound engineering in Paris. When he came back, he and Jean-Philippe put a new band together in order to meet the need of a new tour of promotion for French language throughout the whole country.

A new singer and a new bass player were recruited for the recording of On n’est pas des chiens ! (We aren’t dogs!): a spicy album that inspired the name for the new band : TEUK MATÉ (chili sauce). Eleven concerts had been played in the only month of May and the band played his last gig during “La fête de la musique” (the French national music day at the end of June) 2006. Two weeks later, Pierre, the close friend and beloved bass player of the band flew to Argentina where he was to become the new Head of the Library of the Alliance Française (French Cultural Center) in Buenos Aires.

During the summer 2006, Sopoi and Jean-Philippe gave a hand the BOPHANA Center.

At the autumn 2006, it was Jean-Philippe who had to fly back for a break in his homeland. When he came back, Sopoi was burning with enthusiasm for a new band: a power trio in the same vein as Nirvanas, The Police, ZZ Top, Therapy? etc. Jean-Philippe swap his guitar for a drum kit that he started taming back to 2004 when he joined a side project named GRABUGE: a band of accordion-oriented French music made up only with teachers of the French school in Phnom Penh (Lycée Français René Descartes), the bunch of teachers knew a time a fame when they went on tour and played many gigs on the occasion of the “Fête de la francophonie” (Festival of the French language) 2006 promoting as well a self-funded E.P. entitled Phnom Penh Musette.

In order to complete the new line-up, Sopoi and Jean-Philippe recruited Nalen a former schoolmate of Sopoi. The young woman had been following for a long time the musical adventures of her friend (to the point of embarking on the tour bus of the “We aren’t dogs” tour) and she had been dreaming for years of living her own rock’n’roll epic. Nalen had been scraping away at acoustic guitar for years but she focused on bass guitar as soon as she heard that a position of bass player would be vacant after the departure of TEUK MATÉ’s bass player because she also knew that Sopoi would not stop playing music and that he would need a need a new 4-strings player.

For New Year’s Eve 2006, after only six weeks of rehearsals, THOM THOM offered a first “decibel shower” at the Zeppelin Café and entered the Cambodian underground music scene...

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