ABOUT
"LE CHAT NOIR are a boy, Teddy Hesper, and a girl, Eileen Spruce, playing stripped-down, sleazoid rock’n’roll. They’re both 23. He’s from Devon, she’s from LA. He plays guitar and sings. She plays drums. She moved to Devon to make things move faster. It worked. The resulting album ‘Tales From Silver City’ is a masterclass in gutter-groove, mixing ‘50s garage with ‘60s Detroit howl and ‘70s punk riffola, where songs like ‘Mary Lee’ ooze class, confidence and clarity. If the Stooges, MC5, Winnebago Deal and Blues Explosion rock your world, then come stroke this dirty pussy."
- 24/7 Magazine album review
"Located at the sonic crossroads between raw blues-rock abuse and garage fuzz Le Chat Noir deliver the goods across fifteen pulpy noir-flecked tales of hard liquor, stray corpses and grief. This is effortlessly-convincing nu-blooze - cheap, sleazy and brutal - like The Black Keys sound-tracking a Film Noir. Underneath the tough blues exterior lies an equally doomy alt.rock heart that would doubtlessly beat comfortably on a 90s Sub Pop compilation."
- MAPS Magazine album review by Tom Leins
Le Chat Noir are hard-rockin’ Transatlantic duo Teddy Hesper and Eileen Spruce. During the past 2 years the band have gigged solidly all over Europe, their full throttle live performances leaving stages soaked in sweat and blood and littered with broken drumsticks. Along the way Le Chat Noir sold out their self-funded debut release Tales From Silver City and released a follow up, Deadwood. Tales From Silver City was voted Playmusic Magazine’s Best Unsigned Recording of 2006.
TEDDY HESPER
Teddy Hesper was born in London, England in 1982, but moved to the Devonshire countryside aged 4. Though he is an experienced musician, being in Le Chat Noir has marked a change in Hesper's musical direction - since picking up a bass guitar at the age of 15, he has played in numerous bands, but it was not until late 2006, when he began his musical correspondence with Spruce, that he switched from bass to guitar and vocals. Hesper is a keen reader and writer and has a degree in English Literature, but also never turned his hand to lyrics until Le Chat Noir. His guitar style is unusual and certainly influenced by his years as a bassist - he often plays in open D, using an ABY box to split the signal to a bass amplifier and guitar amplifier to flesh out the band's sound - whilst his untrained, exorcism-in-progress vocal delivery has led to comparisons to Kurt Cobain, Frank Black and even Jim Morrison. A mild-mannered character in person, Hesper undergoes a remarkable change upon taking to the stage - he often seems to be wrestling with inner demons, charging Le Chat Noir's live shows with excitement and unpredictability.
EILEEN SPRUCE
Los Angeles native Spruce was born in 1983, moving to England in 2006 to be in Le Chat Noir. Anyone who has witnessed one of Le Chat Noir’s live shows will testify that her aggressive style blows any comparisons to other well-known girl drummers out of the water. When on stage, Spruce becomes a woman possessed. She is an irresistible presence behind the drums, thrashing out solid, powerful rhythms as though her life depended on it. People have made comparisons to John Bonham and Keith Moon. She is one of the most animated and hardest-hitting drummers you are ever likely to see, attested to by a trail of broken double butt-ended drumsticks and smashed cymbals!
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