Versailles and its surroundings were honored in Los Angeles. During the night of Sunday to Monday during the 52nd Grammy ceremony, considered the Oscars of music, Phoenix was crowned in the category of best alternative album for its fourth CD, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”, ahead of artists of the caliber of Depeche Mode. This quartet, which writes its songs in English, is composed of Thomas Mars, a native of the city of kings, Deck D’Arcy, deâ? ¦ Bois-d’Arcy and two brothers from Chesnay.
These four young people in the wind met at the age of short pants and have perfected their ranges at the prestigious Lycée Hoche in Versailles. They spent their free time in the music studio built by Jean-Louis Croquet, the singer’s father, Thomas Mars, inside his private mansion on Boulevard de la Reine. A studio called to enter the history of music since there also rehearsed those who would become the groups Air and Daft Punk.
“My son always says that it’s normal for him to make music, that he only had that to do, explains Jean-Louis Croquet, because Versailles is, according to him, a magnificent museum that should not be wake. “An opinion supported by another source who reports that” the Versailles label annoys Phoenix. They are a little critical of the city which they deem to be plan-plan and closed in on itself ”.
A story of repulsion-attraction. Christophe Tardieu, former general administrator of the Palace of Versailles, explains that Thomas Mars had shown himself very voluntary during the concert organized with the representatives of the Versailles Touch on the Neptune basin in June 2007. “It was complicated to be put in place between the calendars of Air, Phoenix and the two other artists. But Thomas was seduced by the idea of playing 50 m from his childhood home. For the record, the concert took place under waterspouts. The quartet had played all the same, stopping just during the last song because of a short circuit. Another episode that links the family of Thomas Mars to the city of kings. As his father confirms, now a winegrower in Château-de-Thuerry, in the Var, but who declares: “There is no more rooted Versailles than me. “
His friend Alain Baraton, the castle gardener, reports two anecdotes about Jean-Louis Croquet: “He was almost born in the Queen’s hamlet, his mother had his first pains and a gardener took him to the Franciscan clinic. And he bought a house in Versailles where he had been turned away from an evening because of his origins? ¦ ”From now on, the fate of the Croquet family will be played out between the United States and Versailles. Thomas Mars is the companion of Sofia Coppola. “I received a congratulatory email from Francis Ford Coppola and his wife, they watched the Grammies,” says his father. The city of Versailles sent a congratulatory telegram to the group. “I always thought that Phoenix was the spearhead of the French touch,” said the mayor, François de Mazières (DVD). And it’s not over. Behind, it continues to grow with young children. In Versailles, there is not only baroque music. “
