Parisian duo Priors are a band with a distinctly different outlook on life, so when Yann Destal sings “Nothing’s painful, our minds are open, we’ll survive, nothing’s dangerous, nothing lies” on the impossibly uplifting first single What You Need, he’s singing much more than the obvious words of love. Joining Yann in Priors is Raw Man, and the pair, as their chosen moniker suggests, look back to when things were a little more, well, naïve. As Raw Man says, “to live with a child’s outlook on life – where nothing is impossible, you don’t know if you can fly or not – that’s Priors.”
A quick look at the pair’s collective history confirms that they’ve earned the right to set their own agenda. Yann was one half of Modjo, who had a huge hit in 2000 with Lady (Hear Me Tonight), in the process becoming the first French group to score a UK #1 single. At that time Raw Man was in Buffalo Bunch with Play Paul, aka Paul De Homem-Christo, brother of Daft Punk’s Guy. Buffalo Bunch carved quite a name for themselves with their remixes of big name acts such as Phoenix, Basement Jaxx and Audio Bullys. While Yann and Raw Man were both orbiting the same Paris scene, Yann released a critically acclaimed post-Modjo solo record, The Great Blue Scar, and Raw Man worked on several projects, including releases on ultra-hip labels Kitsuné and Crydamoure, setting up his own label, We Rock Music, and working on his bands We In Music and the rock group Amen Birdmen.
And it was while Raw Man was looking for singers for his We In Music project that the pair finally sat down to write together. But where exactly will Priors lead to, driven as it is by two such multi-talented, multi-tasking doyens of the Parisian music scene? Raw Man has the final word. “The cool thing is that we see Priors in a cool way – it’s a plus on any other project we have but at the same time we also feel that maybe this project can be the one that can work the best.“ |
