Wooden Shields

Before becoming the heavy blues rock trio "Wooden Shields", Rémi Bottriaux (drums) and Morgan Briand (guitar, vocals) met on the bench of a design studio in Paris. The first day on the job for them both, rock n' roll was a natural ice breaker! Both guitar players at the time, they started jamming and recording covers for fun. Pushing the boundaries further, Rémi traded his guitar for a drum set and they were off on the road to discovering their own sound. In early 2012 "Wooden Shields" was born. Hours spent in cheap rehearsal studios led to a reliable set-list of covers and then to their first 4 track demo. "Old Man" and "She's Gone" are finely crafted examples of roots-chewing blues where melody and groove mesh together to create something raw and spirited, making a lot of noise in the process. They continued to build on their minimalist roots, developing a true raw blues sound, similar to the rough days of The Black Keys. But something was missing and the time to expand had come... Looking to hit harder and louder, the duo became a trio with the arrival of a new bassist, Benjamin Ménégale. Sharing and mixing music influences, they created a more singular and raw rock n’ roll sound, somewhere between heavy rock (Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin) and blues (Jr Kimbrough, R.L Burnside). With a poised, soulful croon, the band sing out each of their battle songs as if it is their last fight. To witness one of their shows is to stand exhausted on a field of battle and survey the scars and bruises left by the wild energy and the fuzzy sound.