40 Fun Facts About Bérurier Noir

Which piece of equipment, nicknamed Dédé, completed Bérurier Noir's original line-up of a singer and a guitarist?

A drum machine, an Electro-Harmonix DRM-16, kept the beat because the band never had a drummer, an idea borrowed from earlier Paris punks.

The name Bérurier comes from a police inspector in the San-Antonio novels of which French crime writer?

Frédéric Dard made Inspector Bérurier the best friend of Commissaire San-Antonio and gave him several novels of his own.

Which Bérurier Noir song gained a chanted live refrain against the National Front that became a French protest slogan?

Porcherie only carries the chant in concert versions, from 1988 onward; the 1985 studio recording does not have it.

Helno, a backing singer and stage joker in Bérurier Noir, went on to front which French band, formed in 1987?

Les Négresses Vertes took Helno to stages from England to Tokyo, and his stage name is his first name, Noël, said backwards.

Which Stanley Kubrick film, a touchstone for Bérurier Noir, is honoured by a song on the band's 1989 studio album?

A Clockwork Orange inspired the track Clockwork Béru, which appears only on the CD and cassette editions of the album.

Bérurier Noir singer François Guillemot later earned a doctorate as a historian of which country?

Vietnam became his field: he joined France's CNRS as a research engineer and has written on Vietnamese nationalism and wartime youth movements.

Bérurier Noir's single L'Empereur Tomato Ketchup, named after a Shūji Terayama film, depicts a revolt by which group?

Children rising against the adult world drive both the Japanese film and the song, whose radio success won the band a younger audience.

The founders of Bérurier Noir added the word Noir to their old band name, Béruriers, in 1983 as a sign of what?

Mourning was the point: a founding guitarist had just quit by letter, and the two who remained planned a single goodbye show.

What stage act did Jojo perform during Bérurier Noir's circus-style concerts?

Fire-breathing by Jojo lit up the band's 1988 arena show, where acrobats and a magician were among fifteen people on stage.

Bérurier Noir guitarist Loran later joined Les Ramoneurs de menhirs, a punk band rooted in the music of which region?

Brittany's bombarde and biniou pipes meet his distorted guitar in the band, formed in 2006, and most of the singing is in Breton.

Which instrument did Masto, also a photographer, play in Bérurier Noir alongside Loran's distorted guitar?

Saxophone first appeared on the band's second album and grew more prominent on the festive third.

Which French radio station put a Bérurier Noir single on heavy rotation after the label refused it a promo copy?

NRJ was told to go and buy the record, guitarist Loran recalled, then hammered the song on air and bragged about having paid.

Bérurier Noir's Makhnovtchina honours Nestor Makhno's anarchist army, which fought until 1921 in which country?

Ukraine was the base of Makhno's insurgents, and the song adapts words that lyricist Étienne Roda-Gil set to a Russian partisans' tune.

Bérurier Noir's 1989 song Protesta denounces the dictatorship then ruling which South American country?

Chile under General Augusto Pinochet is the target of Protesta, one of the last songs the band wrote before splitting up.

Which French institution received Bérurier Noir's archives in 2021 and showed them in a Paris exhibition in 2024?

The national library, the BnF, took the papers from two members, while guitarist Loran opposed the gift because he sees it as an arm of the state.

Which Paris venue did Bérurier Noir fill in March 1988 after insisting that tickets cost no more than fifty francs?

Le Zénith held 6,800 people that night, a protest against steep concert prices by a band that had just sold 200,000 albums.

Which bleak 1984 record, made when the duo felt close to despair, was Bérurier Noir's first studio album?

Macadam Massacre is the band's darkest record, and it includes an instrumental take on a marching song from the American Civil War.

Which festive 1987 album became Bérurier Noir's biggest success while the band itself was on strike?

Abracadaboum arrived in June 1987 during a six-month strike by the worn-out band and first carried the logo of its future label.

Which Bérurier Noir anthem, a roll call addressed to outsiders and rebels worldwide, first appeared on a 1985 EP?

Salut à toi came out on the EP Joyeux merdier in December 1985 and was reworked in 2020 as a thank-you to health workers.

Which Paris music hall hosted Bérurier Noir's last three concerts in 1989, staged as a festive suicide?

Olympia crowds filled the hall for all three nights, which were recorded and filmed for a live album and a video.

By which nickname is Bérurier Noir singer François Guillemot best known?

Fanfan also signs his work FanXoa, and in 2022 he returned to music with the duo No Suicide Act.

Which obligation pulled guitarists Pierrot and Olaf away from the Béruriers, clearing the way for Bérurier Noir?

Military service took Pierrot, who deserted and was jailed, and then Olaf, who was posted to Germany and resigned by letter.

Which circus accessory joined Bérurier Noir's grotesque masks and costumes as the shows turned more festive?

Clown noses arrived as the stage show borrowed from the circus, and Laul, who drew the band's sleeves, kept drawing clowns long afterwards.

Which British punk band's anthem If the Kids Are United did Bérurier Noir cover at its last concerts in 1989?

Sham 69 took the song to number 9 in the UK chart in 1978, and the French cover appears on the live album of those shows.

Which Italian director's 1969 film gave Bérurier Noir the title and themes of one of its best-known songs?

Pier Paolo Pasolini's Pigsty shares with the song its themes of Nazism, cannibalism and people likened to pigs.

Which French rock prize, voted by music journalists, did Bérurier Noir refuse in April 1988 yet carry away anyway?

Bus d'Acier winners received a statuette of an English bus driving through a guitar; the band's ended up forgotten in its tour truck.

Which independent label, the flagship of French alternative rock, released most of Bérurier Noir's 1980s albums?

Bondage Records grew out of Rock Radicals Records, and a fight with it over who owned the master tapes helped end the band in 1989.

After a 1988 bombing, police and some media wrongly cast Bérurier Noir as the cultural wing of which armed group?

Action Directe had been broken up by its leaders' arrest in 1987; the accusations were dropped within days, but nervous promoters cancelled concerts.

Which French novelist wrote the prologue to a 2005 book of Bérurier Noir photographs and drawings?

Virginie Despentes opened a book of Roland Cros's photographs and Laul's drawings, published with the band's own label.

Which final Bérurier Noir studio album appeared in December 2006, months after the band dissolved itself?

Invisible was announced to the press under another name, Dérive mongole, a title the band reused for a run of singles in 2017.

Which live album, recorded at Bérurier Noir's last 1989 concerts, takes its title from a San-Antonio detective novel?

Viva Bertaga captures three sold-out nights and first came out in 1990 on the New Rose label.

Olaf, a founder of the early Béruriers, started which humorous punk band, later home to the future Sergent Garcia?

Ludwig von 88 formed in 1983 with Olaf on guitar and built its name on schoolboy humour, costumes and send-up cover versions.

Illustrator Laul and Masto both came to Bérurier Noir from which pioneering Paris punk band of the early 1980s?

Lucrate Milk began as a name and logo sprayed on Paris walls in 1980 before it was a band, and Helno made his stage debut with it.

Which 1970s Paris punk pioneers, whose song Panik Bérurier Noir covered live, inspired the band's sound?

Métal Urbain were among the very first French punk bands and, despite limited distribution at home, shaped the country's 1980s punk scene.

Guitarist Loran came to the Béruriers from which punk band, which then shared a 1983 split record with Bérurier Noir?

Guernica lent Loran as a stand-in guitarist, and the two bands' split record came out in a run of 1,000 copies.

Which French festival, marking its 25th anniversary, staged Bérurier Noir's comeback concert in December 2003?

Trans Musicales in Rennes had first booked the band in 1986; in 2003 thousands of fans without tickets clashed with riot police outside.

Negu Gorriak covered Bérurier Noir's Nuit Apache after translating the words into which language?

Basque is the language of Negu Gorriak, the band of brothers Fermin and Iñigo Muguruza, who mixed hardcore punk with hip-hop and ska.

Which French metal band ended its concerts for nearly a decade with a cover of Bérurier Noir's Vive le feu?

Lofofora recorded the cover for its 1996 album Peuh! and closed its shows with it from 1996 to 2005.

Which 1985 Bérurier Noir album did the French edition of Rolling Stone rank 52nd among the best French rock albums?

Concerto pour détraqués added backing choirs to the duo's stark two-man recipe and holds several of the band's best-known songs.

In July 2004 Bérurier Noir played Dour, a major alternative music festival held each summer in which country?

Belgium hosts Dour near Mons, close to the French border, and the set was one of only a few reunion concerts the band agreed to play.