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Guerre En Masse at Marseilles
Guerre En Masse was born in Paris, France, to a professional couple. His father was a diplomat with the French Government. His mother was a Professor of Sociology at the Sorbonne. Both parents were non-religious although they did have a brief fling with Scientology before Guerre was born. As a result of this experience the En Masse family were strongly anti-religion and Guerre never went to church except for ceremonial occasions.
Guerre was raised with his two sisters in the privileged home of a high-ranking diplomat, attending only the best of Paris' private schools during his early life. He showed precocious intelligence early and was reading Proust, Hugo and Stendahl by the age of 11.
When Guerre was 12 his father was posted to Australia for 6 years, taking the family. Most of this time was spent in Canberra but there were a couple of years in Melbourne. During this time he learned to speak "Strine", and fell in love with the Australian way of life.
He returned to France at 18 and went on to study Modern History and Literature at the University of Paris. After graduating with honours he found work as a researcher, lecturer and occasional writer for "Le Monde". Despite making his home in Paris he returned to Australia regularly for holidays and in 2000 to work.
Guerre showed promise in his early years on the piano and then on the classical guitar. But his musical spark really caught fire when he came to Australia in the 1970s and discovered AC/DC, The Rolling Stones & Status Quo. He immediately pestered his parents for an electric guitar to take the place of his classical instrument and eventually they bowed to the inevitable and he got his first shiny-new red SG.
He was soon in a high school band called "The Fossils" where he played rhythm guitar and that position he stayed with ever since, except for a brief fling with jazz-rock fusion in the 90s.
When Guerre returned to France he threw himself into study and career, but he continued to dabble with the guitar and piano when he felt the desire.
In 1993 at the behest of fellow academic: Philippe Joulbert, he joined jazz-rock fusion band "Noir et Blanc" and they played occasional gigs on the French university circuit and a few European jazz festivals. They made a couple of albums that were critically acclaimed but failed to sell: "Le Soir" in 1995 and "Green Man's Delight" in 1998.
In 2000 following his divorce, Guerre returned to Australia to work as lecturer in European History at Monash University in Melbourne. In a great flood of nostalgia for the Australia of his teens he became enamoured with "TISM" and Australian Rules Football and started an AC/DC cover band called "Transformer" with two of his students.
In 2003 he met Warren Mars after a gig in Ballarat and joined "The Martian Way" the following year.
Influences: Malcolm Young, Edith Piaf, Keith Richards, Larry Carlton, JS Bach, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Status Quo.
Likes: coq au vin, lemon meringue, beer, champagne, "À la recherche du temps perdu", Collingwood FC, "Life On Earth", reading, Marseilles, honest people.
Dislikes: Burger King, Donut King, Coke, mineral water, baseball, long-distance flying, "Pretty Woman", high-rise housing estates, politicians.