Tryo's radicalism goes back a long way. When the group released their first album, Mamagubida in 1998 (an album which, incidentally, went on to sell an impressive 450,000 copies), Christophe Mali, one of the three singer/songwriter/guitarists in the group, warned French music fans that Tryo "have a real message to put across. We're influenced by (70s protest singer) Renaud and we like (radical comedians) like Coluche and Desproges. We're not prepared to compromise our views in our lyrics - but that doesn't mean you can't whistle along to our songs in the shower!".

Make no mistake about it, Tryo have a powerful message to put across - but they don't go about things with a musical sledgehammer. Keeping things fresh, light and upbeat, the foursome mix chanson, reggae and bossa beats with superb vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars. At the same time, Tryo's lyrics pack a powerful punch, denouncing the money extorted from music fans to watch live concerts (Paris), the market economy (Les nouveaux bergers) and the domination of boys' bands (on the highly danceable track La debandade). Oh, and don't forget the revolution (cf La lumière) - a concept which appears to have gone out of fashion these days!

Tryo's songs take a long, hard look at social conditioning, talking in almost psychoanalytical terms of the role education and families play in shaping character (cf the lively Afro-Brazilian number Le petit chose). Four tracks later, France's reggae warriors are back, urging young people to take up their right to vote (on a song entitled Les extremes).

Tryo have been a radical outfit right from the word go when they launched their career at a youth club in Fresnes (in the Paris suburbs). Back in 1992 a group of local musicians used to meet up there, playing a catchy fusion sound under the name M'Panada. Manu Eveno and Guizmo, two of the musicians involved in this initial project, went on to team up with Christophe Mali (an actor and philosophy student) and Daniel Bravo (a Chilean musician playing classical violin ad percussion).

In 1995, calling themselves Tryo, the foursome played their first concert together, supporting a hard rock band at the Fresnes youth club. Tryo have never forgotten their roots either - after they'd hit the big time they returned to Fresnes on 28th September 2000 to kick off a major national tour at the local youth club.

Building up a loyal following of fans on the live circuit between 1995 and 1998, Tryo played countless gigs in the Paris suburbs and Brittany, "the only place left in France where local culture still exists. There are hundreds of local bars and cafe-concerts and musicians get a warm welcome there ...".

At the end of '97, Tryo released their debut album, Mamagubida, recorded live at gigs in Fresnes and Brittany. The foursome covered production costs themselves, recording the album on a shoestring budget of 80,000 francs. Within a year the group went on to sell 15,000 copies of the album. Then in December '98 Tryo signed a recording deal with the independent label Yelen (an off-shoot of Sony) and six months later sales were up by 120,000!

Today France's favourite reggae warriors are back in the music news with a second album entitled Faut qu'ils s'activent (Got to take action!) Clearly not to everyone's taste, Tryo's new album has already managed to spark major controversy on the Paris music scene. We recently met up with Tryo and asked them how they felt about the way their new album has been received:

How did you feel about the music critic from Liberation referring to Tryo as "la maladie brune" (a plague of brown shirts)?
We thought it was completely over the top - I mean, fascists, us? It was a real shame. Somewhere down the line it means we'd failed to get our message across and been completely misunderstood ... We felt we should go and have it out with the guy face to face ... And then, in retrospect, the whole thing made us laugh. Especially when, in the same article, he went on to compare us to millionaire rappers milking the system they're pretending to attack ...

Despite reviews like the one in Liberation you went on to sell 450,000 copies of your debut album Mamagubida ...
Yes, we did. but most of the money we made from that was ploughed back into Tryo projects like our production company, for example. We've set up a system of loans to groups who want to stay on the independent circuit to help them cover recording costs. Recently, we produced a first album by La Rue Ketanou - a trio featuring an accordion-player and two guitarists who play a very theatrical type of fusion music, partway between traditional Gypsy music and Les Négresses Vertes... We have a lot of faith in La Rue Ketanou and their music.

Your second album is a lot more 'committed' than the first. Why did you feel the need to go back to this sort of 70s-style protest songs?
It's true that on this album we decided to make the lyrics a lot more militant and hard-hitting. Basically, we believe if you really want to change things, you've got to make individuals sit up and take a look at what's happening around them. Music's role is to put a message across. You know, even though it doesn't always sound like it, one of Guizmo's main influences (Guizmo is the songwriter responsible for around two thirds of the group's material), is Berurier Noir.
I'd have said it sounds more like Francois Beranger ...
Well, we've obviously heard of Beranger, but I don't know if he's influenced us all that much. I think the thing is that we've all matured a lot since Mamagubida ...We've all been through our own individual experiences - been kicked out of nightclubs, had insults hurled at us and things like that...All the songs on the new album has been inspired by real experiences, by things we've been really pissed off about. But even though the new album's a 'protest' album, it's not preaching or moralistic in any way. We're not trying to teach people a lesson, just trying to share the questions we ask ourselves ... The new album's radically different from Mamagubida, so we can understand why people who rushed out to buy our first album find it hard to accept that we've moved on from there now ...

In what way have you moved on?
I think we've come a long way on a musical level ... Our style's changed a lot. Percussion plays a much greater role on the new album, for instance, and we've added in the accordion and the clarinet ... It's almost got to the stage where our music sounds more like fusion than straightforward reggae. This time round we came up with most of the songs in the studio, whereas on the first album we worked them all out on stage first. This time round, we used the studio as a real music laboratory. Everyone was free to pitch in an idea and we tried not to focus on the technical side of things too much. Each track started off with a simple melody and vocals and we took it from there.

Quite a few Brazilian influences have crept into your sound this time round. Musically speaking, I'm thinking of tracks like Le Saule, and then there are also the dedications to Lenine and Gilberto Gil...
Well, I guess Daniel Bravo (Tryo's Chilean percussionist) is partly to blame for that. Daniel's primary musical influences are the records released on the Real World label and Brazilian music in general ... On Le petit chose, for example, he added the sound of his timbao, a traditional instrument from Brazil which you hear a lot in the music of Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso...

And then there's the song Paris, a hard-hitting rant about the live performance 'business' ...
(Laughs) I guess you could put it like that! The thing is that people in Paris and other main towns in France have to pay a fortune for 'culture'. And things are tough for struggling artists too - if you're an unknown musician it's often really tough to make ends meet ... We don't perform in Paris very often because people have to pay a fortune to get in to see us. When we played at the Olympia though, we actually managed to keep ticket prices down to 125 francs... But as that's a lot more than we usually charge for a gig we made an extra special effort. We played an extra long set and invited a lot of guest stars along like Cirque Plume and Thiefaine... When we sing things like "Faut qu'ils s'activent" (Got to take action!) we apply it to ourselves too. Revolution begins at home! It's not easy, but we don't believe in giving up without a fight ...

Interview: Jean-Claude Demari
Translation: Julie Street