Soggy

Soggy stood out as cult heroes and counted among the most ferocious, unrelenting French rock acts ever assembled, yet they attracted far wider recognition long after disbanding than during their active span. The quartet came together in 1978 in Reims, located in the Champagne-Ardenne district of northeastern France, and featured vocalist Beb, also known as Patrick Bertrand, guitarist Eric Dars, bassist François Tailleur, and drummer Olivier Hennegrave. Their approach merged punk’s raw force with the heavy guitar assault of hard rock and metal, plus the charged propulsion associated with Detroit icons the MC5 and the Stooges. French writers struggled to classify the sound, so the band devised their own label, “hard wave.” Soggy arranged and promoted their own extensive French tours while also reaching audiences in Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland. In October 1980 they entered the studio to lay down the single “Waiting for the War” b/w “47 Chromosomes,” which the group released itself in 1981 and which moved briskly through independent shops in Champagne-Ardenne; a performance clip of “Waiting for the War” that captured Beb’s shirtless charisma later received airplay on FR3 Reims. Despite that regional traction, French labels remained cautious, and offers from major European companies collapsed once Soggy refused to abandon English lyrics for their native language. The group dissolved in summer 1982 even though they had been invited to open for Judas Priest on a proposed French tour. No album appeared before the breakup, but Memoire Neuve issued a 2008 collection titled Soggy that compiled demos and the 1981 single tracks; the same label followed with the two-LP set Slog in 2012. Word spread among collectors of punk and metal obscurities, prompting California band the Shrine to record a cover of “Waiting for the War” that appeared as a single in 2014. Beb heard the version, reached out to the Shrine, and the two parties met; Beb subsequently joined the Shrine onstage at Hellfest in France and at the American Psycho Las Vegas festival, both in 2016. Outer Battery Records also brought the 2008 Soggy compilation to the United States that year in a limited vinyl edition.