User:Zouavman Le Zouave/Bassilik

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Bassilik
Background information
Origin	Casablanca, Morocco
Genre(s)	Heavy Metal Grunge Alternative Rock
Years active	2004–Present
Label(s)	Unsigned
Members
Zouavman Le Zouave Bobby Canner Natasa Radic
Former members
Mattéo Pagliardini

Bassilik is a rock band from Casablanca, Morocco. Bassilik plays mostly Grunge, although many of their compositions include other styles of rock such as Avant Garde Metal, Gothic Metal, and Pop rock. The current line-up of the band includes Zouavman Le Zouave (of his real name Romain Bonilla) on guitars and vocals, Natasa Radic on bass, and Bobby Canner on drums.

1 Biography
2 Line-up
3 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Formation (2004-2005)

Romain Bonilla was offered his first guitar on Christmas 2003 and started playing in early 2004. Romain met Mattéo Pagliardini in a surf camp and usually let Mattéo play with it during his free time, even though Mattéo had never taken any guitar lessons. This experience led Mattéo to call Romain several months later to form a band. Mattéo had taken intensive guitar courses and had become a skillful guitarist. Once a week, Romain and Mattéo met at the latter's house in order to compose songs on the guitar program Guitar Pro. While Romain played the rhythm guitar partitions, Mattéo played the lead and the solos. The band sometimes practiced with a bassist, Natasa Radic, who lived in a different neighborhood than Mattéo and Romain, which made it hard for her to come to some practices. The band went through several band names starting with Unequal, then to Anachronic, but those names were only used to attract other band members.

[edit] Prion (2005-2006)

In high school, Romain met several talented guitarists, drummers, and singers. However most of them refused to join the band or form a band with him. In 2005, Romain asked Bobby Canner, one of the rare drummers in Casablanca, if he would accept to join the band. Bobby accepted, and proposed to use the school stage for band pracice, instead of Mattéo's room. Since then the band meetings took place at school, and the name of the band was changed to Prion. The band practiced intensively one of Romain's Emo compositions, Chasing My Tail to perform for the high school talent show. Marc Chapon, another guitarist, had joined the band for a practice in order to play the harmonies for the lead partition, but his guitar skills turned out to be insufficient for the band. Prion then continued to practice without any harmonies. The line-up for the talent show should have been Romain on rhythm guitars and vocals, Mattéo on lead guitar, and Bobby on drums. However, a few days before the scheduled show, the school administration judged it unfair to let Mattéo play since he did not go to the same high school as Bobby and Romain. Joe Canner, Bobby's father, proposed to fill in the gap by playing keyboards. Romain modified the lead partition and gave it to Joe Canner. The band eventually played an instrumental version of Chasing My Tail for the talent show on June 16, 2006. This first public performance was dedicated to Mattéo.

[edit] Bassilik (2006-Present)

A couple of days after the end of the 2005-2006 school year, Mattéo moved to France, thus leaving the band without a lead guitarist. Romain, desperate for other band members, called Natasa to play bass. However, Natasa had moved to Tangier. In September 2006, Bobby and Romain continued to practice alone with new songs written by Romain during the Summer. Romain still continued to correspond with Natasa through Instant Messaging, and decided to name (with Natasa's consent) the band Bassilik, after Natasa's screen name. In October, Bassilik, now only including Bobby Canner and Romain Bonilla, were given the opportunity to play between Volleyball games during the Volleyball tournament taking place at their high school in November. The band practiced five songs:

"Sappy" (Nirvana cover)
"Molly's Lips" (Vaselines Cover)
"Jean Valjean" (A song written by Romain ; Inspired from the character from Les Misérables)
"D-7" (Wipers Cover)
A medley containing portions of Pages 3, 10, and 11 of Fantômas, the album by Fantômas

However, they also performed short instrumental portions of songs such as Smells Like Teen Spirit, Floyd the Barber and American Idiot.

Bassilik is currently looking for other band members living in Casablanca, primarily a lead guitarist and a bassist.

[edit] Line-up

[edit] Current members

Romain Bonilla (aka Zouavman Le Zouave) - Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
Bobby Canner - Drums
Natasa Radic - Bass (currently lives in Tangier, which makes it difficult for her to be an active member of the band)

[edit] Former members

Mattéo Pagliardini - Lead guitar

[edit] "Button Pushers"

It is a tradition of the band to have someone press the distortion button during a show. This is due to the fact that Romain does not have a functioning distortion pedal.