Last year, French rock group The Inspector Cluzo played 185 concerts in 23 countries. Despite linguistic and cultural differences between the guitar-and-drums duo and their audiences, they had little difficulty spreading their basic message: "F-ck the bass player."
A belief shared by both guitarist Laurent "Malcom" Lacrouts and drummer Mathieu "Phil" Jourdain, their humorous "F-ck the bass player" ideology has become the URL for The Inspector Cluzo's Web site, a song on their 2008 eponymous debut and the slogan for their band T-shirts.
"We became fed up with bassists while we were playing in our old band, Wolfunkind," explains Lacrouts. "We changed bass players four times. Every few years we had to teach a new bassist our music. We got sick of this and one day decided it would be simpler to just play together.