MIDWINTER

Midwinter story goes back to the year 2000.

At that time, Luc and Manu Chauty were both playing in a rock-metal outfit called Nutshell. Manu was however playing drums in this band. They already had a female singer, Stephanie Ferrand, and soon, one of their friends, Fabien Bourcereau, joined in to take in charge the bass lines.
Nothing was somehow concrete and the guys were still looking for their style to define.The arrival of the youngest of the three Chauty brothers, Pierre, at the keyboards, marked a turning point as a more symphonic aspect was introduced in Nutshell's music.
After several months of composing and rehearsing, Nutshell finally recorded a three-track demo but did not send it to labels as the sound was really poor.
A funny thing happened to this complete unknown band of Western France: they were chosen by France 3, a French national TV channel, to perform one of their songs live during a stupid programme but in front of an audience of millions of people!
Yet, Fabien had to leave the group due to professional obligations...
Manu swapped his drum kit for a bass guitar and Nutshell recruited a drummer called Christophe Suquet.
The composition process speeded up and two more songs were recorded in a studio in Nantes. This new demo was destined to labels and a few contacts were taken at this occasion.
It is at that time that the band made its first gigs in different places around their home town.
Still, something was missing and as the four guys were heading for a style defined as symphonic gothic heavy metal, the lack of a high-level vocalist was embarrassing; therefore, they had to tell Stephanie to leave as anyway, she did not feel at ease with the rest of the band.
Astrid Delaunay, a soprano female singer, was asked to join the band which was renamed at this occasion as Midwinter.
This was in summer 2002 and the rest of the year was spent composing and rehearsing; a few concerts were given in order to test the new songs.
Finally, during July and August 2003, Midwinter entered studio to record its first full-length album with Pierre-Emmanuel Pelisson, from the heavy metal band Heavenly.
Ten songs were recorded and they finally got a contract deal with Thundering Records for a release planned in early 2004.
Some changes occurred for the band in autumn 2003: Pierre was replaced temporarily by Jonathan Menard for he had to leave France for the French Antilles for one year; Astrid was fired for various reasons (musical, and personal) and replaced temporarily by another soprano singer coming from Paris, Nora Otmane; Christophe had also to leave the band for professional reasons and was replaced by a young drummer called Pierre Garcia.
A concert at the VIP in Saint-Nazaire was given on the 29th of November 2003, in front of more than 300 people.
Unfortunately, Luc died on the 26th of May 2004. A friend of them, Joackim Menard, the brother of Jonathan, was recruited as a guitarist for the band. At the end of July 2004, Nora left the band for personal reasons. Midwinter found a young 18-year-old singer coming from Paris, called Mylene Genoux, to replace her.
For now, Midwinter has already begun the composition of their second album, and plan to perform live very soon...