Our team: Lesly

Hi there! Lesly here. I’m in charge of development and sound design here at Burning Sunset.

My background

I’ve been a musician since my teens, mostly guitar and singing. So I naturally embraced a musical education after I graduated high school. These led me to music production and stage performance. 

I’ve always written music and thus wanted to record myself. My first tries were not that successful but they put me on a path of sonic discoveries and understanding. This path led me abroad to study music production in the UK. 

After that I came back to Lyon to start a musical career as a musician. Since 2009 I’ve been either in the studio or on the road either as a producer or a musician.

MY PROJECTS

MUSIC

– Frrnt & ses chiens galeux

Once I was back from the UK I candidly thought that I would go from student to full time producer in a local studio but that proved to be pretty naive on my part, so I did the only logical thing: I went back to Uni to study English.

That’s when I met the guys who would form Frrnt & ses chiens galeux and I became the dog guitarist: Londonderry (we were all named after places who suffered some tragic events, yep we were that fun!). We played a mix of rock with a shot of theatrical mannerism, a mix between Tom Waits, Nick Cave and the Dresden Dolls in some ways. 

After a few years and some great gigs the band split but many seeds were planted for the years to come…

Since the beginning of the pandemic my musical career has been on hold but here is a quick list of some of my previous projects:

– Gadjo Loco

I truly became a professional with this band. I joined them in 2012 until the end of the band shortly before the pandemic.

Our genre was a mix of bluegrass, country and other folk music.

With this band I discovered my first big tours, busking, sleeping in the van, etc…

Many people on stage

– Toonah

Toonah was a New Orleans Jazz band with a rock twist. Some of the guys came from Gadjo Loco, others from Frrnt (the famous seeds planted earlier). I was playing the guitar and was one of the three singers of the band.

Unfortunately our visions went separate ways and the band split.

Straight outta NOLA, near Lyon…

– London Shire

Probably my most personal band yet. I launched this project about playing a modernized version of English and Scottish songs from the XVth till the XIXth century.

I was singing, playing the guitar and doing most of the research and arrangements on the songs.

A song about drinking…

– Nulorama

You wouldn’t call this band professional, it was a crew, friends gathering to make music, almost all living in the same part of Lyon. 

We just wanted to make music, have a beer while rehearsing once a week and we did some gigs. But our biggest accomplishment is an album I did record with limited gears and means. 

That’s your local rock band jam, it tastes like beers and Pro Evo nights. Even the artwork was drawn by one of our friends.

Today I don’t have that many musical projects, mostly because I lack the time.

To have a listen it’s right this way:

https://nulorama1.bandcamp.com/album/nulorama

– Year of the Earth Dog

A band born on the ashes of Frrnt and the new songs of its singer. This time it’s in English, I’ve switched my guitar for a laptop, a keyboard and a bass and we play our own kind of Post-Punk. 

Forthcoming stuff this year with new songs and maybe a new video… Stay put!

François directed this video!

– DonDonBa

Sometimes you know people. And these people are musicians. And you are a musician too! But you don’t play with these other musicians. And then, one day, you’re having a drink with these friends and they say that they need a singer so you say « Let’s give it a try! ».

Then you switch the former singer’s lyrics from French to English, his theatrical French voice by your rock one on this strange mix of pop, funky, wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

And then there’s a worldwide pandemic and your first gig is postponed for two years and will finally happen this March 18th just near Lyon!

A quick video and the facebook page:

https://fb.watch/bwhkmmX7jH/

– Mythique Insomnie

A DonDonBa side project that will release its first songs later this year.

– Margin Notes – Here Be Dragons

The Holy Grail! My solo project. At least it has a name. Now I can’t kill it.

CINEMA

– Nécrologie(s)

I’ve known Guillaume and François for many years now but we never worked closely together before The World After. The first time we came pretty close was with Necrologies.

François brought me in on this anthology movie to take care of the sound design side of his segment. I ended up writing music as well as sound designing the transition segments of the movie.

I was already a little bit familiar with sound design but this project was the one that put everything in motion for what was to come.

After that I mostly worked on trailers and short movies.

VIDEO GAMES

In 2019, François and I started our YouTuber careers with JA2B (standing for Jeux à deux balles or One dollar Games). After some not that successful videos we were put to a stop again by the pandemic and the first lockdown in France. A lockdown that we cleverly spent in areas with pretty bad internet.

We then looked for something to do remotely together and decided on something we wanted to do for a long time: make a video game ourselves. So we signed up for a game jam, it went well so we  signed up for another one and from these I Wanna Build A Robot & Multiverse Justice came to be. And then Burning Sunset.

It turned out that Guillaume wrote a script for a FMV game, so he directed and acted,  François planned, produced, shot, edited, color grading, developed and I developed and sound designed and thus The World After was born. 

And we’re already cooking up some amazing stuff for you.

The Geek Corner

My first gaming system must have been the NES (I may have got my Game Boy roughly at the same time). I then had an Amstrad CPC that I also used as a TV to play with my Super Nintendo, only in black & white… Those were the days…

Regarding games, my oldest memories are of Altered Beast (probably on a family friend’s Genesis but even maybe on its Commodore 64, the real thing), Kabuki: Quantum Fighter on the NES and Paper Boy on the Game Boy. Yep, I’m an old thing.

But my real gamer life started with an opening screen as blissful sounding as it was frighteningly long: the first Playstation!

5 of my favorite games

• Final Fantasy VII
• Pro Evo (pick a good year, one with Adriano at Inter Milano)
• Civilization V
• The Last Guardian
• Disco Elysium

5 of my favorite albums

• Metropolis Part Two: Scenes from a memory by Dream Theater
• Nightfall in Middle-Earth by Blind Guardian
• King for a day, Fool for a lifetime by Faith No More
• Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos
• Remedy Lane by Pain of Salvation

5 of my favorite books

• The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
• Ilium / Olympos by Dan Simmons
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
• La valse aux adieux by Milan Kundera

My quirk:

I’m a huge simulation fan, especially sports simulations.

NBA 2k, Formula One, Pro Evo, Football Manager, Madden, Fight Night, NHL, etc… 

I lost so many hours, season after season in career modes. So don’t be surprised if one day I start documenting the great rise to glory of Burning Sunset FC on our Twitch channel!

Stay tuned!