About Us

Like most things in life, our story begins in the cradle of life known as Indiana in the USA at Indiana University in Bloomington. It was on these hollowed grounds where Kevin and Ryan met back in 2001; united by a love for music, wildly inappropriate comedy, and science. Together they played several parties at IU and, eventually, they both joined a short-lived band called “Colder by the Lake”(2002). They then formed another band in 2003 alongside Darby Cici (The Antlers), but it failed to take flight too. After school Kevin went to school, more school, and the Berklee School of Music to study bass. This is the part where we mention that Kevin is a talented, semi-youthful, and  handsome, pro bass player; a classically trained studio and touring musician. Here we should also mention that Ryan, on the other hand, is not any of those things. Not even close. Instead he went down the DJing rabbit hole and eventually landed a well-received weekly residency in the house music Mecca of Jacksonville, FL (the very first and last time it will ever be described that way), ranking in The DJ List’s Top 20 (#17) of all Chicago House DJs in the world by 2007 one spot ahead of the genre’s creator, Frankie Knuckles.  During that time Kevin played with acts such as Jace Everett and Morgan Frazier and toured with acts opening for artists such as Flo Rida and Miranda Lambert. While the two kept in regular contact and vowed to start do another project together someday it wasn’t until 2017 that the flow of life finally allowed the two to focus on a more serious effort and, thusly, the duo came together as “French Ships.” French Ships is play on the word “friendships” which perfectly describes why the band exists and what they will create through their work with other talented artists. French Ships’ first two productions, “Every Day” and “LAX,” were released in late 2017. Both are downtempo hip hop releases featuring MC/actor Chris Clarke from the 2-Pac biopic “All Eyez on Me”. The duo’s most current release is a synth-y, robot-y, three-track-y EP called Casmality which was released worldwide on May 1st, 2018 to critical acclaim and royal fanfare (with flutists, real flutists). How is that word pronounced “f-lou-tist”? That’s far more interesting than this bio. 

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frenchshipsmusic@gmail.com