Thomas Mars

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Thomas Pablo Croquet, known as Thomas Mars, was born in 1976 in Versailles and is a French musician, the singer of the indie pop band Phoenix. His uncle Horst pushed him to learn English. With school friends Chris Mazzalai and Deck d'Arcy he formed Phoenix in 1995, later joined by Laurent Brancowitz, Mazzalai's older brother, after the end of Darlin'. Mars lasted only four days at university, where he was studying economics, and then committed himself entirely to music. The band members adopted stage names to sound cooler.

Music and breakthrough

The group first pressed five hundred copies of a single on their own label, before signing with the Paris-based Source Records. Mars wrote and produced Too Young, their first single in the French charts. The debut album United appeared in 2000. Phoenix released seven albums in total and won a Grammy in 2010. Under the pseudonym Gordon Tracks, Mars co-wrote Air's song Playground Love, for the film The Virgin Suicides, and also sang and played drums on it.

Influence

On that film he met the director Sofia Coppola, whom he married in 2011. They have two daughters. Mars has lived in New York since 2018, but also has a home in Paris. His work links him with the French pop wave of around 2000, to which Air and Daft Punk also belong.

Listening