A Strasbourg Singer-Songwriter Turns the Moment After a Concert Into French Pop-Rock at 145 BPM
The concert is over and the lights are going down, but the excitement has not gone anywhere. Jean-Marc Wanner holds on to that moment in En Coulisses, his French-language pop-rock single. It runs at 145 BPM on three distorted rhythm guitars. The single came out on 4 September, with words by the lyricist Alain Varlet.
Jean-Marc Wanner’s new single is in the playlist below, and his full coverage history is collected on his artist profile. En Coulisses came to NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play on it, then carry on reading.
The title means backstage, and it works on two levels. On the first, it is the literal backstage, the side of a venue the audience never sees. On the second, it is where people keep the dreams they have not yet dared to chase. That second meaning is the one Wanner knows from his own life.
Jean-Marc Wanner Picked Up His Brother’s Old Guitar at 18, Long Before En Coulisses
As a boy he refused to touch a guitar, even while his brother was taking lessons. He believed a good musician either started very young or was born with a gift. Then, at 18, while working as a ski instructor, he met a 24-year-old who had only just started. Even so, that young man already played very well. The advice he got was simple: if you want to play, get on with it. So Wanner took out his brother’s old guitar. Before long he had formed a band, Évasion, and tried everything from Brazilian guitar to rock and jazz.
Jean-Marc Wanner Built En Coulisses Where French Chanson Meets the Melodic Guitar Rock of Dire Straits
The division of labour on En Coulisses is clear. Varlet wrote the words, while Wanner composed the music, arranged it and produced it. That is a familiar way of working for him. Some of his lyrics are his own, and others come from writer friends. At home he makes his songs in a studio he set up in his basement. He is also a guitarist and a drummer, not only a songwriter.
The arrangement is where his own hand shows most. It is a full band arrangement for a song about a band on a stage. Rather than one rhythm guitar, he stacked three, and all of them are distorted. Bass and dynamic drums carry the rhythm, melodic guitar solos sit on top, and the chorus vocals are layered.
On his own pages, Wanner places his songs where rock energy meets the poetry of French chanson. Folk ballads add depth to the mix. He also lists the subjects he keeps returning to: romance, society, solitude, communication, the passing of time and the celebration of music itself. En Coulisses belongs to the last of those.
Mark Knopfler and Jean-Jacques Goldman Also Wrote Songs About the Stage Itself
Wanner names both men among his influences, alongside the Beatles, David Gilmour and Francis Cabrel. Both of them also wrote well-known songs about music being played. Dire Straits released Sultans of Swing in 1978. Mark Knopfler wrote it after watching a Dixieland jazz band in an almost empty pub in Deptford, south London. At the end of the night, the singer announced the band’s name: the Sultans of Swing. Knopfler told that story from the audience’s side of the room. En Coulisses takes the performer’s side, once the set is finished.
Jean-Jacques Goldman wrote and composed Quand la musique est bonne, a French pop-rock song whose subject is music itself. Wanner’s single sits in a line he already admires. Goldman released his song in October 1982 and produced it with Marc Lumbroso.
En Coulisses Gives Jean-Marc Wanner’s Long-Held Dream Its Turn on the Stage After Decades in the Wings
Wanner built a career as an electronics engineer. For most of his working life, the music waited in the wings. Since 2024, though, the project has had his full attention. Sur le fil, the earliest single in his streaming catalogue, came out that April. Since then he has released eleven more singles and a five-track EP, Connexions fragiles, and En Coulisses is the latest of them. The titles follow the subjects he likes to write about. A l’ère de la communication means in the age of communication, and Le temps means time. Merci à nos soignants is a thank-you to health workers.
Now 63 and semi-retired, he shoots and directs his own videos around Alsace. He posts on Instagram every two days and still plays concerts with Évasion whenever someone asks. In 2025 he also tried his luck on La France a un incroyable talent on M6. Last November he was profiled by the local public radio station ICI Alsace and by L’Essentiel Strasbourg. The second piece closed on the message he most wants to pass on: whatever your age, it is never too late to start and to make your dreams happen.
That message is also the best guide to who En Coulisses is for. It suits listeners in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada who grew up with Goldman and Cabrel on the radio. The same goes for anyone who kept Dire Straits on the stereo. UK rock fans who like loud guitars should hear it too, even with a French lyric. Finally, it is for anyone who has kept something in the wings for too long.
NewMusic.News’s curator team: “En Coulisses sounds built for a stage. That is why it sits in our Rock, Alternative Rock, Art Rock playlist. Its stacked guitars give a French-language pop-rock song the weight of a full band.”
Where to Stream and Follow Jean-Marc Wanner
Stream En Coulisses on Spotify, Apple Music or Deezer. Follow Jean-Marc Wanner on his Spotify artist page, Instagram and Facebook. Watch his videos on his YouTube channel, hear more on SoundCloud and read about his music on his official site.
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