The 24-year-old plumber from the town of Evreux in the region of Haute Normandie in northern France has been inundated with telephone calls and text messages these past few days and it's not because suddenly clients have discovered his talents with a wrench.
Nope.
Instead fans of the French reggae (well that's how they're described) group Tryo have been calling, hoping to be able to talk to one of the band's members.
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| (screenshot from video clip for "Greenwashing") |
That's because the group included De Sousa's number at the end of one of the tracks of their recently released album "Ladilafé" with singer Guizmo telling listeners to 'Call me".
And that's exactly what fans have been doing according to the regional daily Paris Normandie.
"Often when I answer, the fans simply hang up immediately because they realise it's not Guizmo the other end of the line," De Sousa told the newspaper, clearly not amused that his number had apparently been used in a song but also feeling compelled to answer just in case it was a business call.
Tryo appear to be more than contrite for something which their record company said was 'an innocent mistake" with Guizmo simply coming up with a random number while in the recording studio without thinking of the possible consequences.
"We meant delete the number from the album but we simply forgot," said another band member, Bibou
According to Europe 1, they've apologised to De Sousa, offered to meet the costs of changing his mobile 'phone number and help out in any marketing campaign that might be necessary to inform existing clients and find new ones.
That should be the solution to De Sousa's problems although he's not too keen on the idea.
"I've built the business up over the past three years and clients know that they can reach me on this number," he said.
"I don't really want to have to change it."
A great media buzz for Tryo's new album (in the sense that any news is better than no news at all) but at the expense, albeit inadvertently, of poor ol' De Sousa.
Oh, one last thing. Tryo is the very same group which on their 1998 debut album "Mamagubida" included the track "France Télécom", a satirical song thanking the communications giant for the omnipresence of the mobile 'phone in everyday life.
Ah - the irony of it.
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1 comment:
well, isn't it a media buzz which might also draw attention to Mr Sousa? I know that when I look for a plumber in the pages jaunes, I'm faced with a list of 30 plumbers and I pick one randomly. Perhaps if I recognise a familiar name, I might select that number.
Deidre
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