In today's Global Hit, we meet a band named after a faction in the French revolution that helped overthrow the King.

But for our pre-Bastille Day celebration, we don't go to Paris. We go to Brooklyn, where this group of Francophone rockers is based. The World's Adeline Sire has the story.

Of the eight members of the band Les Sans Culottes, not a single one is French, or even speaks French fluently. Bill Carney is the founder of the band.

Bill Carney: I had studied French in high school, in college but I would say I was not a good student.

The same goes for singer Kathleen Cholewka.

Kathleen Cholewka: I did huh....study some French in high school.

Another singer, Audrey Kellar, describes her fluency in French this way...

Audrey Kellar: Pretty non-existent for the most part.

So Bill Carney says the band has created its own language.

BC: If you understand French, you won't understand us, and if you understand English, you won't understand us. So we're perfectly positioned in the middle between those two languages.

AK: It's Franglais, franglish,

All: yes Franglish.

This is Carney's version of Franglish. He's singing the story of "Francois Noir." It's a tribute to Franck Black, lead singer of the American rock band "The Pixies."

All band members have picked up French-sounding stage names like Johnny Dieppe or Kit Kat Lenoir. Carney's is Clermont Ferrand.

BC: I discovered the name Clermont Ferrand just by looking at a map of France and I thought it's great that there's a city that has a person's name, it has first name, a last name, and I've never been there but I understand it's this kind of industrial town where they have a Michelin tire factory I think Renault has a factory there and I'm from Detroit which is definitely an industrial factory town in the States so it called out to me

Carney discovered 60s French pop a decade ago, and fell in love with it. A French friend introduced him to classic tunes by singer-songwriter icons such as Jacques Dutronc and Serge Gainsbourg. But members of Les Sans Culottes like to mix it up. They call their music accessible, upbeat French-style pop, with a tinge of the Beatles. And they throw in hard rock guitar, Ted Nugent style, for an edgier sound. Here's "Les monstres du ça."

BC: That's our Sigmund Freud number called "Monsters from the id."

The group also uses familiar French expressions, from "plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose," to "les enfants terribles"...and many double-entendre, which by the way, is not a French expression. The name of the band is an example. It comes from the French revolution, and it means "without britches." Les Sans Culottes were workers who rejected the britches or "culottes" worn by the aristocracy. They wore long pants instead. But Carney says like the band irself, that name is open to interpretation.

BC: French people would relate to it and say 'ah yes these are the citizen soldiers of the revolution' but English people here would say 'oh they are without underwear they're without culottes.'

KC: It's a little naughty and a little historical....

BC: It's historical, it's revolutionary, and it's kind of jokey, which is all the different facets of our band. I think there's something that's revolutionary about us singing in French here in the U.S., so many French bands don't even sing in French, they sing in English because that's the language of rock'n roll.

Revolutionary or not, they have often performed for Bastille Day celebrations in the U.S., but so far, never in France. That may be a good thing though, because too much authenticity could ruin their act.

KC: we'll be armed and dangerous...
AK: the mystique will be shattered...

BC: we will have the apple from the tree of knowledge and be banished from paradise for ever.

AK: That's OK, that's OK, I can roll with that.

This Saturday, Les Sans Culottes will celebrate Bastille Day in Brooklyn.

Their new album is called "le Weekender."