Sean Yseult and Chris Lee

By MOLLY REID
Published: February 3, 2008

IF there is one law of social physics in New Orleans, it is that after first meeting someone, you will cross paths again within weeks. It was this certainty that gave hope to the rock musicians Sean Yseult and Chris Lee.

The two first saw each other at Checkpoint Charlie’s, a music club on the fringe of the French Quarter. Ms. Yseult, a native of Raleigh, N.C., had recently moved to New Orleans after 10 years as the bassist for White Zombie, the heavy metal group.

Mr. Lee had been living there since 1988, when he moved from his native Anchorage to attend Tulane, receiving a degree in cellular and molecular biology. He then studied screenwriting and was in the early stages of founding and fronting Supagroup, a rock ensemble.

After the Checkpoint Charlie’s show, the gregarious Mr. Lee was handing out fliers for his own upcoming gig as Ms. Yseult passed him on her way out. As she took a flier, both felt a spark, but neither spoke.

“It was only eyes,” said Mr. Lee, 36, who did not recognize her as the White Zombie bassist. “There was a weird sort of connection.”

Over the next month, as they routinely sampled New Orleans night life, each looked for the other. The search ended at 2 a.m. at Snake and Jakes Christmas Club Lounge, a run-down shack revered by locals.

“I was so excited like, ‘Oh, I finally found her!’ ” Mr. Lee said. But, not wanting to break his swaggering rocker persona, he did not let on that he had been searching for her.

Ms. Yseult, 43, who is not known to be effusive, said she remembered thinking: “ ‘Eureka! I found him!’ I’d been looking for him every night. It had felt like forever.”

The club had no closing time, and they talked until dawn, making plans to see each other again. They have been perfectly in tune since.

“She’s beautiful, talented, very smart, and we’ve had a 10-year conversation and we’ve never gotten bored,” he said.

Ms. Yseult, who said she knew he was the one before their first conversation ended, said she went to a music festival in Austin, Tex., the next day. He later told her that he had vowed to stay “cool,” as she put it, and had decided not to call during her three-day trip.

“But the exact moment I walked in the door, the phone rang,” she said. “It was him.”

Then, as now, they spent their days walking around the city they love, frequenting favorite restaurants or cooking meals at home, and serving as each other’s creative soundboard.

Mr. Lee, who is on the road two-thirds of the year, speaks adoringly of his bride’s “rockingness,” which includes her implicit trust and understanding of his being a touring musician with raucous fans. She now travels only a couple of months a year, mostly to Europe, as the bass player with Rock City Morgue. They make a point never to be apart more than three weeks at a time.

They share a three-story house, decked out in objets d’art and neo-Gothic décor, like a lion-skin rug and a skeleton, in the city’s Lower Garden District. The house sustained roof and third-story water damage during Hurricane Katrina, but was one of the few neighborhood homes with electricity. Ms. Yseult had dozens of house keys made for her less-fortunate friends to use.

“We’ve been through some really tough times,” Mr. Lee said.

“We had Katrina. We had the death of her father,” he said, referring to Michael Shane Reynolds, the Hemingway scholar.

In addition to pursuing her music, Ms. Yseult owns a designer scarf company, and several New Orleans galleries have shown her photography. The couple are also owners of a tavern called the Saint, where he shares quips with the saucy staff and neighborhood regulars. “He is extremely entertaining and not afraid to embarrass himself and everyone around him,” said Ms. Yseult, who friends describe as a more sedate flip side to his boisterousness.

Mike O’Connell, a friend of Mr. Lee’s since college, said it’s part of Ms. Yseult’s appeal that she lets Mr. Lee be himself. “They allow each other to realize their own passions,” he said. “It’s very beautiful to see someone back someone up so much and let them do any crazy thing that comes to mind.”

They might have stayed unmarried had it not been for the birth of the son of Mr. Lee’s brother, Benji Lee, who is also Supagroup’s lead guitarist. Knowing the band would not be touring for several months, the couple decided it provided time for a “big party” that included their wedding, Ms. Yseult said.

More than 200 guests were at Preservation Hall, the New Orleans jazz club, on Jan. 12 for a candlelit ceremony led by Judge Mary (K.K.) Norman of the New Orleans Second City Court. The packed room included Jay Yuenger and John Tempesta, formerly of the White Zombies, and Ben Jaffe, the creative director of Preservation Hall.

After the ceremony, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band paraded guests through the French Quarter to One Eyed Jacks, a favorite club of the bride and bridegroom, where jazz mingled with AC/DC on the dance floor until the early morning hours, as another dawn broke on their relationship.

“He claimed for years that I was the one circling around looking for him,” she said, “but now I know he was definitely looking for me.”

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