Your music career is marked by a wide diversity of styles and influences. How do you manage to evolve musically while staying true to your artistic identity?
I believe you gain artistic coherence precisely by not trying to reproduce patterns that may have worked in the past. I enjoy exploring different styles while approaching them with sincerity and a sense of fun, which I think always leaves a signature that’s true to my universe. I don’t worry about who I am in the eyes of others, because that would force me to stay the same and create based on those expectations to avoid losing their approval. Instead, I follow what excites me, what amuses me, I take risks, I try, I fail no matter. But I refuse to regret sacrificing boldness in the name of maintaining a status.
Your latest album, «Impostor,» is shaping up to be a real success. So, are you the impostor? (Laughs)
Whether things go well or poorly, we are all impostors to someone, to something, and sometimes even to ourselves. We are constantly swayed by contradictions and paradoxes in a time that demands everyone to have a firm opinion-about good, bad, true, or false. Of course, it’s all an illusion. Choosing the word Impostor as the album title is picking a word that, back in my Nouvelle Star days, was used to describe me in some articles. Taking someone else’s songs and transforming them until they feel like your own is, in itself, a gentle form of imposture.
What was your process for selecting the songs you chose to cover on this album, and why?
It was a long process, spanning over three years. I had fragments recorded as voice memos on my phone and lists of songs I love or would like to cover someday. Then came the desire to bring this project to life, and that’s when the real work started. I tested hundreds of songs on the piano, on the guitar, facing the challenge of respecting their full structure (lyrics, chords, melodies). It’s easy to cover a song for one minute; even easier to take an upbeat song and slow it down. But when you have to create a full album while staying true to the essence of each song, you realize how long and delicate the process will be.
I kept the covers that I felt offered a real reinterpretation, a new perspective-sometimes through performance, sometimes through arrangement, and sometimes simply because I wanted to remember singing them on an album. Each of the 17 songs on this album has a connection to me, my childhood, my teenage years, or my love for making music.
How do you connect the present moment with your memories through your songs?
It’s the journey between a TV show, where at 24 I was covering other people’s songs, and 17 years later, at 42, stirring up nostalgia from that time and bringing it into the present. Emotions don’t age, and bitterness doesn’t taint good memories.
In 2007, I felt like I was being born in the eyes of the public. Today, I want to pay tribute to that time of randomness, when everything felt possible, free, and alive. Right now, I feel like talking and singing about my memories.
You’ve said, «I want to be able to say who I am using other people’s words, before sharing my own.» Is that out of modesty, or to keep a sense of mystery?
No, that’s just where I started in 2007. It’s also my definition of a successful cover: injecting yourself into something that wasn’t originally yours. And it simply sums up what this album is about. Later on, there will probably be another album, with original songs that I’ll write and compose, as always, in my own words.
You have an impressive background in music, but what motivated you to explore the world of fiction?
It was a breath of fresh air in a field where I had no control. The desire to put myself at risk in acting, without singing. My life is music and my connection with those who care about me. The rest is just an attempt to change scenery, to expand my horizons. I’ve done two seasons of the TV series PANDA on TF1, just like I was a judge for one season on The Voice Kids. I explore, I taste, I experiment, then I always return to music, which is and will remain my home.
What are your new sources of inspiration?
They don’t change, even with time in fact, especially because of time: my son, silence, isolation, nature, animals, and a little bit of others.
Between music and fiction, where do you see yourself evolving in the coming years?
On stage, with music. That’s my life. The rest is just a hobby.
Do you have any particular ambitions you haven’t yet explored in these areas?
With my video clip co-director, Brice VDH, we’ve been writing ideas for several years-series, films, documentaries. I’m really eager to one day work on something longer than a music video with him.
Are you a man of passion or reason? (Smile)
I think I’m extremely passionate, overflowing with passion even. But my sensitivity to today’s world-with its violence, stupidity, and extremism-forces me to think a lot, and probably too much, no longer just for myself, but for the future of my child.
What would you like to wish our LiFE magazine readers?
To take care of themselves and those around them.
