Juste entre toi et moi - Pierre Lapointe

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

À l’approche de la sortie d’un nouvel album, Pierre Lapointe parle de son rapport à la mort, de son approche des médias sociaux et de sa participation à Star Académie. Il confie aussi son admiration pour Safia Nolin et raconte la fois où il a fumé un joint avec Luc Plamondon.

Music Salut, ici Dominique Tardif. Ah, bienvenue. À juste, entre toi et moi, bienvenue enfin à la suite de cette cinquième saison de Juste entre toi et moi. Welcome to the rest of this 5th season of Just Between You and Me. We'll have 4 or 5 episodes for you in the next few weeks. And the tent will be worth it. It's at least my little pretense. Because my guest today is Pierre Lapointe.

Pierre will release very soon, on January 24, a new album entitled 10 fashion songs for those who have a broken heart. It's a nice title for a beautiful album that I had the privilege of hearing. There will obviously be questions in our interview. Pierre Lapointe is also the music teacher of the present season of the Star Academy broadcast on TVA. There will also be questions in our interview. I just have to tell you that you can read the article I pulled from this meeting in the Press Plus, on lapresse.ca or in the mobile press app. And while you're there, you can read a pack of other excellent articles

written by my excellent colleagues. And here is my interview, without further ado, with the most elegant of the monks, Pierre Lapointe. For once, it stays between you and me. 10 fashion songs for those who have a heart broken. Yeah. Let's go! Maybe. Okay. Is it tempting?

Yes. I'm going to get into the mood, I'll answer questions. You can also be polite and say, hi Pierre. No, no, no, it's not that beautiful. Okay, let's go. Hello. Hello. Hello to you. Here's an interview.

It will be an interview, throat and back. We'll leave Pierre's time to arrive. I'm here. Is it early in the morning? Very. How long have you been awake? It's 9 o'clock. I woke up at 5 o'clock this morning.

But I went to bed at 9.30 pm last night. That's a Monaco life. Yeah, it seems that at some point, after going back to Paris-Montréal, I ended up falling asleep early and waking up early. Which means it's early for Montreal, late for Paris. And I ended up being... I don't know, I've been falling asleep early for a long time. But you know, I'm very demanding with myself. I work a lot.

And when I don't work, I have a full head and I do a lot of things anyway. In fact, there are not really periods in my life where I don't work. So I understood at one point that if I wanted to ask my body and my head, I had to be in a context that could be considered quite holy, even if in the end, what is being holy, what is being unholy, I don't know.

So yes, not too much alcohol, in fact, not alcohol at all. I drank a brush at Chichicoutimi for the last time at the Christmas show, and it had been at least three years since I had been, if I say a brush, I was a little hot. Yes, it looks like a brush for a beer. I drank a lot between 11.30 and midnight, 1 am. I stayed up until 3.30,

but I stopped drinking at 1.30 am. So I was just tired at the end, and the next day I was just in a good mood. It's good to change the chemistry of the brain too, to clean up the cards a little bit, and to send a message to your body that says, hey, you're really on vacation, man. But it was three years or less, and the first time, it was two years.

It looks like every brush I take, there's always one more year that goes between the two brushes. So yes, I eat well. Normally, I do a lot of sports. I stopped for knee problems. I do a lot, a lot, a lot of sports. What kind of sports? I do boot camp, because I don't need to think about it.

Otherwise, in the summer, I usually ride my bike to Montréal. I start from the old Montréal, then I go up to the top of Montréal. Sometimes I do it twice a day, and I do it at least three times a week, in addition to bootcamp. So normally, when spring comes, I several years I've been more than in shape. People probably don't know that. But I have a very, very good cardio. Mablon often believes you on a bicycle track

from the Myland where you run. Run? No, I don't run too much. No, bike. Bike. And it had to be periods where I was going to do a lot of studio work. But yes, that's it. I don't look like a sportsman, but I am. There are people who cross me. You still look fit.

Yes, I'm fit. But I can tell you, people don't think I'm... We can't imagine that you're Canadian from match to match. No, that's not... On the other hand, following sports, it bothers me a little. Is it true that you've never taken drugs? While we're on the subject of altering substances. I took pot, in my life. The big revelations.

Sometimes. Even now I can count on my ten fingers. Once quite funny, I can tell you now it's legal. Well, Luc will forgive me, I'm sure of it. Luc Lavondon? Yes. We did a show for the Wainwrights McGurgles at one point in the summer. My friend Claudine Prévost was there.

After that, there was a party in the McGurgle at one point in the summer, and my friend Claudine Prévost was there. And after that, there was a party in the McGurgle family, you know, a lot of people, and someone said, well, there's a party in our apartment in Outremont, so we went in there, and the crowd was there, and someone offered us a joint. And I said, oh, I don't know, and Luc and I were talking, and he said, do you smoke? I said, not really, but if you smoke, I smoke.

He said, well, if you smoke, I smoke too. I tried to take a puff, but I never smoked. It didn't work. You didn't use the technique. He just laughed. He said, come on, give me your joint, I'll show you how to smoke. He asked me how to smoke. He took the joint and he coached me to smoke. I got drunk and we started to get a little drunk. Then one day I just looked at Claudine who was sitting on the floor in front of us. He was like, what I was choking, and we started to get a little buzzed. And then one day I just looked at Claudine, who was sitting on the ground in front of us,

and she was like, what am I living right now? Like, Luc Lamonton, who was coaching Pierre Lapointe, my great friend, smoked a joint. But that's because the few times I took your legal drugs, I'll say. Yes. Not that the police is here. Yes, that's it, and that they stop me. No, but it's especially that I qu'on m'arrête. Non, mais c'est surtout que je...

J'ai une affre à promouvoir. Non, non, mais j'ai 14 ans quand je prends des substances de même, parce que je redécouvre les effets comme un jeune ado de 14 ans qui fume pour la première fois. Et à 14 ans, j'essayais vraiment pas ces affaires-là. Quand j'ai fumé du pot pour la première fois, je devais avoir 20 quelques années. Donc ça ne m'intéresse pas parce que j'ai pas du jugement sur ce qu'ils consomment ou quoi que ce soit. I'm not interested because I don't judge those who consume or whatever. Everyone goes where they want to go and I find that great. I like the stories of my friends a lot.

But as I was saying, I'm so demanding with my head and my body that I don't want to alter that. Does it end up becoming normal to live a moment like this? with my body, that I don't want to alter that. That's it. Does it end up becoming normal, to live a moment like that with Luc Plamondon? It ends up being normal until you see in the eyes of the people... That Claudine Prévost reminds you that it's the people. ... who did like... But Luc has always been very, very...

I have enormous respect for Luc Plamondon. He knows that I have a crazy admiration for his work. The first time we saw each other, he even came to see my first show in Paris, at the Café de la Danse. He invited us, the whole gang, to have a drink afterwards. Super generous, really a gang guy. There is a culture to break everything. He was quite subjugated because I even talked even talked about the albums I had made in time. You know, things that...

Every time I talked about a song, they said, but no one remembers that song. I said, well, I listened to it, I got it right, and I love that song. And I talked about these songs with Robidou, these songs with everyone, actually. He collaborated with everyone, indeed. And he was really, really empathetic. And he felt, I think, that great respect.

And often, you know, we saw each other the last time in the Starmania booth. I created his team to have seats. He wasn't supposed to be there, but he came to see me. I didn't know. At the entrance, I went to see him, but there were like a thousand people.

When Luke goes to a show like that of Starmania, he's more of a star than the show itself. So I tried to reach him to say, Hey Luke, thanks for the tickets, but I couldn't make it, so I went to the track. And then I was a little more insistent, like, you know, I know him, and it's true. His assistant who saw me...

We've already been together for a while. Yeah, that's it. His assistant took me by the arm and said, but we're here to see you, Luke was looking for you. I said, oh yeah, okay. We were going to get a glass together. But often, he called me. When I was in Paris, he said,

I'm going to see a show at the Pérot Bastille, come with me. He took me to a restaurant. He often said, where do you want to go eat? And I said, I don't know. Invite me wherever you want. We're going to the Hotel Cos, it's the best pure apples in history. And we're going to eat pure apples. And then we went to the Hotel Cos.

People who don't know Paris well, the Hotel Cos is mythical. And then the hotel owner recognizes them. And then we have the best place. And he's very proud of that. And in short, I ate the best pure apples in my life. Which confirms that they are the best pure apples. They are really good. They're really good. I'm talking about the year 2007-2008.

It's always been very kind, generous, curious. So for me, it's normal to smoke. To be coached to smoke a lot. I'm not a plonker. But I have to admit that it's... But it's the kind of job we do like that. I mean, I'd be a cook, it would be the same thing, and I'd end up working with great chefs

who trained me or who I admired all my life. It's normal when you're in the industry, and each artist has their little moment like that, normal, not normal, with other artists. It's part of the joys of this job. Who were you when you at 14? You mentioned the teenager you were, who really didn't take drugs at that time.

Well, I was... From my childhood to today, I've always been two things that are extremely opposite at the same time. Which makes it a little complicated. As a teenager, I was sad. I'm not the only teenager, the only human being who would have been sad as a teenager.

But it was complicated. To be gay in an ethereal environment, or there are other gays, but I don't know, because nobody says it, or at least they don't say it yet. In an ethereal family that doesn't don't really know how to be gay, in a place where you feel that culture comes out of your skin pores, creativity comes out of your skin pores, my mother was very, very sensitive to art.

She was the one who made me familiar with all of the culture, including visual arts, and the pleasure of museums as well. What did she do did your mother do? My mother worked with my father. My parents had a store like a dollar store before. Imports made in Taiwan, made in Japan. So I was raised in a super abundance of objects with cheap objects.

Which means that today I have a very unique relationship with objects. I quickly recognize objects that are well made, well thought out. And at the same time, I have an admiration and a fascination for objects that are quickly made, poorly made. I think it's extraordinary. Pop culture attracts me a lot, and objects of mass culture attract me a lot, which is why I like fashion too. It's another paradox, another tension of your age. Exactly. And so, as a teenager, my mother did her bachelor's degree in plastic art

in high school, in adult, at the University of Hull at the time. And so, when she was doing her final sessions, I came with her when I was, I don't know, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 11, 11 years old. So, very young, she explained Dada to me, she explained Marcel Duchamp to me, she explained Warhol to me, she explained Calder, all that. So, there are children for whom it was just a good news,

and they would have gone to another school. Yes, you didn't find it boring. No, but not only that, it made me... It made me, at 14, I knew things, I understood things. I had integrated those principles, which were not normally integrated by a young person of that age. But at school, I wasn't very good. So it was a little weird, because the messages that the school established sent me, it was that I wasn't very good, but what the teachers sent me as a message,

it was that I was really doing well, and they had never seen a student of my own. And I would go to exhibitions with my friends, with my friends, with my teachers who had become my friends. And at the same time, I had my friends of my age, my friend Janik, who I am still friends with. We still see each other there, we met, we were five years old. So I was still my best friend, my oldest friend. She was already in my life at that time. So I was between Barbara Léo Ferré-Brel, Aznavour, and Björk Beck, the Beastie Boys, Buster Rhymes, Wyclef Jean, the Fugees. I was in there, like, between the two all the time.

And as soon as I had a little money, I went to see everything I could see at the National Art Center, at the Gatineau House of Culture, and then I went to the Museum of Fine Arts, I said to myself, clean up at the Museum of Fine Arts. You cleaned up the art? It calmed me down, to go into a large space, almost empty, with objects placed consciously, objects that were discussing each other. I needed that, it was calming me down.

There are people who go to church, I go to museums. Even today, I spend a lot of time in Paris. And in Beaubourg, I go there. What a beautiful museum. I go there twice a week. It's fun, and it opens until 11pm. Sometimes I don't have the evening. I didn't plan anything, I finished a day's work, and I go to the museum,

just to see works that I've seen a billion times. And I know exactly the location of everything. There's a few Marcel Duchamp in Beaubourg. There's a few Duchamp, there's Kandinsky, too, that I like a lot. And what's fun is that, I talk about it, I have goosebumps, but I have my friends who are exposed there. I have pieces that I... there is a magnificent piece,

Jean-Michel L'Autoniel's Theatres de Peau d'âne, which is exhibited. I think it was still there, it was there last autumn. I went to see the work with Jean-Michel, his work, which is exhibited there. It's extraordinary. There is Johann Krétaine too. The two clips I shot for the new album, I shot all the ideas in Yohan Crétin's studio. And the song about my mother, Les Pigeons d'Argis,

I shot it in Jean-Michel Etoniel's studio. And Sophie Kalle too. So it's extraordinary for me to arrive at a moment in my life where naturally I have friends, a bit like Plamondon. I find myself having friends who are artists who have marked me and who I admire. And at the same time, they come to eat at my place and we are very relaxed. And then, to do your coming out, did it soothe a little the melancholy that it created in you?

No, it was worse. I can't talk about it too much, not because I don't want to talk about it, it's just that it involves people that I like a lot. And I think they are very bad with the reaction they had at the time. We have the impression that you have already talked about it in songs. Yeah. My biggest album, my biggest success is called La Forêt des Mal-Aimés.

So it was very, very, very, very, very, very, very complicated. I can say that I am a scapegoat. I can say that like that. And in addition, I was extremely lucid and more mature than my age, more determined than my age. But around me, it was not possible to understand that I had this assurance at that age, because it's not frequent. And I come from a environment, my parents, full of love. that I had this assurance at that age, because it's not frequent.

And I come from a middle, my parents, full of love. I really didn't lack love, but on certain questions, it was complicated for them to... You know, I was making a little joke, because... Let's say there was a gap at one point, which was already there, but at one point, it became bigger and bigger between my parents and me. All of this being extremely close to another paradox.

Extremely close, but extremely far. And at one point I said to myself, well, it's a little bit special for me to have the parents I have. And I said, but I'm sure that for them it's extremely special to have a son like me too. So it's something, you know, you never have to put in the other's skin. It wasn't easy to get married. People from outside could see, but when you're stuck on it, it's hard to keep your distance because you don't necessarily have a comparison. You don't have other children to compare with.

Now I worked a lot at my parents' store. You know, my first piano, people don't know, often don't know. My first piano, I bought it in the sixth year. It cost $1,800 and I paid $900 for this piano. I was 12 years old. With your savings? With my savings that I was making

or that I had collected while working at my parents' store. So me, at 15, from 15 to 18, I had three jobs. I worked in shops, I worked as a concierge. As a concierge? Yes, I worked as a concierge in an office as an anthropologist. I worked as a concierge. You ask me to do a housework, I'm a bastard. It's clean when I leave a place. I love doing housework. You'll leave to do the cleaning, I'm a pro. It's clean when I leave a place.

I love doing the cleaning. You'll leave me your phone number when we leave the studio. I'll coach you. I won't do the cleaning. And when I arrived in Montreal, I was a consultant. I also worked at the kitchen of a hospital, of a nursing home called Émilie Gamelin. And Armand-Lavergne, two centers that are linked, that share the same employees.

So I was very, very young to work Émilie Gamelin et Armand Lavergne, deux centres qui sont liés, qui partagent les mêmes employés. Donc j'ai été responsabilisé très, très jeune à travailler et au plaisir de travailler aussi, au plaisir de voir de l'argent puis de pouvoir justement me payer les billets de spectacle que j'allais voir et puis monter ma propre culture, me monter mon propre bagage culturel déjà à cet âge-là. Mais ça donne un peu une idée du genre de petit gars que j'étais, donc très, très lucide, and at the same time extremely sad. And at one point I said to myself, well, my life is going to be creation.

I'm going to create beautiful objects and it's going to reconcile me with humanity, it's going to reconcile me with everything. And that's why I, for me, to release albums, travel, go to exhibitions, go make my life a... Or, for example, go to the FTA. It's been a couple of years since I've done it I've seen exhibitions, I've done something with my life. For example, I went to the FTA. I haven't done it in a couple of years, but I went to the Kunsthund Festival in Brussels, and I saw Dojo in 10 days.

It's a pact that I made with myself, very young, that it will be that, my life. And it's not just about culture, it's deeper than that. I think that's what people feel when they listen to my albums, when they see me in interviews, when they hear me talk about things. They feel that there's something very serious and solemn in there. We feel that it's never been done on a table corner. It may be, but because I have all this luggage, even if it's done on a table corner,

there's something that's made of that, that's solid. And that's what I started to do as a teenager. I remember, I was saying to myself, you want to be a creator? Well, every day you have to create. So I had to make a melody every day, I had to make a drawing every day. Sometimes they put a melody, two seconds of the frame, sometimes they didn't come out, sometimes... But I was saying to myself, it's like you were in the army and you're training your body to be in shape to survive in an emergency emergency, like a soldier.

And you develop your military, artistic strategies. And I thought, well, when you'll have gained enough experience, when you'll have done your 10,000 hours, you'll just draw lines without any will, on a piece of paper, and people will hang on to those lines, or on those melodies, because they will feel something stronger. And I think that today, after 20 years of professional life, and everything I have stored from childhood, adolescence,

I think that today I can pretend to have this pretension. There you go. I don't want to ask you a too trivial question, but how do songs present themselves today? After how many have you written? Hundreds and hundreds? I've never counted, but I've done more than 100. As soon as I have an idea of direction, nothing stops me. I always have to be in a game.

Francis Cabrel, for example, always has the in the same office, and he tells stories. It's great. My God, Francis Cabrel writes well. That would be my death. Sometimes I have to be one year without writing anything. Sometimes I spend six days without stopping writing day and night. By the way, on the album that will be released, the songs of the fashionistas,

I think I wrote about eight songs in seven days, not even days and nights. I didn't know what time it was. Then at some point, I was shocked. I stopped. I was a year without writing anything. Then sometimes it's 30 seconds, sometimes it's a piece of text,

sometimes it's in the subway, sometimes it's in the plane. I wrote a lot with friends because the principle of the game stays there, even more. Sometimes I would in the plane, sometimes it's with friends. I wrote a lot with friends because the principle of the game remains there, even more. So sometimes I arrived in Paris, let's say the Monarch of the Indies. I said, hey, I'm in Paris for two weeks, we're writing a song. Albin de la Simone.

Albin de la Simone, yes. And I said, okay, my girlfriend and my little one are not there, Monday, come on, and we ate quickly and sat down at the piano. 20 minutes, the song is over. Then I went home, I rewrote the text, and I said, well, it's good, it's over, we're leaving in two days, we'll record it on my phone. And it was funny, and it was fun,

and maybe not the greatest song of the century, but it's a song that's interesting and that was extremely pleasant to do and that brings back very happy memories. And then, well, that's it, that's all and that's nothing. And then I want to keep. And that's it, that's all and that's nothing. I want to keep it alive. I want it to remain a game all the time.

Otherwise, I get bored and I fall into a... I don't feel like it anymore. But also to accept the fact that it doesn't feel like it anymore. And to say, it's okay, there will be others. Not forcing the machine. No, and like life, it's like friendship, it's like love, it's like a day, a beautiful day when you don't have a schedule, you let yourself be carried away by what comes, and life should be like that for years.

But there are people like Francesc Cabrel or like Michel Rivard who present themselves every day in their studio, in their studio, as we present ourselves in the factory, to try to rip the song apart. And I would probably write more if I did that, but I'm already writing enough. Yeah, we're not going to accuse you of not being productive enough. But sometimes I tell myself I could be even more productive, I could do even more.

Now it's funny because I've changed management teams because my manager, with whom I've been working for 20 years, Michel Seguin and Jocelyne Richer, who was my agent, I've been working with them for 20-something years, but they retired. And so I stopped working as a team, and it's Laurent Sauny, former director. Programming for Franco, Jazz, Montréal en Lumière. The former French-singer. The former French-singer, yes.

And Karim Lafleur, they created Lafleur Saunis, their company together. They are now in charge of my management. I am very well accompanied. At some point, Laurent, who started working with me, said, I watched your discography, in five years you released seven projects. That's too much. Then I said, I don't give a shit, I just want to do business. He said, no, two, two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum.

He said, no, two. Two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum. He said, no, two. Two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum. He said, no, two. Two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum. He said, no, two. Two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum. He said, no, two. Two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum. He said, no, two. Two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum. He said, no, two. Two film trams, three albums, the time is not right for the museum. I was trying to set up an expo with friends to see if there was a gallery interested somewhere. I was setting up all of this to take care of two albums so I don't feel like wasting my time and being too...

But it's too much because people don't have time to digest all that music. Completely. Yes. We presented the Christmas show for the second time this year, and I was presenting the show of the songs of the fashion show for the second time this year, and I was presenting the show of Desmodées songs at the same time. And then people bought tickets for the Christmas show, they didn't understand too much. But then there are two shows, there is an album, it's too much information. I understand, I'm pulling myself together now. In my ideal world, I would make 60 albums per year, and I would write, I don't know how many songs, I don't know who.

I would just make movement all the time. Now, I'm ready to play by saying, it's okay. Anyway, I don't have the impression of playing my life when I release an album. I know there will be others and I know I will have things to say because I kept myself in a game principle, precisely. There is the word demodé in the title of this new album. Yes. What is your relationship with fashion? Because from a clothing perspective,

we have the impression that you're more in phase with trends. I'm aware of everything that's happening. In fashion, architecture, design, visual art, in theater, in trends. I know everything that's happening or almost. It's impossible to say everything, but you get the idea. While in music... In music too.

You're sometimes in phase in your music with current currents, and there are other times when you're written in a tradition that belongs to another. I've always said the best way to not be out of fashion is to never be in fashion. That's my basic principle, which means I surfed all the time, yes, sometimes in the current, but by putting forward

a process and an identity. And when I make a gesture, little, sometimes in the current, but by putting forward a process and an identity. And when I make a gesture, it's always with the... How can I say that? It's always trying to inspire me with the cream of what has gone above fashion. To play in a certain zone of classicism. Which makes the albums age certain zones de classicisme. Ce qui fait que les albums vieillissent pas mieux, pas bien, puisque voyage-voyage, une chanson des bébés, même si c'est

démodé, c'est christenant bon. Oui, les sonorités sont très, très, très associées à leur époque. À une époque, mais ça reste bon. Boni-Em, j'écoute Boni-Em, mon Dieu. Les chansons de Boni-Em... Le groupe de Disco, oui. Oui, qui me font capoter. C'est vraiment Dis disco, tu sais.

Oui. Donner summer aussi, tu sais. Mais maintenant, bon, tout ça, pour moi, c'est pas... Je veux pas avoir l'air du gars qui parle avec mépris ou de façon négative de quoi que ce soit, là, puisque dans ma tête, tout est intéressant. Maintenant, pour moi, j' an exercise at the theater school, which was to walk in our neutral.

For those who didn't do theater, our neutral is what we release when we force nothing, when we're just us. So we would go, all the students were sitting on one side of the class, and one by one we would go like that, in our neutral, just walking from one side to the other. And then we would say what we saw as a casting for the student, our friend who was in front. You described the neutral. It was like, oh, it looks like a stupid secretary.

Or, oh, it looks like a little muggle. And then we said, why are we leaving? And then when I went, we agreed, I was wearing a jogging suit, and I was going to do some grimoire jokes with my friends next door. And then everyone said, oh, a monarch. Oh, a prince. An aristocrat. And I was like, hey, a monarch, ah, a prince, ah, an aristocrat. And I was like, hey, the gang, go away. You had no idea about that?

No. And when I went to sing for the first time, a few months later in Saint-Yacin, at the CGPen Spectacle, on February 14, 2000, I was in Saint-Valentin. It will be 25 soon. Yes, totally. I said to myself, if you go into account of what you release, if I trust what I understood with the exercise, you will look fake and you will be uncomfortable. People will feel uncomfortable.

So if you embrace what you release, it will become incandescent. It will shine everywhere. And so I didn't say anything. I arrived, I went to buy a second-hand suit, a little too much adjusted from the 60s. I arrived barefoot, I didn't say anything, I took out the little figurines of a box, I put them on a piano and I started singing. And everyone had the impression that I was the greatest snob singer in the history of singing.

And everyone had the impression that I had been singing for 50 years, even though I hadn't even 20. I was a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer,

a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a great singer, a embraced that idea to the core, because I started playing with it on stage for two years and a few, because Michel Seguin, my manager at the time, was very, very bright. He made me do shows, shows, shows, shows. You were ready when the first album was released. Yes, and we did the model too, the first recording. This object of collection.

This object of collection today, indeed. It worked so much that it made me laugh, because I was like, I was saying, the Beg, Bjork, Buster Rhymes, Beastie Boys. At the time, when I released my first album, I went to parties in lofts at Pascal Grand Maison where the George Leningrads played. It's an important band in the indie rock scene that you're trying to look at.

I was in that gang. I went out to the Sapphire. I was going to listen to all the 70s and 80s rock tunes with Plastique Bertrand who was mixing and... Frigid. You know, that was my life. So I released the album as an artistic director. I said to myself, well, the songs call for that.

We work with that emotion. So I walked down the street and people called me my dear. They were writing poems for me. And I was like, it doesn't work, but at the same time it does. So it made me laugh to see that image, but I was a victim of that image. And since then, my first love, singing in French, I always come back to this great song.

L'Eveillé, Bergé, Aznavour, Barbar, Jean-Pierre Ferland, Charlebois, even if... Dufresne too, Pauline Julien. I always come back to that, actually. Because that's what works with the failed actor I am. The guy who wanted to become an actor. The guy... That's where I have the most impression of being in phase with... with what I want to do, level of interpretation and everything. So the songs for your new album, you wrote them first,

with other performers in mind, who you wanted to offer them to? In this game idea, I was talking about it earlier, I had just finished writing my winter song. Yes, your Christmas song, in the middle of the holidays. In the broad sense. In the broad sense, so I didn't need to write new songs.

I went into the studio, but I wanted to have fun. It was the pandemic, I had nothing to do, so I said to myself, hey, let's write for other people. I imagined singers who have a lot more voices than me, others who have less voices than me, but who I found interesting to lend my words to. And I did it in my head. Some of them followed it, some never did.

Some will never know it, some may not know it one day. It was really an exercise. I put myself in it, and since I had time, I said to myself, OK, I'm going to do what I don't usually do. I'm going to try to write with a rigor that I'm not used to. Then I was inspired by Michel Legrand, Brel, Aznavour, Fer and Compagnie. Something I've already done in the past, but I did it with a little bit more... So I wrote about 7-8 songs in less than a week, as I said earlier,

I didn't know what day it was, I was a little confused. And then in parallel, I started working on another album, which is almost finished, but that people may never hear again. Let's remember that you have to make less of it, your team of people. I'm still making less than I would like. But hey, I found myself working on another project with Philippe Brault, where we co-write the music,

and there's Rough Sound, too, which is part of that. So it's really about how to get married between the culture of sample-making and the song. So it's like meeting the Beastie Boys. Or DJ Shadow. Or DJ Shadow, and it's very very jazz too. So I'm in there, and I'm going to Paris, I spend all my time in Paris, and I spend all my time with Carla Brudny, with Julien Clare,

with a lot of people, with Mathieu Chedid, a lot of people. It's not a bad company, is it? No, it lot of people. It's not a bad company, is it? No, it's very funny. That's part of the funny moments or funny friendships that flow from the song. And then I came back to Montreal and I spoke to Laurent Souigny, my manager, and I said, What makes me unique in France is that it seems like I'm making a more French song than the French dare to do. And now I have songs that are sleeping. There's one that was on their move. The same café, the same street, the same café. My answer is a song by Aznavour.

And I thought, hey, I think we're going to take the songs that I thought maybe we could give to other people, and I'm going to make an album from that. Then we're going to go with Philippe Brou and we're going to go like 150,000 km per hour in real songs, with the arrangements, with the way of pronouncing, with everything. We're going there without compromise. And then it gave this album. And in the end, I think it corresponds to a... I think I made a good choice of timing.

At the moment, there is a kind of renewal of the French song in France. You know, Zahaud, Zagazan, it's a song. Clara Luciani, it's a song. Juliette Armanet, it's a song. Even the fan, it's a song. Even if it's packed with different models. Even if it's packed, it stays in the true tradition of the song. Edith dereteau too.

So I said to myself, I'm going to go, but again, I'm going to do the step aside, maybe the step too far. But in any case, it's going to be enough. We're going to go all the way. At the moment, the reactions are stronger than what I've had since several album projects. Can we talk about some of the songs?

Yes, I am. Finally, I can talk about it. I'm so happy. It's been a year and a half since I recorded this album. I was so excited. I was sleeping. Yes, let's talk about it. Let's go to song number 6 of the album, which is entitled Le Secret. Yes. It's a bossa nova in the purest tradition.

Yes. Mr. Gilberto, I would be proud of you. Yes, or Bird Back Herak. Bird Back Herak too. It's Bird Back Herak, my real... I quote the text, Pierre. Here I am once again, alone on stage, singing for you love, death, hatred.

You're there watching me, Bea, asking all of you who my heart beats for. And now you're explaining to us that we don't know. Yeah. Who your heart beats for. Well, you have to know that I wrote this song for a singer. And we all wonder who's life is with. Ha ha ha!

You won't tell me who the singer is. You won't tell me who's life is with. You won't tell me who the singer is. You won't tell me who's life is with. No, and after that I kept it the way it is. Because it fits what we know about you. Well yes, and after that I said, oh yeah, it's true, because it's my team, and they show me the audio, and they say, well, it looks like they don't want to talk about his...

I said, no, no, no, that's not it. And I said, well, yes, that's what people understand. I understand that people understand that. Now, yes, indeed, we never saw my chum. My chums, I've had several since I've known them. We all say hi to them. We all say hi to them. I've lived very beautiful and very great love stories. Sometimes they ended very well, sometimes very badly.

I'm part of life. We've heard about it in some songs. Yes, there are even some. I'm's me who didn't decide to leave. But well... There's a sanctuary, which is my family and my close friends. And my lover is my home. And some parts of my life that I keep,

even if not secret, because everyone around me sees me walking in the street, I hold my hand to my husband. Jalousement, même pas secrète, puisque tout le monde qui est autour de moi, tu me vois dans la rue marcher, je tiens la main mon chum. Je fais pas comme, non, non, non pas ici. Tu t'empêches pas d'aller au restaurant avec ton chum. Ben non, ben non, pis on se French puis je suis le seul Frenché. Je suis pas gêné. Je suis content de l'entendre.

Oui. C'est beau Frenché. Oui. C'est beau être en amour, en fait. Je sens ça qu'on est vraiment très bien avec quelqu'un. Maintenant, j'aime ça aussi savoir que quand mes amis viennent manger chez nous, I feel like we're really good with someone. Now, I also like to know that when my friends come to eat at our place, they know that I wouldn't be making a story. You know, earlier when we started the interview, I asked you if I could film you.

I always ask for permission. You asked for my consent. And I ask if you're comfortable with the fact that I publish this. It's the same thing with my friends in the music industry, when we work on a project. Now in my personal life, it never happens. Which means that when I'm traveling, visiting an exhibition, I'm not in a mood. In fact, it helps me, especially since today,

social media is invading us in our private lives, in our daily lives. To be able to make that cut and to be very, very intransigent about it, it allows me to be, I think, more sane in the as healthy as possible. You told me in an interview that you gave me in 2017,

that artists have been a little bit left to the game of popularity with Instagram. Some end up stripping having a picture of them on the web rather than really putting themselves in danger and doing what an artist should do in a society, that is to say, screw it!

I was really in shock. I was really... I still think about it. Now, you know... You have the luxury of taking a step back in relation to social media because your career is established. Yes, and I lived in a time when there was no social media. So I built myself without that. When I started working with Karine Lafleur and Laurence Rounier, my management team,

Karine told me, listen, I looked at your stats on social media, which I had never done before. She told me, when you're on tour, you make stories. She said, well, there are 500,000 people watching you, who go through your social media per month. She said, don't do it, t'en fais pas, il y en a moins de 100 000. Elle dit, là, c'est au mois d'août, juillet, je sais pas quoi, elle dit, là, tu vas commencer à faire ce que tu veux, mais tu vas activer tes réseaux sociaux. Et là, j'ai levé les yeux au ciel parce que je me suis dit, non, si je m'embarque là-dedans, ça va être ben fatiguant. On était en train de les rencontrer tout le monde, toutes les équipes de toutes les

plateformes possibles. J'ai dit à Karen, juste, c'est ce qu'il faut que je fasse. Ça me tente pas, of all the possible platforms. I said to Karen, that's all I need to do. But it doesn't help, but I'll do it. And then I started to realize, there's a lot of editing, little adventures. It works perfectly. Even Star Academy asked me to make videos. To be their manager.

To make videos for a Sunday, for Starwark. I had real friends who called me and said, who is your editor? I'll give you an editor. Your editor is stupid. I said, well, it's me, and you won't hire me because I would cost you too much. And I created an identity with a small app. I'm at Audiogram, they laughed a lot,

because one afternoon I went home, it was a Tuesday afternoon at Audiogram. I said, well, chez Audiogram, ils ont ben ri parce que ma née, je suis rentré genre un mardi après-midi chez Audiogram. J'ai dit bon, là, c'est quoi la meille application pour faire du montage sur un téléphone? Puis ils m'ont dit ben, il y a celle-là, pis moi je prendrais celle-là. J'ai dit ok, c'est beau, puis une semaine après, ils m'écrivaient en disant ben voyons donc. T'es comme devenu un pro, là. J'étais comme ben oui, ça fait une semaine, je fais juste ça. Puis j'ai fait même des petites vidéos, là, moments de poésie, moments de peur, moments de ça. J'ai fait à peu près six petites vidéos, j'ai expérimenté en prenant des archives vidéo, I even made little videos, moments of poetry, moments of pares, moments of that. I made about six little videos where I experimented with video archives and had pseudo-reflections on them.

But does that mean that it's impossible for an artist not to invest in these platforms? It's impossible. There's a way to play around, but I know that on my scale, with the budget I have, it's not possible. And what I find disturbing is that I spent a lot more time in the last six months to make video editing than to write songs. At the same time, the fact of making the little videos about the moments of poetry and everything, and then to make summaries, for example, if the people who listen to us want to see them on my Instagram, in the Reels, I made a series of four videos about my transition from the Starmania special

that we shot this summer in Quebec, with incredible artists. I really had fun doing that. I was really pumped. I filmed all day long, and then I went home and my goal was to do it as quickly as possible, thinking about it as little as possible. And it became a creative medium,

but it took me a lot of time. Now, my statistics have exploded since then. And it's true that it works. And do you feel like it's turning into an interest for you to have fun? Is that the ultimate goal? Yes, yes, on some points, and no on others. It's with the release of the album that I can tell you. But yes, the online listening has increased too.

Now I'm releasing an album, it corresponds to a moment in my career where I'm more active in the media. But the traditional media, only the traditional media, like what we're doing right now, it's no longer enough. Unlike before, where it could only be that. Why is it important for you to preserve this sanctuary around your private life? Well, as I said, it allows me to be a little free of mind, in the sense that when I come home... It's funny because people...

Often when I'm with people at the end of a first day of work, people say, well, it's easy to work with you. On Christmas Eve, among other things, there were people who worked with me for the first time. Then one day I had a discussion with the extraordinary Ben Gere, a young, very bright and very nice woman. She just said to me, you make everyone feel beautiful. I've never seen that. And there's never... I think it's because of that,

because I'm bringing myself to something very... When I'm with people, I'm with people. I'm not thinking about a possible photo or a possible video. That's what I think can hurt today. And it's this richness of human relationships that makes you stay in something pleasant. And also in play, because when you're with people, you really don't control everything. You're always forced to adapt. It's this feeling of adaptation, this need to adapt.

To adapt is where you keep your spirit lit, and after that, in creation, you feel it, I think. There's no taking two in real life. No, and it's not interesting either. And it's good to live with regrets. And maybe I shouldn't have said, I talked too much, it was funny. Or because it also gives moments where it was magic. And when it's magic, it's really magic.

You invite us to the sanctuary of your private life in a certain way on the third song on the album, like the clay pigeons, which was released a few weeks ago. A few months ago. It's a song about your mother and the illness she's living with. How did it come about, this song, which is of a rather quite different from the majority of your repertoire?

I've always made songs that were very introspective or very disarming to it go. Now, this song, you know when I was talking about the teenager who wasn't feeling very well in his skin and who thought it was very complicated, what repaired me at the time was that I had my piano, which I had bought in half, we'll remember. Repaired. And to be able to sit down and play sometimes just a note or a chord, I knew it was repairing me because,

in fact, I was doing a little musicotherapy, the waves of the piano the piano were repairing me. And when the diagnosis of my mother's illness came... Alzheimer's, for those who don't know. I just had it in my mouth, in the sense that we were sure. It wasn't a big news, even my mother. We had talked about it. How long had it been following her?

We realize today that already 20 years ago, it was maybe five years before the diagnosis. Our father told us about it, and we felt like there were things that were wrong. When it happened, it was true. It wasn't maybe that, or I think that, yes, of course, but it was official, and it really shook me, and I was really deeply upside down, because I've always had a relationship with death, and at the, of course, but, you know, that was official. And it really touched me, and I was really deeply at the back, because I've always been very, very, I've always had a relationship with death

and finitude, which has always been very, very frank and frontal. Besides, that's why I create like that, and I work like that, and I want to live every moment to the fullest, because I know it's going to end, and in the meantime, I'd better have fun and enjoy everything, because it won't last. You already told me in the interview

that every morning you remember that... Yes, and sometimes... ...that you'll always count. Yes, and I dress up sometimes saying, ah, well, maybe that's how I'll dress up to die. I choose your clothes saying that you might have blood on it soon. You might... I'm going very far.

I won't go into details, but yes. But it's a disturbing morbid. And at the same time, it's a way of dying in life too. And then you say, hey, wake up now. Enjoy your day, man. And it's not a matter of, it's a way of dying in life too. And you wake up, enjoy your day, good man. And it's not a matter of, I read a book on personal growth. It's really integrated in me. It's not something... For a long time.

So when things like that happen for real, you say, well, yes, I knew it. And you say, well, that's it, it's not just a concept, it's true. So I said to myself, I'm going to reuse the piano to do what I hadn't done in years. I'd repair myself with the piano. I'd try to understand how I felt and try to pass emotions through the vibrations of the piano. I just wanted to make melodies on the piano without realizing it. At one point, I spent several hours a day,

and I realized that there was a bit of chorus, a bit of verse, and that if I stuck the two together, it would make a beginning of a song. But you know, I'm talking about September to December. I just made the music without wanting to make a verse, a verse, a verse, and if I stuck them together, it would be the beginning of a song. But I'm talking about September to December, I just made the music without wanting to make a song, because for once, I wasn't in a creative dynamic, but rather, let's fix it. And then, at some point, a few months later, I started putting words in, and it gave that song. And that's why I think it's also... There's no verse, no chorus, there's one musically, but in the lyrics, it's just it's so disturbing. We can feel that the writer wasn't trying to show something, but rather put words on something that was very painful.

And for me, there's no style exercise. It ends up being very stylized at the end, but in the writing and the way the subject is addressed, there's no style exercise. It's a very interesting thing. I think that's why I think that's why I'm so interested in this. which was very painful. And for me, there's no style exercise. It ends up being very stylized at the end, but in the writing and in the way the subject is addressed, there's no style effect.

It's disarming truth. And then, well, it's a song that makes me very proud, but that also makes me very sad. It's a song that made me think of two other of your previous songs. One that talks about a completely different subject, that is, naked in front of you. Yes, it's also this disarming of... Of candor and truth.

Candor and truth, completely. And then another song in which you address yourself to your mother, that one, Mom, the song Hidden from your first album. Do you love that song? My mother cried a lot when she heard it. She heard it for the first time on stage. But I never wanted to talk about it with her. My father tried it and I cut it quite drastically.

My mother just said to me, I hope you don't really think what you wrote. She said the same thing when she heard the science of the heart. She said, I hope that's not your life. And each time I said nothing. I left them in a form of silence that made them I was a little bit more than that today, because we're back in our lives, but at the beginning of my 20s, I could be very, very... drastic in my... I had no reason to let them...

ponder their doubts. It was a means of defense mechanism, and a reaction to a great sadness, which, as I said, doesn't live live with me anymore, or almost anymore. Not in the same way. But yes, when I got to 20, listening to songs, it's nice to be 20, novels, all that, think about 20 years,

those are the most beautiful years of your life. When I got to 20, I was really pissed. But I was pissed off for 20 years. You say you want to die in this song. Well, yes. I can't go through what I went through without thinking about death. When I say I'm a rescapé, that's it. I was thinking about the death of children, adolescents as it should be,

and young adults, well, it wasn't fun anymore. So at some point, you say, well, well, just in response to that, I really said to myself, adolescent, I said to myself, well, you can't provoke death, it's nonsense. It can't be. I was still reasoning to reasoning, at one point, find yourself a goal and get yourself together to have fun. Get yourself together to leave something bigger than you.

And that's when I dedicated myself, body and soul, like a religious priest, to pray to God, all his life in a monastery. For me, it was creation and art. There's something about the asceticism in your approach. Completely. For me, it's a vocation. You say in that song from 2004 that you feel old inside. Today, at 43, how do you feel inside?

I've always had, even as a child, I started having my first child when I was 14, fortunately. I've always been a 5-year-old child who laughs for nothing, for a joke, who wants to play in the snow, and an old man, with all the wisdom in the world and the lucidity

and an extremely dark and dark look on life. I've always been those two personalities at the same time, and I'm still that person, and I'm going to be... You know, sometimes when you're a teenager, you live things you don't really know, and then a few years later you understand the pieces, they stick together. You're like, ah yes, I went to this place to see this thing, because I was already where I am now. And instantly, even if it didn't matter, I went to this thing.

And when I put the pieces together and I'm like, yes, OK. I always talk to that child as if he still existed. I don't make any difference between me, old, and me, young. When I talk to myself, it may seem a little strange, but I tell myself, child, you were right to go there. You knew it. And I know it soothes me.

It soothes the child who is living at that moment. And it seems like I heard myself say it when I was a child. A more stupid example, at one point I made a mural with François Morelli, a very, very great visual artist from our country, who makes murals and who also makes paintings from stamps. So I ordered it and he said to me, OK, I accept, but you will be my assistant for three days, it's my condition. I said OK, I was Franç you'll be my assistant for three days. That's my condition. I said, OK, I was François Morelli's assistant for three days.

Those who know a little bit of the contemporary art world, you're right to be impressed. I'm impressed myself. It's hot. It's hot. And then he came over to my place and said, Listen, his wife, she was the director of the object design collection at the Museum of the Design Objects Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts for several decades.

She came over to our place with her blonde. I said, hey, my blonde, look at what you've got. She was like, he really knows that. I'm quite impressed with the pieces she has. At your place? At my place. And she said, where does it come from? I said, oh, well, I saw an exhibition when I was young.

I'm not old anymore. And it changed my life. And when I got home, I was no longer that old. It changed my life. When I came home, I was shaking. I spent days in cerebral ebullition, unable to control myself. I started buying objects in the flea markets when I was 14 or 13. I don't remember.

What was the exhibition? It was at the Museum of Civilizations in Hull. It was called The Modern Objects. Yes, the Modern Objects. Thierry Mablon who showed this exhibition. He objects, the ones that were modern. And he said, yes, the ones that were modern. You know, my son built this exhibition. He said, we're in New York. And then we came back, we lived in Quebec.

We moved back to Quebec because of this exhibition. And then my son offered the museum afterwards. And I said, well, you'll tell your son that it changed the life of a young man. He told me that in 1992, so I was 11. And the next day, when he came back to to work, his blonde gave him the exhibition catalog. I remember, it was $57, which was too expensive for me at the time. I had already bought my ticket to go see the exhibition.

And we both had our eyes full of water, we had chills. He said, well, my blonde offers you the exhibition catalog 30 years later. And at that moment, I really said to myself, I really spoke to the 11-year-old boy who went to the museum, who had his pocket money, who had convinced his parents, who had participated. And I said to myself, well, yes, you were right. I already felt that these people were people who were close to me,

without even knowing them, just by the objects they created. I already knew that I belonged to a family. And for me, it's... I knew it at the time. It appeased me to go there, and it wasn't for nothing. It was for that. It was my family. So that's it. It's a bit esoteric, what I'm telling you. But for me, these moments become very, very important

and very, very beautiful, actually. And then, again, in my idea of later, I was talking about meetings and real moments, and then spending three days with a man like François Morelli, who is a bit, I want to say a bit of an artist medium. I'm sure he doesn't define himself like that at all, but he's a man of a sensitivity that understands people and their environment.

It's amazing. So it touches me to have been able to embrace that man as a relative. The song Mom, to wrap up on that subject, didn't you want it to be on your first album? Well no, I didn't want it to be on it because it had a Quebec accent, everything was a bit too French. But it's such a great song, I think we all remember the moment we heard that song for the first time. As a surprise, yes, without expecting it. Because it arrived after 23 minutes. Everything is coded on the first album. People don't know that.

On La forêt des mal-aimés and on my first album, there are codes everywhere. There are hidden things, references to Cocteau. And then, 23, I had 23 days in the studio, so there are 23 minutes between... Everything, everything, everything. It's almost numerology, I'm not at all superstitious.

It's you who inspired Taylor Swift today. Yes, yes, she copied me. It's obvious. I didn't want to break the record. It's Donnie Wolf, the artistic director at Audiogram. Probably one of the last great artistic directors we had in Quebec. He was behind Brande Van, behind Le Loup,

behind Marat Remblique. And behind Le Loup, it wasn't a film. It wasn't easy. I think it was. Indeed. And he's the one who told me, to convince myself not to put it on the album, you'd have to tell me that the song wasn't good, but it was. So we're going to put it on.

I said, OK, we promise, we're going to put it on after 23 minutes, and that will be the moment. But I thought that from an artistic point of view, it didn't hold. And finally, we found the right formula between the moment... But I thought that from an artistic point of view, it didn't hold. And finally, we found the right formula to present this song. There's a song on the new album

that's dedicated to a certain Safia. Yes, Safia Nolan. Safia Nolan. M for those who don't apologize. Who talks about violence. About a freedom of speech and shame that changes the camp. Let's put it that way.

It was very liberating, everything that happened in the last few years. You're talking about the MeToo movement. Yes, MeToo, it doesn't necessarily affect me, but I am, as a personality of the LGBT community, being gay, I depend on the position of women in society. A society where gays have rights, is a society where women have rights. If women have no rights, gays have no rights. Same thing for trans people, if women and gays have no rights, there is a hierarchy, I find this hierarchy stupid,

but it is still due to patriarchy, due to all that. And so when women take their place and decide to rise, I can only applaud. Can I be criticized? Yes. Am I in agreement with everything? No. That's not the question. It's generally speaking, I have to support these, and I am aware of the freedom I have. And I know that it depends on the struggle that women have fought and led for decades in Quebec and elsewhere in the world. And so it was very liberating. And after that, the question of gender,

to finally have people who have the right to be many things, to be one period of their life, one thing and the other period, the other thing, and to come back to the other if they want to, and to say the labels, we don't care, we're dead. For me, it freed me a lot. I'm cisgender, I love my male life, I don't want to change my sex or my gender identity, or my gender identity. I'm not fluid at all about my gender. Now, once again, I have total respect for those who are who they are.

And I think it's a question, to have lived it, on my own, just being a gay guy... Who dresses in a flamboyant way. I don't even dress flamboyantly for a middle-class Quebecer. You go to Asia, the world is more fucked up than that. You go to Europe, the world is... In Africa, in a lot of African countries, men are sappy, they're beautiful, they're much more than me. So that's why it always makes me laugh a little.

But comparatively, let's say, to other popular singers in Quebec. More Quebecer, yes. Now, there's something very liberating for me in everything that happened. And this song underlines that. It's a hymn, the title says it. And Safia is an example of someone who assumes and lives in all of her difference and all of her beauty. I insist on the word beauty because there are people who seem to have the monopoly on the definition of the word beautiful. And their definition is quite strict and sad.

It's very sad. So for me, beauty is a billion things, and it's above all emotion and a franchise and a way of being. And Safia is all of that. Did Safia hear the song? I sent her, I don't know if she listened to it. Anyway, she'll probably hear it when the album is released. I sent it to her. But we had communication problems at one point.

I was writing on a messenger, it didn't work. Anyway, we were writing textos. I'm a lot, and she too, we're a lot in Paris and Montreal. Sometimes we run after each other, sometimes we... But I didn't do it that much. I don't know it that much. I don't know if it's that important for her to hear it and for her to hear what I'm saying. I think it's especially important that

the people who don't know Safia and who saw this girl from the outside hear what they hear, hear what I'm saying. She's an extraordinary woman, kind and... awkward at times, yes, because it's hard to be where you are. But she's a child of disconcerting purity. Deeply kind and really very open to the other.

I've never seen someone like that. Never met someone like that. I've never met anyone like that. Never met anyone like that. Does it worry you, the resurgence that we see from an idea that seems to be stricken by what a man should be, what a woman should be? Yes, and the rise also with Trump and his companions.

I didn't really get into politics, but the right-wing discourse that divides to reign, that old adage, works. That's what's the worst. All this kind of class or prestige that existed at the time around a certain form of diplomacy, respect for the other, or a nice way to piss someone off while being very gentle.

All of that has disappeared. And I find that sad because the more we bring our brain into aggressiveness and evil, the more it creates aggressiveness and evil in our own hearts. It's the people who do that. And around them. And when we do the opposite, there's a wheel that starts to roll. The nicer you are, the softer you are, the more open you are to others,

the more curious you are, the more you put yourself in others' shoes, the more you work with empathy, the more your personality gets complex, the richer you become, the bigger you become, the more you become at peace. Is that true? I'm not at all... It's basic principles, the whole Zen culture, the whole culture. plus on devient en paix. C'est vrai? Je veux dire, je suis pas du tout... c'est des principes de bar, je veux dire, toute la culture zen, toute la culture... Merci maître à la pointe. Oui, mais c'est ça, pis moi je suis pas du tout... je crois pas en Dieu, pis je suis pas dans un...

mais je sais que c'est pour ça que je fais de la création, en faisant du beau, tu crées du beau, tu donnes envie aux gens de faire du beau aussi, en étant gentil, c'est ça que tu fais. You create beauty, you give people, you give people the desire to make beauty too. Being kind is what you do. What do you believe in? Because on the last song on the album, which is entitled Where Will Our Memories Go? You point towards a form, you ask the question of the beyond or what will remain of what you have been, of what I am, of what we are during our passage on this earth after our death. Very objectively, I think there is nothing left

except the memory we leave in people's heads. And that's the great drama of my life, is that I really believe in it. Hence, everything we've been saying since the beginning of the interview, that is to say, this idea of creating objects to try to create memories in the most head-to-head way possible, the most heart-to-heart way possible, to ideally live the longest after my death,

through the memories of the people around me. That's a big thing I'm saying, but it's true. I say that even if one day you don't remember my name anymore, and 75 years after my death, you don't need to quote mentioned because it made my musical objects become objects of the world population, and everyone can use it however they want. Even if one day my name doesn't exist anymore when people hear my songs, if a mother sings a part of my melody to put her child to sleep in 3100, I would have aged now.

Am I Mozart? Am I Tchaikovsky? No. Will my work deserve. Am I Mozart? Am I Tchaikovsky? No. Will my work deserve as much as those who have stayed for more than 200 years, 300, 400 years? I don't know. But I have a fairly inflated ego to perhaps have a little hope that after my death, at least in Quebec, there will be people who will sing,

or there will be a street, maybe well lit in a neighborhood with not-so-beautiful houses, that will carry my name, or a school, let alone ever. The bag of Pierre Lapointe, that would be a little sad. Or a park somewhere, people will not know who I am, but maybe at some point, someone will say, who is Pierre Lapointe, the name of my street,

and he'll go see on the social network or the research modem that will be at the time. He'll ask for artificial intelligence. Or just think in his head, and the application will start up. Anyway, who am I? And he'll listen to three or four tunes saying, hey, you know, he's got a plan,

I've lived through it. How big is your ego? Because the character you were on stage with... It's a character. It was to play on stage. It was to give me the courage to go. But it's strange because at one point I was talking about how I saw my job, and the confidence I had in me and everything, and a journalist.

And she said to me, it's funny because you've been talking to me for ten minutes about how you see your work and how you comment. And she said, normally someone would talk to me like that, I would like to hit him. But she said, it's so open and kind, and it takes so much from the world around, it's so inspiring that she said, I'm like disconcerted. So, as I said earlier, I'm both a 5-year-old

and an old sage who says life is shit. As much as I have a miscalculated ego, as much as I don't have an ego. And yes, we can be all that, and that's the thing. That's where it's beautiful in my head, when it's complex and contradictory, but I'm really all that at the same time. And that's what makes me...

Hey, it's a stupid job to go on stage and sing his songs, and open up to himself, and talk about his mother, to have people write you emails to explain the illness, when you don't give a damn about their vision of the illness. It's really demanding. But the stress I have right now, preparing for the show I performed in Paris for the first time, all that, giving interviews,

it's really... You need to have a ego to do all that. And at the same time, well... That's it. Anyway. What always fascinated me every time I saw you in a show is... It looks like a contradiction, and it's not necessarily one, between the vulnerability that several of your songs bear witness to.

I can come back to Nuit devant moi, but we can name dozens and dozens of them. But also the great control that seems to inhabit you when you're on stage and when you're singing. Yes, well, I'm like that in life too. Now, in my personal life, I'm really into the let-go, and in the surprise and everything. But I had to learn to be like that. I wasn't like that at 20 years old. At 20 years old, I was panicked, I was anxious. I had to control everything, precisely, by anxiety.

Now, I don't have that anymore. I'm really enjoying the discovery. Now, this ability to control, to predict. When I think of a situation that's coming, I see it, I see all the possibilities that can be presented, I know exactly where, how, when. And in an emergency situation, I stay extremely calm and I make gestures, but with a precision

tchuk tchuk tchuk tchuk, disconcerting. When I imagine a song, I don't just imagine it, I hear it. All my senses are... When I think of a piece and I say to myself, OK, the walls could be orange, I see them. The smell, I imagine, everything becomes very, very clear. I have a visualisation capacity that is overwhelming.

So at one point, I had to control it, it was too much. So I developed a control capacity. And today, at 43, soon 44, I ended up finding a middle ground in all of this. But yes, a great, great capacity for control, and at the same time, let go of my total. In the first song of your new album, All Your Idols, you tell us that one day

we must be at peace with our fears, with our regrets. Are there things that scare you today? I've never really been afraid, because from the moment you assume assume you're going to die, and you don't have a choice, and you think about it in the morning, it also takes away the fear, it takes away the anxiety. Because you say, well, yes, how am I going to die? In an accident? Cancer? Quickly? Slowly?

There are even times when you try to put it that way. When I'm in a sleepover, I imagine that my soul is leaving my body. And I feel a real vertigo. It wakes me up. Because I think, OK, your body is leaving, but it's true, it's the time when you leave. You leave, but you don't know where. You leave. Are you at peace?

Are you not? And I ask myself this question constantly. So from the moment you settle that, But you don't know where. You go away. Are you at peace? Are you not? And I ask myself that question constantly. So from the moment you settle that, you relativize quite a bit. For real. I think I've developed these reflexes to get rid of anxiety, but that's it. And then there's one thing that would make me extremely sad. Well, I'm not talking about the death of my lover, for example. I think I'm going to pick it up. I'm not afraid that he's leaving.

I know I'm going to be very sad the moment it happens. If I had to lose sight or lose my voice, I would have several regrets to make, which wouldn't be just... My ability to play would be put to the test. I'll get there, I know, but it would take me more time than the norm. In this desire to play too, there is this desire to accept the situation too,

and to feel it and live it to the fullest. I would spend a few months. But it's not a fear, because I would find a way to bounce back, I know. You were talking earlier about the great suffering you went through when your mother was diagnosed, and the moment you tried to get better with your piano. What's left of that suffering today?

Because the diagnosis is, in a way, day one. There's a lot of beautiful things left. The relationship with my mother is changing. I have defense mechanisms that I had with her that I don't have anymore. And it gives rise to moments of great tenderness and great pleasure. At some point, you have to accept that the relationship changes, that the person in front of you changes, and then you adapt. I think that if I didn't see her often, it would be harder than seeing her regularly.

Because there are deteriorations that I feel, but since I see her often, it gets so small, that it softens the situation. You know, it happened at 7 p.m. I was like, hey, I feel like going to take my mom in my arms. I'm exhausted, I need her. I was taking the load, I was going to see her. I stayed there for maybe 40 minutes, 45 minutes. I took her in my arms, I saw her smile, I saw her laugh.

I said to myself, it's good, help me. And I had appeased the little guy who wanted to take his mother in his arms. I took advantage of it. On the 24th, I went to see her, on the 25th, I went to see her on the 24th of December, I went to see her on the 25th. I'm to see them. On December 24, I went to see them. I show her videos where I make her listen to music. She cries a lot. In front of the beauty, my mother stays very, very...

So I live beautiful moments. And I tell myself, well, it was maybe the last Christmas where she recognized me. When she doesn't recognize me, it's going to be something else. Am I sad? No, it's not even possible to describe how sad I feel. Now, do I see beauty in there? Yes. Because there are moments...

My mother rediscovered the album, the song, Démodé, like their words, by the way, at least ten times. And every time she cries, and reacts in the same places. The guy playing in me finds that funny. Not in a selfish way, I say to myself, hey, that means that with a song there is really a climax. Because in the same place she reacts and she always says, oh, it's beautiful.

In the same place. So there is still something to draw from that. The player in me sees a sort of little emotional laboratory to know how I feel in an extreme situation like that, and how my mother lives those emotions in there. My mother lives from very big emotions, beautiful and sad and not beautiful, and it has a value too.

And then the fact of approaching this disease with this look of a player and openness, it still brings something beautiful. I know I'm going to be stronger and bigger in a few years from all this. You're going to participate in Star Academy? Yes. Can I ask you a silly question? There's never been too much silly for me. How much do you take part in a show like this one, or like La Voix,

only for the money? It's 40% of the reason. Maybe 45% of the reason. But not more. So there's 60-65% left. Who is it? You're not doing this if you're not going to have fun. Because it's a long day of shooting.

Yeah. And it's also very implying. I'm going to see young people. I'm going to hang on to that world. You're going to see them for real. I'm going to see them go. From everything we've been saying since earlier, you can imagine, for me, it's not possible to... At first, I protected myself a lot during the first... The last time I did it, I was going to take breaks, and I was like, hey! And I had never done it.

Because I felt detached, I also finally had that control the last time, a little by accident, because one of the coaches lived... You had lived something. A big scandal. And so it all done in 10 days. It was like, OK, I have the offer, what is it? OK, I don't even know.

Five days, I had signed the contract, then bam, my schedule changed, and I was on my way. And you had never been approached for this kind of show? Oh no, I had already done it two seasons ago. You had to do it, but you did it again. Yes, that's why they asked me,

because they said we needed someone to do it quickly. They didn't need to change the indicators. The team was the point, the team was the team. It made life easier. I think they wanted to have me too. There's one who wears a leather jacket. Yes, that's another one. You don't know me in my privacy.

You told me we can't go there. I'm kidding. You didn't force the door. I don't do any project where I wouldn't feel at least 65% of pleasure. It's not possible. Now, monetarily, it's fun at the moment. It's important at the moment, money. Because in songs, it's expensive.

In France, at the moment, it's going well, but I pay the teams who work for the press relations. We learned this morning that this official, my second single that is coming out, we had the secret that came out on France Inter in the official playlist. For the Quebeckers, people don't know, but it's big and prestigious. Someone fought for a month to make it happen, and it's more than that.

It's not enough to send the song to the Korean and the Arab. No, it's really PR, but for real. And then, everything is idle. It's officially, today that we got the answer, it's in the playlist on France Inter. It's gigantic. These are people working for it. I'm going to Paris, I'm leaving early.

Tomorrow there's Paris Match, Figaro Magazine, Tétu, everyone's there. But it's someone who works to make my oracle, it's people who work to make relationships. And in the room when I play Ali every weekend, there's going to be an impossible world to name, of journalists, people from the industry, it's people I pay to make these relationships.

I do a lot of it, and my uncle does them himself, because I've been there for 20 years. But it's expensive. I'm going to Paris, I finish my rehearsal at 3 o'clock, and I get on the plane at 5, 5 and a quarter, I leave, take off. The plane tickets are expensive, the hotel is expensive, and I have subs for a game, but not so much. And the album, it cost me a lot. The photos cost me a lot.

So at some point, wherever I can go and get some money, I go. Because at one time, just the album sales could be repaid. It's not true anymore today. So at some point, wherever I can go and get some money, having fun and being proud, I go. And I'm very happy. Now it's also part of my job to make TV. I love TV.

I love it. I've animated the first episode of the album. At Starhack, I'm going to have fun, as I had fun at La Voix too. I've animated 2x2 Rassemblée at ICI Music for three summers. I loved it. I did the radio shows at France Inter too. I'm a little bit of an animator too. And I'm a little bit shows in France Inter too. I'm a bit of an animator too.

And I'm a bit of a TV guy too. But where is the value of a show like Star Academy for you? Because when you appeared in the landscape in 2004... I was at the antithesis of it. You were completely at the antithesis, but you would never have imagined participating in one of those shows. No, because they all went bankrupt when they arrived. It was like...

It was huge companies that went bankrupt. And then it was complicated to manage. The industry was no longer the same after Starac. Now the industry has changed since. And Stéphane Laporte at one time had the good idea to go and look for, also with Julie at the time of Starac, but especially on the road, to go and look for Louis-Jean Cormier, to go and look for Ryan Moffat, to come and look for, with Julie also at the time of Starhack, but especially on the road, to go and look for Louis-Jean Cormier,

to go and look for Ryan Moffat, to come and look for me. It brought Dominique Fissémer, it brought Matt Lebofsky, it brought Charlotte Cardin to go through there. It ended up giving a certain artistic quality to this exercise, which could never have been possible.

Pistard Academy where, with time, it has ended up normalizing itself, I want to say. Now the value it has, it has a very great value. I'm going to meet lots of artists. It's not because you're young and you don't have a career yet, that you don't have talent and you don't have anything to learn. And it's also rewarding for me to pass my knowledge, as I can, maybe a little awkwardly, I'll see, to other people too.

It's funny, I think of Edith Jutra, who was in my team at La Voix at one point, she left, she left La Voix. She left the adventure, as we say. Yeah, because it was a TV show, and we thought of a TV show. We're all there to serve a TV show. And then we went to get a drink with the gang afterwards. And I said, you need to call me any time.

At one point, she got a call from Starmania in Paris. And she said, I had a contract, I'm not sure about my business. I said, first thing, here's a lawyer's name, specialized in singing, to your advisor, it will cost you 2000$, but you'll never regret it if it's 2000$. Go ahead, you can call me anytime. I even called her to coach me before the Christmas tour last year, it was a year and a half I hadn't sung, and I said, hey, I've done vocal technique, do you want to give me workshops?

We met three times. She gave me voice exercises and said, warm up with that. It was an example for me of the voice, yes, it's paying, yes, you're in sight and everything. But I also met a great singer, who, in addition to being a great singer, a great technician who made a school that I didn't do.

So she helps me. It's not because she made the voice that... a very technical person who did a school that I didn't do. So she helps me. It's not because she did the voice, and she was in my team, I'm the only one who has things to learn. So it's going to be the same thing at Starhack. And seeing a TV team working, it's big things.

It's like a record store, almost twice as many, every Sunday. For me, being there, watching them work, I learn. It's impressive. I learn a lot. So there, watching them work. For me, snobbery is the expression of someone who is sick in their skin and insecure by others. There's no one who is insecure, no one impresses me, and at the same time, I have respect and extreme fascination for everyone. So I find myself in these things.

I'm looking at the cameraman working and seeing how he moves with his assistant behind him holding his cordon. I'm looking at the girl with the microphones that install this. I like to ask them, what did you do before? What did you do? I find that fun. Sincerely, I have the pleasure to be with people in contexts like that. Pierre, this walk is entitled Just Between You and Me. Hey, Pelag, I told him there's something that tells me it won't stay just between you and me. But would you have one last thing to tell me that would stay just between you and me?

Well, no. I don't have... No, I don't have... Take it personally. There's nothing I want to say to you. It's hard not to take it personally. I don't know. Do you want to make a musical suggestion, maybe, Grand Mélain Le Mans? Oh, yes, I'm sure I have one, but it's always so hard to live like that. Yeah, it's hard.

It's always complicated. I listen to it a lot. Because the French Interfaces chronicles you were talking about, if they were musical chronicles, you were suggesting music. I sang a song every day. I would listen to it. I would say anything that came to my mind.

At the end, I would sing a song. I had guests on that. It was Christophe, Mathieu Chedid, Vincent Delernes, Alexandre Tarot, Camille Jordan, Jeanne Scherral. Everyone came to sing with me. You have great names, but Christophe, I'm jealous. Yes, I've already spent a night at Christophe's. How was it?

Because he lived at night, I just want to clarify, we didn't exchange any fluids and everything. Well, I drank a caramel tea because he didn't drink anymore at the time. I was in the middle of his jukebox, because there is a jukebox collection. He made me listen to his music, which was drink at the time. I was in the middle of his jukeboxes, because there was a jukebox collection. He made me listen to his music, which was working at the time. He was a being... He was a real dandy from another era. Former car racer,

world poker champion. And who had tasted all the pleasures of life. Oh yes. So it was funny. I was there at 24, 25 years old, at Jesus' place. What am I doing here? I didn't know much.

I've lived a lot of things in my life. One day I'll tell my memories and people will laugh listening to everything I've heard. But you named Carla Bruni, Julien Claire and... There are many others. I can't name everyone. It doesn't come to mind. It has to come naturally. But yes, I've lived a lot of things at times.

I want things that don't tell each other either. You have to keep it for your autobiography. I have to wait for a couple to die to tell the story. It gives the edge of a work when people leave. Listen, I'm going to talk about an album. I won't go into... I could talk about something recent, but I'm going to talk about old classics, okay? There's an artist, I just have to find the right album,

because it's in Portuguese, obviously... It's in Portuguese, obviously. So, Chico Buarque, who must say like Chico Buarque or something like that in Brazilian Portuguese, sorry for all those who speak Portuguese who come from Brazil. His album Construçao, I have a lot of friends around me who know the music very well, and I made them discover this album, nobody knew it. It's an amazing album from start to finish. music. Pis je leur ai fait découvrir cet album-là. Personne ne le connaissait. C'est un album hallucinant, du début à la fin. Quelle époque? C'est les années 70. C'est probablement 71, 72 dans ce bout-là. Pas plus tard que ça. C'est le grand dios de

la musique brésilienne. Moi je suis fan de musique brésilienne, on l'entend souvent dans mes affaires. Chico Buarque, je l'ai découvert assez tard, il y a à peu près I'm a big Brazilian music fan, we hear it a lot in my music. Chico Buarque, I discovered him quite late, maybe 12 or 15 years ago. And I'm still fascinated by his work, I can't wait. It's as much the arrangements as the melodic lines, it's amazing, the voices, everything is extremely rich. That's it. Thank you Pierre for helping us to repair our hearts with your songs. I hope it will repair the hearts of people around me and people I don't know.

I really like to think that this kind of tendency that I have to play in my own shit and try to be good for 43 years. It goes a lot through songs and I like to think that it helps people who try to be good and who want to be good to hear my songs. There are flowers that grow in this shit. Yes, yes, totally. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you.