Published at 12:47 am. Updated at 7:00 a.m.
Tell me about the making of this album, which you wrote in French for the first time except for one song.
It happened in several stages. I released my second album in complete isolation, my tour was canceled and to keep this record a little alive I decided to translate one of my songs, Forget My Blues, which became C’est tout, it’s Nothing . It was my first song in French. I’ve wanted to do it for a long time, but I didn’t think I could do it. It was also the beginning of my collaboration with [le réalisateur] Marc Andre Gilbert. Then I wanted to make a record with him in French.
Her previous two albums were in English. Have you felt a big difference in the way you are creative, in your approach to writing?
It’s getting easier as I know myself better, but it’s still much harder for me to make the words sound good than in English. I’ve learned that simple words work best for me. […] My first ideas are often: I’ll make yogurt, I’ll say something and it’s often words in English. Then I’ll use the sounds I liked in English and find words that sound somewhat similar in French.
In what context did you start writing these songs?
I was in Greece filming for two different projects. I shot the film “Music” by director Angela Schanelec. It was my first trip in two months and several songs were created there. I returned to Montreal and we worked on these designs. A theme arose because I already knew I was going back to Greece for six months [pour le tournage de la série Salade grecque, de Cédric Klapisch], that I would be far away from my girlfriend and the people I love. I had felt the energy of Greece and couldn’t wait to return, but I was a little afraid of what being away for so long would mean for my relationship. That touched me very much and that was noticeable in the compositions.
Was writing during these months in Greece, far away from your life, a channel for all these emotions?
It really helped me calm my fears and questions. I don’t claim to have found any answers, but my songs were a way to express all of that. It feels good. That’s the main theme, the main songs revolve around it.
How do you combine this everyday life as an actor with that of a musician? Do both parts of you coexist well and sometimes even feed off each other?
Yes, completely. It makes me feel good to have both because I feel like in both cases I lose passion when it’s the only thing you do and it just becomes work. When I’m filming in Greece and have a free hour when I get home, I take my guitar and make music. In that moment she takes back the space she had when I was a teenager. It allows me to return to myself.
What direction did you want to take in terms of the sound of this album?
We decided on the guitar that we wanted to be very dry. I gave myself an old Martin from 1949 that we used on the album without taking it off [d’effet]. With my voice we wanted it to be very warm. We wanted to feel Greece, to feel that this album is a photo of this time in my life. We worked a lot on the harmonies. We wanted to use the voices almost like violins to seem like a choir. All of that really shaped the identity of the album.
What contribution did Marc-André Gilbert make to your creative process?
He pushed me a lot. When I’m lazy and feel like we’ve done the right thing on a song but it feels like it’s missing something, he pushes me to my limits and that’s really taken the project forward. I was also afraid to write, I refused and convinced myself that I had done 100% of the writing for the first two albums. But actually it really pushed me forward because it pushed me to go further within myself.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Aljosha Schneider
Your lover, Charlotte [Cardin], is co-author of the song The Ocean of Lovers. We also hear her in several songs where she plays harmonies. Tell me about this collaboration.
She managed to find the right wording for a sentence about “The Ocean of Lovers.” His presence on the album is not an official collaboration. But we live together and she was sometimes in the studio singing. I didn’t want Charlotte Cardin to sing on my record, I wanted my girlfriend to sing on my record. We also hear from friends in Greece. I wanted these people in my life to sing on the album.
One song, Mexico, the last one on the CD, is in English. Why did you decide to include it on this album?
This song happened in a special way. I wrote it before the second album, it’s much older, that’s why it’s in English. Marc-André showed me a light bossa nova song he was working on and it made me think of this song. It had the same slightly island-shaped side as the other pieces.
How are you feeling a few days before you release this third album?
I’m excited and excited to see how this will be received. It’s no longer in my hands, I can only keep my fingers crossed, I hope it reaches people. But with the release of the singles I already have the impression that the response, perhaps because of the French, is already better than the experience I had with the first albums.
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Aljosha Schneider
Aljosha Schneider
Audiogram
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