Bernard Lavilliers in concert in Toulouse: “As I have a blue and hard look, they don’t come looking for me too much!”
Bernard Lavilliers will be in concert on Saturday May 7 at the Zénith de Toulouse in the wake of his 22nd album, the magnificent “Under a huge sun”, which “is part of reality, in the world in which we live”.
“Is it La Dépêche du Midi?” Hey, you know what? On September 21, 2001, I barely left Toulouse-Blagnac airport and bang! The explosion! It’s crazy, right? I have lots of friends in Toulouse, like Georges Baux of course, an excellent musician and unparalleled voice-taker, and memories galore! Alright, let’s go, let’s get started? So is Bernard Lavilliers: warm, talkative, authentic. The artist is a monument of French song and his latest album, “Under a huge sun” (his 22nd!) is undoubtedly one of the finest in his extensive discography.
This album was born in Argentina: do you travel to find inspiration, or does inspiration come from your travels?
I travel to meet musicians. And I met in Buenos Aires, where I stayed for three months, fantastic musicians, but also actors, creators, dancers in tango bars… All the colors that we hear in this disc, I found in their contact. The song “The Porteños are tired”, for example, I wrote after meeting some port trade unionists. I walked a lot in the city – the first song I wrote there was “The pedestrian of Buenos Aires”. The Covid arrived and I had to finish the album in Paris.
How did the “lockdown” part of the recording go?
It was really strange: there was this curfew, but I had people come to my house, and we worked a lot on the Internet. The strings, we made them in London… by Zoom, do you realize? I did not like. I like the warmth of the studio, the live exchange, the energy.
You have invited many young French artists, such as Romain Humeau (Eiffel), Terrenoire or Izia, as a handover…
I like this idea, there is probably a bit of that. They are high quality artists. With Romain, we have already worked a lot, he is a very cultivated person, who knows music very well. Raphaël and Théo Herrerias are from Saint-Etienne like me, they are two brothers, grandsons of immigrants and Spanish workers. I like what they are doing with Terrenoire and I wanted to compare their vision of Saint-Etienne with mine. I loved writing my part in this song, “Je tien d’elle”, about this city that I left a long time ago.
The album opens with “The Heart of the World”, which lists the evils from which the planet suffers, and ends with “The Elsewhere”, in which you look death in the face…
I wanted the record to be part of reality, of the world in which we live. A difficult period – I myself have lost many close friends, in particular to cancer… As for “The Elsewhere”… My cardiologist told me that I had a valve problem, a huge murmur in my heart. He told me that I could die suddenly or stay with this for a very long time… I was calm and this song is a tribute to those who healed me, all those doctors and nurses who watch over us.
After the splendid “5 mn au Paradis”, you publish this superb album: you seem to have reached an artistic fullness and we don’t hear your detractors less, who mocked your rants and your biscottos…
I never look back on what I’ve done, but I know I’ve always been apart. Marginal. I’m not interested in showbiz and I never wanted to make concessions. From “Gringo” and “Stand the Ghetto”, I started to have success, people got used to me and since I have blue and hard eyes, they didn’t come looking for me too much !
Georges Baux, the Toulouse friend
Bernard Lavilliers can count in Toulouse on an unfailing friend, with whom he has recorded many albums: Georges Baux, founder of the Deltour studio in 1978. “I have known him for thirty years, confides Lavilliers. He is an unparalleled voice taker, the best I know. He’s a sound engineer and a musician and, as a man, he’s adorable, he knows how to stay calm when I’m not. As soon as I come to Toulouse, we get together and we talk, we resume our conversations as if we had just left each other. We don’t talk much about music, but rather about our lives, our loves, our travels…”