There’s a strong sense on this EP of adulthood being peeled back, almost like you’re trying to get back to something lighter or more instinctive. How intentional was that in the writing?
I truly believe that a song quietly draws on our subconscious as it is being written, the melody, the rhythm, and the words alike. Without realizing it, I imprinted a carbon copy of the state of my soul onto these very latest songs. And when I listen to them again, it seems they call for a return to the naive and magnificent enthusiasm I felt as a teenager. So no, it wasn’t intentional, but what a great surprise!
Do you feel like this record is exposing things you might have kept buried earlier in life, or is it more like you’ve stepped into a completely new chapter and left that framing behind?
Events, people, and places have shaped who I am. It took me time to navigate life’s challenges, to learn to express my feelings, and to sort through them, so that I could finally do justice to these people and places in my writing, and thus pay tribute to them through this record. I owed them this music. I must admit that I also owed it to myself.
That idea of bottling a very specific moment in 1989, those couple of hours, how do you even begin to translate something that precise and fleeting into sound without it becoming abstract?
Music has that power: the power to evoke a scent, a memory, an indelible emotion, without trying to replicate it. In the middle of the summer of 1989, at just 15 years old, I deliberately slipped away from my parents’ watchful eyes and left the hotel to stride proudly up 7th Avenue, my Sony Sports Walkman on my ears. I was from a tiny town in southwestern France; imagine what a huge shock it was! The world was mine for two hours. You never forget a moment like that. And like a junkie, I’ve spent my whole life looking for a way to relive it. It was definitely worth a song. I dedicate “Manhattan 89” to that fearless kid we all used to be, the one we should never let be silenced within ourselves.
“Terry” has its own emotional weight, especially knowing you sent it to Terry Reid while he was still alive and unwell. When he responded, what stayed with you most, and did it change what the song meant to you after that?
Terry Reid was a genius, a tremendous artist, and a wonderful man. He was a giant, and yet instead of intimidating you, he gave you wings. In fact, he was the first to give me wings. I was lucky enough to work with him, to get to know him and his loved ones well, until we became friends. We even had plans to work on his new album together.
I wrote and recorded this song, “Terry,” before he became seriously ill last year, and I sent it to him a month before he passed away. It was absolutely essential that he heard it, that he knew, through the music, that I loved him and that I was grateful to him. He was very moved by it, just as I still am right now as I am answering your question.
“Terry” has become a bridge between us, the kind of bridge we hope will last forever. Music can do that, too.
There’s also this quiet thread of your grandmother running through the record, not overt, but always there. Did that presence shift how you approached tone or instrumentation at all, even subconsciously?
As for the track “So Long,” the image of my grandmother immediately came to mind as soon as I played the first few chords on the piano. She passed away a long time ago now. But I can still feel her presence. Especially in moments of uncertainty, when the coin could land either way. She still helps me, just as she always did.
During the last years of her life, I wasn’t there for her as I should have been. Today, I am finally engraving my love for her.
And then you’re in the Hotel Chelsea, recording piano in a space that already carries so much history. Do you feel like the room dictated anything in the performance, or were you trying to shut that out completely?
It happened one day in the summer of 2024 in New York (much like a certain summer of ’89). My girlfriend and I had decided to visit the Hotel Chelsea, where so many legends and artists of all kinds had lived for decades. The hotel was still under renovation, but we were able to go inside.
You might think I’m crazy, but I immediately sensed something unusual; I could almost hear whispers coming down the monumental staircase. At the end of the hallway stood an old upright piano. I sat down at it, mechanically, naturally. The hallways were empty. Well, empty, not really.
I really felt a peaceful presence right over my shoulder, guiding my hands across the keyboard. So I started playing, improvising some chords and a melody, while my girlfriend was filming the scene. The piano you hear on the track “Hotel Chelsea” is the very same piano recorded inside the Hotel Chelsea that day, perhaps with a little help from some friendly ghosts…
You’ve moved between some pretty different worlds sonically and geographically, Iceland, Nashville, Paris, New York. At what point do those places stop being “influences” and start becoming part of the actual writing process?
Ever since I was a child, I’ve always felt the need to set out on adventures. I grew up surrounded by nature, with the ocean on one side and the forest on the other, between two endless horizons. The need to discover what lay at the far end of each has always driven me.
And then music became my vehicle, almost my excuse, to go further and bring back a personal and unique souvenir: an album, a song, a lesson learned, a story.
The shift between recording in Paris with Antoine Delecroix and then finishing in New York with Fred Kevorkian, did that distance help clarify the emotional tone of the record, or complicate it?
It felt very natural and rewarding. This record needed to go through that journey to refine itself. Antoine and I created the sound, and Fred took it to the next level. We always come back from an epic trip better than before, and so does the music.
Your last EP, the first chapter of La Vie, set a very specific emotional frame. Where does this second part sit in relation to it, is it answering it, breaking away from it, or something else entirely?
Since it’s sung in English this time, “La Vie Side B” is more like a postcard you send to yourself from a faraway land. It is both hopeful and nostalgic. When you receive it, it makes you feel good. And later, when you read it again, it feels the same.
And on a simpler note, what’s it like knowing people are connecting so deeply to something you’ve deliberately kept so quiet and restrained?
It’s magical. It’s rare and fragile. It’s what AI tries to replicate every day, with no real chance of ever truly succeeding. We live, we suffer, we pick ourselves up, we write to feel better, and if it’s sincere, if it’s human, if it’s the fruit of our own labor, and if the stars align, then maybe the music manages to touch someone else.
It happens to me sometimes, and it fills me with joy and gratitude every single time.
Tracklisting
Manhattan 89 (4:35)
Terry (3:35)
So Long (2:32)
Hotel Chelsea (2:05)
