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Gonzales
Expect the Unexpected!
Paris
09/12/2004 -
Gonzales receives his visitors in a junk-filled recording studio in northern Paris, where he appears to be living out of a suitcase in between takes. The thirty-something musician, who has just arrived in France, is currently hard at work preparing an upcoming album by French singer Philippe Katerine. Meanwhile, his own solo career continues to go from strength to strength with the release of a new album, Solo Piano. Gonzales recorded his intimate piano opus in this very same studio, on the skeletal piano pushed up against the wall. A former underground electro maverick masquerading as a concert pianist? Once again, Gonzales has managed to take his small band of followers completely by surprise!
Gonzales, a tall lanky figure who has something of the Jango Edwards-style comedian about him, expresses himself calmly in French. He may have been a notorious 'provocateur' in the past, but do any traces of his former maverick self remain? Following the release of his début album, Gonzales Über Alles (made in Berlin in 2000 and unanimously adopted by electro fans), Gonzales proclaimed himself "the worst rap MC!" But before long he had changed his tune, electing himself as the "president of the underground." Gonzales was famous for his radical and quickfire changes of image, his stage costumes progressing from white trash tracksuit to colonial get-up, before he finally took to the stage dressed in a shocking pink suit with a fat businessman cigar sticking out of his mouth.
"The Gonzales persona's me," he admits, "but he's obviously an exaggerated version of myself. You have to exaggerate things and make them bigger when you're trying to get things across to more than one person. (…) That's what marketing's all about. In a perfect world music would be a meritocracy. People with an absolute mastery of music would be the ones who would be the most acclaimed. But music's not the only thing in our world and I accept that. I work with that fact and use it to my advantage."
Credible and underground
But perhaps Gonzales is just the ultimate dissimulator, hiding his inner self behind a wall of rap, electro and classical music, the only continuity in his style being the recurrent edge of melancholy that creeps into his work every now and then. Does the real Gonzales shine through in his music? "I don't know," our protagonist replies, "That's a very personal question. That would imply that people who listen to my music have that kind of melancholy in them. For me, music's more a question of mathematics. I try and create as much music as I can each day as if I were doing my daily exercise and working out a muscle. That way, I don't get too disappointed if a couple of tracks don't turn out that well. My brain's thinking B flat, cadenza, fortissimo… If anyone sees something deeper in that, then good for them!"
While insisting that fans should not seek any deeper truth in his music, Gonzales concedes that if there is any melancholy to be found in his nature, it probably comes from his Slavic origins. However, tracing Gonzales's origins is a complicated business. In fact, this nomadic musician is so cosmopolitan it's difficult to say where he comes from exactly. The most we could devise was that Gonzales is Canadian, with Hungarian origins, but he has been living in Paris for over a year now and holds a French passport. Back in Toronto, Gonzales mixed on the underground music scene, sharing a flat with alternative singers Feist and Peaches (both of whom he still works with on a regular basis). But Gonzales quickly tired of Canada and finally packed his bags and moved to Berlin in 1999. "Canada is a country without style!" he quips by way of explanation.
Before officially morphing into Gonzales, the Canadian-born musician started life as Jason Beck. Metamorphosis and versatility have been his mottos from the word go. "I made my first album with a bunch of mates," Gonzales explains, "but the second one was done with a sampler. Even back then it seemed impossible to me to make an album in the same style twice running!… I've always tried to take people by surprise, I guess. I make music that's 'credible' and 'underground,' but I use the same weapons to defend myself as Christina Aguilera who's someone who's totally in control of her marketing. I realise it's not easy to be a Gonzales fan because you never know what you're in for. The music's changing all the time."
Before taking a leaf out of Christina Aguilera's book, Gonzales kept a close eye on his elder brother, seeing what lessons he could learn from him. At the age of 4, Gonzales wanted to copy his brother and play the piano – but, intent on marking out his own identity and not being like him, he refused to take piano lessons until he was 17! "It was like I was having vicarious lessons through my brother," Gonzales says, "He was the one officially taking the lessons, but things filtered down from him to me!" Gonzales's involvement in the electro scene was a recent fling, which began at the age of 28 when he lived in Berlin. But the piano has always been an integral part of his life and his way of working (Gonzales always composes his music on the piano first and transposes it to other registers later, working this way even when he recorded an entirely electro album!)
At the end of 2003, Gonzales made a trip home to Canada to celebrate Christmas and New Year with his family. It was they, he says, who encouraged him to release his keyboard work as solo piano pieces. "I was actually pretty sick and tired of electronic music and hip-hop even when I was working with it," he says, I don't have all that much respect for a lot of contemporary music styles because, musically speaking, they don't require that much know-how… When I came to Europe I spent a lot of time observing what was happening on the electro scene in Berlin and I realised that a lot of artists involved in the scene were deeply suspicious of musical know-how and what kind of image they put across. They were against the idea of pre-fabricated artists and so they were wary of appearing too slick and professional on stage."
Gonzo ”the entertainist”
This does not appear to be a major concern of Gonzales's. The former electro-rap clown is happy to sit down at a piano and play 'serious' music. Perched on his piano stool, he looks for all the world as if he were accompanying a silent movie in a neighbourhood cinema - only this time round, the images projected when he plays live are his hands! Fans may be surprised to see the new-look Gonzales on stage, but there's a risk they'll be even more disconcerted listening to the album because Solo Piano is a work where Gonzales introduces a note of moderation and introversion to his sound. Gonzales insists that his old maverick self has not been completely effaced, however. "Believe me, there's no sense of moderation when I perform live!" he exclaims, "I'm still a firm believer in The Entertainist (the title of his second album), the art of having fun! This is just my persona evolving, that's all!"
But behind the entertainer there's very much a real musician. In other words, whip off the Gonzales mask and you'll find the consummate professional Jason Beck. And the reason he's in a studio in Paris right now is that he's working as an arranger – and not for the first time, either! After collaborating on Gonzales's third album, Presidential Suite (2002), French producer Renaud Letang (famous for his work with the likes of Manu Chao) decided to call Gonzales in to add an interesting new edge to the albums of established French stars. Françoise Hardy, Jane Birkin, Adamo and even Charles Aznavour have all benefited from the quirky Gonzo touch. So it looks as if Monsieur Gonzales is set to continue his habit of popping up where you'd least expect him!
Gonzales Solo Piano (No Format/Universal Music Jazz) 2004
Nicolas Dambre
Translation : Julie Street
06/09/2010 -
23/04/2008 -
