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Les Têtes Raides
Back to music and melody
Paris
17/12/2007 -
Christian Olivier: The minute we began working on the material for Banco we knew the songs were going to have more of an acoustic feel than an electric edge. We also knew we wanted the tracks to be longer this time round. Our last album, Fragile, was a lot tenser and tighter and Qu’est-ce qu’on se fait chier packed more of a political punch. On Banco, I think we just wanted to get back to the music and bring the melodies more to the fore. The essential thing about the new album is the feeling of space. We really tried to give the songs room to breathe!
Do you think that has something to do with the fact that the singer and lute-player Hakim Hamadouch is present throughout almost the entire album?
Yes, absolutely. Hakim is one of our friend Rachid Taha’s musicians. He’s also been part of Les Têtes Raides’ entourage for a long time now. We’ve built up a great complicity between us on both a personal and an artistic level. And after working together on Fragile, we decided we’d like to take things a step further. What Hakim brings to the band is a completely different way of thinking about music. We love the fact he takes such a live improvisational approach to things. At the same time, we were very insistent that each individual instrument should be heard distinctively on the album. There were actually a lot of musicians in the studio with us, but the overall sound comes across as quite sparse and pared down.
There’s one politically charged track on your new album entitled Expulsez-moi (Kick me out!) The song makes explicit reference to a very sensitive social issue in France right now, but the tone is actually pretty upbeat…
You know, when I sat down to write Expulsez-moi it was an instinctive sort of revolt, a song that came directly from my guts. The social reality behind the song is all these kids who are being kicked out of school and deprived of the right to study in France because their parents don’t have work papers. The way the authorities have handled the situation, splitting families up, is totally inhumane. We support a number of organisations like Education Sans Frontières and Gisti which have been campaigning on access to education issues like these for a long time now.
But there’s a deliberate touch of irony in the song, too. If you look beyond the tragedy of these kids, you’ll find a wider phenomenon of rejection that could hit any of us at any moment. You could go home tonight, for instance, and your wife could kick you out of the house! Let’s face it, the world we’re living in now is turning into a place where people systematically withdraw into themselves and concentrate on their own individual fates.
The absolute highlight of your new album has to be Notre Besoin de consolation est impossible à rassasier (Our Need for Consolation Cannot be Assuaged). How did you come up with the idea of setting this text by Stig Dagerman [Ed. a Swedish writer] to music?
We’ve got into the habit of "inviting" guest authors on Têtes Raides’ albums. We like the idea of introducing writers from our own personal library and getting their work more widely known. Generally speaking, I instinctively know whether a text is suited to being set to music and me singing the words. It happens very rarely, in fact!
What happened with Stig Dagerman was that a friend of mine lent me the book and it just hit me instantly. I believe there are moments when certain things need to be heard and I felt Dagerman’s text, which he wrote back in 1952, is just so topical now. The way I read it, his text is an anthem to freedom. It’s a song that’s absolutely vital now, despite the tragic fate of its author who committed suicide shortly after writing the book. There are some really powerful lines in it, both from a poetic and philosophical point of view. And, I have to admit, the idea of including a track that lasts almost 20 minutes appealed to us as a strong statement in an age dominated by speed, shortened attention spans and permanent channel-hopping.
There’s been a huge controversy surrounding the recent Olivennes report about music piracy. It seems a bit paradoxical that the people who’ve spoken out least on this issue are the artists actually making the records…
Well, I haven’t read the report myself, but I do think when it comes to illegal downloads France has a very specific problem. In Germany and the U.K., newspapers are left in open stands on the street and people pay for a paper if they want one. They could easily steal them, but they actually pay for their papers instead. We haven’t been brought up to behave like that here and that poses a pretty serious problem. The positive thing about the whole piracy debate is that it’s questioning the whole economic model we work with now. I think singers and musicians who go into the business hoping to make a stack of cash in a short space of time are going to become few and far between!
Looking at the issue in a wider sense, I agree with Jean-Louis Murat when he says that the Internet has encouraged a form of musical bulimia. There’s so much music out there right now it’s like we’re constantly drowning in it! There was this really good campaign last year called "Chut!" (Ssssh!) which encouraged people to think about whether music hasn’t just become another consumer product. Part of our answer to that question has been to defend the band’s image through our records and our live gigs working with a collective of graphic designers [Ed.: Les Chats Pelés have provided the artwork for all Les Têtes Raides’ albums to date].
After 20 years in the music business and 10 albums, how do you keep the flame burning?
There are times when we all have to sit down and ask ourselves whether we actually want to make another album. Personally, I still get a big kick out of the songwriting stage in the run-up to an album. I experience a really intense physical and intellectual pleasure at that point. But believe me, the day that passion disappears is the day I’ll call it quits and open an omelette joint instead!
The band’s French tour kicks off in February 2008 and includes a series of concerts at Le Bataclan, Paris (25 March - 5 April 2008)
Jérôme Pichon
Translation : Julie Street
31/01/2011 -
09/12/2005 -
20/04/2001 -
