Daniel Lavoie : the official website

"Little secrets" interview
“I find my real happiness with my children”

Le Lundi, 1990
Yolande Vigeant

Daniel Lavoie agreed to see me at 9 am. It was the only free time which he had. When I arrived at his agent’s place, he was already at work. I told myself that it must occasionally be irritating, for a creative person to have to repeat the same things, to answer the same questions. Daniel frankly admitted to me that the “marketing” part of his work was perhaps the least satisfactory part for him but that it was likewise part of his work and he did it with good heart. It needs to be said that he is an impassioned man who is very cut and dried about things, who seems to me to be endowed with a vibrating sensitivity.

I liked this conversation that we had about this and that. At the start, Daniel was just like I expected him to be, a bit reserved. Some people call him cold, but I found the reason for this was not that he was suspicious but that he was watchful. He had then taken the time to weigh me up, then satisfied I suppose, he chatted freely, he opened up and even showed a part of his personality that I didn’t know about. He agreed to tell me what sort of father he is because one knows that he is the proud father of three beautiful children of which the last is still a small baby.

REAL LIFE

Do you think that it’s difficult for your family to have a star for a husband (or a father)?
I’ve always thought that, in personal relationships, husband-wife or parent-child, that there must be a lot of mutual respect. So I respect the members of my family in that they haven’t chosen to be stars themselves.

Is it true that your wife won’t let herself be photographed?
Louise and I, we don’t have a phobia about it, but it happened that certain photographers had, for example at the Cannes festival, hung about us. But they paraded around … no, I didn’t want that and then I too became very nasty and I stirred myself to protect the well-being of my family. They are the most precious thing that I have.

More precious than your talent and your career?
It’s with them that I find my real happiness, where I re-charge myself. When I find myself with my children I become an ordinary person, I wash nappies, wipe bottoms and prepare meals. That’s real life.

I feel that you are a very responsible father?
After all, it’s we who chose to bring them into the world. They are all wanted and planned, but with three, that’s enough and we’ve no intention of having any more. In every way there’s already too many on this planet.

Therefore you want to give them the best of everything?
Including a good opinion of themselves. I think that I don’t spoil them too much, but I find the time to play with them, to be there and to be available. Yes, I’m certain that they know and value something, they learn that pretty quickly and equally respect themselves.

Do you want them to have a vision of life which leads towards happiness?
Happiness … deep down that’s a really dirty word. It’s a word which is trotted out, rough handled and I daren’t use it myself too much. Say that I would like my children to know what’s possible, what exists and to lead their lives as optimists rather than pessimists.

Therefore you “programme” them a bit to be receptive to beautiful and good things?
Surely not in order that they should take a pick from everybody. Yes, it’s important to work out in your head what is important for children and to behave accordingly. And then … there’s no need to take it too seriously. Basically, I learnt all that from my mother who was endowed with great common sense.

In spite of the poverty and the little village in Manitoba where she lived?
In spite of that and perhaps because of it. There were not more than 125 people in the village, in those days I had “uncles” and “aunts”. All the same, when I think of my parents, they lived in poverty, knew the Depression, but despite that, mummy always thought that all was good in the best of worlds. She wasn’t a “pedant” but she had a lovely attitude to life and I imagine that some of that has rubbed off on me.

A BORN CREATOR

You’ve spoken to me about your family who are your real life. And music? What place does that occupy in your life?
I had the opportunity to be a creator. Everyone has the potential to be creative but, for heaps for reasons, it doesn’t happen. Therefore, I consider myself to be extremely lucky because, being a composer (and that was my first vocation) allowed me to get into contact with my inner self.

It’s true that not everyone has this capacity.
We live in an age where people are not encouraged to examine themselves. A social life is needed, it’s a big “con” to watch colour television, to shop. Most people think that the day when they are well settled-down on a sun-lounger by the swimming pool, that their problems are solved.

So you denounce materialism for being harmful to humanity?
All the same, life would be so simple if our needs were not so great and I speak here of artificial needs. It’s all this that makes for pollution. You know, like me, that the art of marketing is to convince people that they need something that they don’t need.

What have you yourself learnt from this system?
I try to manage as best I can. At least I see the problem and I’ve told myself that one can be happy without heaps of useless gadgets, that happiness and contentment are not found in these things, so there!

I believe that your songs have the task of raising the public conscience?
They reflect my pre-occupations, that’s true. In this way it now seems clear that the people of Quebéc want to live as French people and they note that Bourassa is all at sea.

If I can say it, you yourself, a native of Manitoba, have a bi-lingual culture?
Yes, I’m bi-cultural and I have excellent English speaking friends who only say that here there’s nothing which deserves to be preserved. In every way, the Anglophone minority in Quebéc has nothing to lose, they are spoiled; newspapers, radio, schools, there’s everything.

I feel that, in every way, you are a pacifist, non-violent?
I believe that peace should prevail. I feel that most strongly.

All that’s a question of love and mutual respect, it seems to me.
You’ve said it. Ah, if there’s a certain type of person that I can’t stand, it’s the bloke who forces his way into the traffic, drives bumper to bumper and won’t give a quarter of an inch to anyone else. There’s no place for him. I think of how he must behave with his wife and children. Besides, it’s those people who pollute, who don’t give a damn, who cause bitter suffering to all the population.

Social problems concern you a lot?
Everyone must push for effective government. Ah, take the case of abortion. The way that goes and who’s going to get illegal abortion? The poor of course, those who live in faraway lands. What a pity!

You are easily moved, hurt by what happens around you?
Quite simply, I’m an aware person.

A SISTER WITH DIABETES

Is this why you have agreed to support the Foundation for early onset diabetes? [Type 1 diabetes]
Somewhere in our problems, in the chromosomes of the Lavoie family, there is diabetes. I have a sister who is affected but she doesn’t have to inject herself daily. On the other hand, I remember an uncle who used to come to the house and whose diabetes was quite bad. He boiled his syringe each morning in a pan and I watched him, fascinated. He eventually died of the disease in terrible suffering. He had to wait for blindness, gangrene and he endured both legs being amputated. I hope that the day will arrive when this terrible disease is beaten and this is the reason why I encourage people to give generously to the Foundation.

Is it possible that one day your children could develop diabetes?
Everything is possible but, all the same, one doesn’t stop having children because of that! Myself, I’m not a carrier and it should have showed itself by now, I look out for it less and less.

Therefore, it’s important to live for the present?
Yes, especially since my work as a singer takes me far away. I like Paris and I believe that, for their part, Parisians like me a lot. Yes, there’s too many people, noise, pollution. Yes, they are big-mouths, moaners, tiresome; they begin to irritate me with their capacity for tripping on the pebbles on the pavement, to fall flat on their faces for nothing. All the same, others are so serene, calm, I like them a lot. I must say that I like people in general.

Do you happen to have any eccentricities, to live out a little madness?
In general I’m quite level-headed. I don’t feel the need to be silly as you say. My craziness is to let go on stage. Yes, I have the great luck to be able to make a “den” on a stage, I throw myself into it, I wiggle my bum, I shout into the mike: everyone loves that, they clap and I call that “making a den”. In any case, it gets it out of my system, it lets out any pent-up aggression, eh! (laughs)

So you say that you yourself don’t act like a star?
The stars all have big egos. I try to keep mine at a level which others can put up with. I need to say that, at the beginning, I didn’t want to be one, but I wanted to write … for others. As no one sang my sons, that’s how I arrived on stage, but it wasn’t my first vocation.

Do you pay a lot of attention to your image?
I’m aware of the fact that it is important but … if it was up to me, I’d only possess three t-shirts and two pairs of jeans in my life. It’s on this point that my manager has to watch over me closely and my wife likewise does it. This morning, as I left, she told me to change my socks because they clashed with what I was wearing. Me, I’m not that worried, but there’s the image….

This ordinary and likeable big boy doesn’t want to spend time choosing a belt or buying shirts. On the other hand, as a perfectionist who is concerned with quality, he does what he needs to do in order that the public sees the best of him. On the other hand, and I find that he is right, he is able to compartmentalise his life and hold onto a little corner which is private and hidden, this little corner which we all need and which he describes to us at length in this interview, as it were. These little corners where we are able to show ourselves just as we are without any trickery, unshaven, hair a mess, to be loved without strings attached … isn’t that family life? Happy Daniel to have understood that. It’s probably the reason why his latest LP, entitled “Long Courrier” is going so well: it reflects the pre-occupations of the real world!