A couple united in happiness and hardship

 Le Lundi, 26th May 1995
 Lise Giguère

This is the first time Daniel Lavoie and Louise Dubuc have agreed to lift the veil on their life as a couple. And what a couple! Sensitive, likeable and deeply in love, they open up cautiously, touch by touch. The interview is punctuated by tender glances, affectionate gestures, laughter and smiles, thus creating a cosy atmophere for them to share their secrets.A word springs to mind when you see them together: complicity.
As is the case with all couples, they’ve had their share of difficulties but they’ve managed to remain faithfull to their ideal of a strong and lasting relationship. A relationship born of a mutual dream, but let them tell us about it. 

How was your love born?
We were introduced by mutual friends, yes, mutual I think. I think we were attracted to each other from the start but first we were just acquaintances, then we became friends. Then one day we realised we had the same vision of life and the same projects, above all, we had the same dream of living in the country. 

What happened next?
Louise: We started seeing each other in earnest but still taking things slowly. At our age and given our respective experience of life (we had a child each) we wanted to proceed carefully. But love? How can you explain it? When two people look at each other and feel that that’s it! (A long sigh from Daniel can be heard in the background) 

Daniel, what attracted you to Louise?
A lot of things, great maturity, a deep understanding of life. She complemented me where I was weak. I felt it would be a good partnership. 

And for you Louise?
He was a builder. He got up in the morning and acted. That was important to me. For the rest, it is difficult to say as the reasons he attracts me now are not the same as those which seduced me at first. 

What is your complicity built on?
Louise: We are in tune with each other. Like communicating vessels..
If one of us is under stress, the other one will feel the stress too. If one feels happy, so does the other. 

You are very close to each other?
Louise: Even when Daniel is on tour he calls me every day. We feel the need to stay in touch.
Daniel: The only time I didn’t do it is was when I went to give a concert in Bulgaria, I tried in vain to contact Loulou for a whole week. Otherwise wherever I am, I call everyday, we stay in touch. We don’t allow time to separate us. It is not a need, it is a choice. We’ve established a way of life which suits us both and we work at preserving it, just as you must work at preserving everything else. 

Louise, it is pleasant to be Daniel Lavoie’s wife?
Some times it’s good, at other times less so 

What is difficult?
Louise: How people look at us. Once on holidays at the seaside, we walked into a quiet bar, and everybody looked at Daniel. Everybody was pleased to see him. Then they looked at me and the pleasure in their eyes faded. I felt their love for him and nothing for me. It shook me. 

When you decided to live together you each had a child: how did you adapt?
Louise: We didn’t have a honeymoon. We started as a family. For our first morning together, we had to prepare school lunches for a big twelve-year old boy who was going to school and a two-year old little girl who was going to nursery school. 

Was it difficult to bring together two single children.
Louise: For Matthew I wasn’t stealing his father. I was bringing him a sister who was at an age when little girls are adorable. As for Gabrielle, she was getting a big brother. On the whole it worked very well. 

Then you decided to have a third one?
Louise: Yes, we wanted another one.
Daniel: Yes, children help me keep my feet on the ground. With young lives around me, needing me, I have to think about them, and forget about my problems. It stops me navel-gazing and worrying too much, which I tend to do . 

Can you describe a day at home?
Louise: Daniel gets up at 7a.m., usually Gabrielle is already up, otherwise he wakes her up. I sleep on. He deals with the children’s breakfast. Then they leave and I get up, Daniel goes into the garden or into his recording studio, it depends. We meet for lunch then we work. The children come back from school and it’s the normal routine: dinner, washing up, playing with the children, walking the dog and back to work. 

You live in the country, are you happy with this choice?
Daniel: Oh yes! We need space, light, the contact with nature and how it changes, the  cycles of the moon, Sping, Autumn, Winter, birds flying by.
Louise: It’s so pleasant living here. Just now, for instance farmers are working very hard. Tractors keep driving by, there are heavy farm vehicles everywhere around. It’s going to grow all summer then, in the Autumn, they’ll harvest. We follow the rhythm of the seasons. We do not meet many people so when we meet some, we enjoy it all the more. Going to town has become a real treat for me now. 

You like to work in the garden, don’t you Daniel?
Daniel: it’s an obsession. Some people practise a sport, for me it’s gardening. I do not know where it comes from. Maybe from my grandfather who loved his huge kitchen garden. He spoke about his vegetables with such love that it must have left a trace.
When I lived up the Hotel-de-Ville street, in the centre of Montreal, I used to carry bags of earth on the roof to make a garden. In fact I think that gardening is my excuse for staying outdoors. Out in the sun, with a straw hat on, there is nothing more fulfilling than walking around my two big vegetable gardens, admiring my apple trees, my flowers.
Louise: I often see him in the garden at 6 a.m, the dog beside him, I can fall asleep again, he is happy! 

Yet it took you five years to fulfill your dream. Why?
Louise: We had to find the place, the land to build the house on, the right sunny situation, etc…Once we’d done that, we realised the cows had the best view, so we demolished the barn to build the house .My brother drew the plans and built it. It was a time-consuming project and, in the meantime, Joseph was born.
Daniel: We’d been around before, lived our lives, we knew what we wanted and, above all, what we didn’t want. 

What was it you didn’t want?
Daniel: We didn’t want to risk breaking our hearts after two years.We wanted to invest, invest in time, in depth, in a family, in a house.
Louise: we didn’t want to wonder whether it would work. We decided «it is going to work.»
Daniel: we didn’t give ourselves an open-choice. We decided that whatever might happen, even major problems, we would survive it, we would not put everything in the balance at the slightest difficulty. 

For better, for worse…

They had the opportunity to test the strength of their union in the difficult moments before the 2 million dollar bankruptcy, on January 27^th, a bankruptcy due to the debts of his record production company. 

Daniel, you seem like a proud and private man.  Were you deeply hurt by the event?
Daniel: I am not ashamed of it, it was not a personal bankruptcy but that of a Quebec record company in which I had put everything I had, risked everything, invested myself totally. It turned out not to be enough. It is not as if I had mismanaged my business or misused my credit cards. It was not personal, I didn’t run personal debts. It was a bottomless pit swallowing everything I earned. My pride didn’t suffer, after everything we’d gone through, it wasn’t important. 

What happened before?
Daniel: a whole series of long-lasting problems. In fact the bankrupcy gave me the opportunity to regain a degree of freedom, to turn to a new page, the hard part was during the previous years, the years of fighting and ploughing on. We were for ever fighting against financial problems, no matter how much work we put in it. It was a financial black hole and, on a personal level, a real cul-de-sac. 
 

So, the bankruptcy was a liberating factor?
Daniel: you have to understand how harrowing judicial proceedings can be. I put an end to a twenty-year old association, it ended up like a divorce, as ugly and as horrendous. All our hopes, all our energy, all our work sank into that enormous failure.. 
 

How did you feel during those difficult moments?
Daniel: to some extend I felt like Tintin in Tintin in America, where the good guys are always bad guys in disguise. Everytime I trusted someone, it was a trap, that’s the way it was. Everytime I gave my trust, I discovered some kind of mean trick, some nasty underhand moves. It was unbelievable, I did not know it could be possible. 
 

Did you get any support from your friends?
Daniel: I realised that when friends are having problems it is easy to forget to call them. But I don’t want to blame anyone, because while living through it, I realised I had done exactly the same myself. Nowadays I know the value of a friend who listens, does not judge, and simply gives you his friendship. You don’t need a psychologist, you need a friend who really listens to you, asks a few questions and shows some interest. 
 

Which of you two was the strongest?
Daniel: Each of us in turn.
Louise: (with a knowing look towards Daniel) Except for some miserable week-ends when we were both completely shattered. 
 

The bond between you seems extremely strong now?
Louise: Now we’ve been strenghtened by hardship 
 

A new departure  
In November 1993 he faced the courts with his ex-associate. Refusing to give in under the strain he pulled himself up and forced himself to write. Because she was aware that the very idea of signing a contract with anybody else would send shivers of anguish down her husband’s spine, Louise decided to start her own company. 
 

Is it difficult to share a business?
Louise: his professional life has been our life ever since we met. The good thing is that we don’t discuss business in the bedroom or conjugal problems in the office. 
 

Is that possible?
Louise (laughing): The office is next to the kitchen, so we can open the door and change rooms. It’s very convenient. 
 

Louise, are you happy with your decision?
Yes, he needed someone to put him back on track. Seeing the state we were in, we couldn’t have trusted anyone else.
 

Has your business association played havok with your daily routine?
Louise: Not really. Before I used to research and write documentary material for various public associations. And I was also looking after Daniel’s business. I was split between my work and his life. It is much better now, my life is more coherent.

The first production of their brand new association , Ici, includes songs full of hope which were written during that period of ‘professional divorce’. 

Why the title?
Daniel: The word kept cropping up in my songs. I felt it expressed what I wanted to do at the time. It’s a reassuring album, full of ‘warm’ songs. A lot of people have told me ‘At last, the real you is back’ 

Daniel, did you write all your songs during that period?
Daniel: Yes, I cheered myself up working on my songs. I never gave up hope. I always thought we’d manage, we’d overcome it all.
Louise (with admiration): The man’s sense of discipline fascinates me. He is of the old school. He doesn’t spent much time coddling himself. Even if he does not feel like it, he gets up and gets on with it. It bowled me over to see him write. 

What are you like when you work?
Louise: He goes into his recording studio. In winter he lights a fire. I work for myself. Sometimes he comes in with a sparkle in his eyes, sits on the worktop, swinging his legs like a child and sings the song to me. When Joseph is there, he is sometimes jealous of the attention I give his father and makes as much noise as possible to be noticed.
Daniel (teasing); It can be quite strange because when I’m writing a love song for her I don’t particularly want her to criticise it or to change the text. 
 

Is Louise quite a harsh critic?
Daniel: she listens with her heart 
 

Isn’t it difficult to write in time of crisis?
Daniel: I refused to use my album to list a series of complaints. It would have been pointless. Everyone has minor problems, but some people really have huge ones. In the end, compared with other people’s, I don’t t think our problems were that bad.
 

In the end you seem to have survived this crisis rather well?
Daniel: I have put all that firmly behind me. It’s already a good while since I turned the page. Now, I’m interested in what’s going on HERE (*) and now

* Ici, the title of his new album

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