Daniel Lavoie : the official website

The Thrill at the top

MTL magazine, 1988
Caroles Vallières

Lavoie, the good looker, is used to feeling strong and to taking on new challenges: he's stayed a perfectionist even as his success increases. He remains true, on the treadmill of the hit parade. Don't bet on his shyness anymore. He is just honest.

Daniel Lavoie, you are returning to France and to the French, you are still awfully shy. Excuse me, but I don't believe that you are so shy. Is it arrogance? Fear of people? Or even both of these?
I think that…. I hate to make this type of public confession: I think that it's a mixture of the two. There's certainly some arrogance, but less and less; I've replaced it with pride and …

You've come up in the world, wouldn't you say!
That's certain, I've come up in the world. But somewhere, I'm still the little bloke from Dunrea who once arrived in the big city, who discovered, from one day to the next, that there is a connection between class and strength.

Yes, but listen, you've come back!
Does one truly come back? It's a very, very significant thing to live with condescension. When I came from my little village I was nothing and they let me know it. And I believe that, after that, I adopted an air of great defiance. On arriving somewhere I still have the tendency to look before leaping. When I arrived in Québec I still felt a big wally from Manitoba. In those days, that was my shyness: a lack of confidence.

One can be lumbered for a long time with an outdated reputation! Because now you've got star status and you've turned the tables. You've made artistes known on programmes which you are on, you've played business games, notably with the media.
Quite, I know how difficult it is to make a breakthrough. And ….business dealings, it's the same there as everywhere else, you know, I believe it's important to give a chance to those whom you like. It's a profession of the heart, showbusiness.

You do everything by conviction and in a businesslike way.
I've always had that attitude. I was always very selective in the things which I did. At one time I realised that people wanted me more than I wanted them. They had need of me at a listening level. Then I played the game and said to myself that they were ready to make concessions.

And you, do you not make concessions?
Of course I do. The concession I make is to accept that I must spare two weeks in France for publicity. I disciplined myself to like it. On the other hand, I don't make any concessions to the level of sound, the music, the script.

Nevertheless, your music has become clearly more commercial. Up to "Nirvana bleu" one can detect the influence of jazz.
It's still there, I'd hoped that you'd notice.

One doesn't notice it too much!
Less, but don't I have the right to grow weary of something? When the new technology arrived, I discovered a pleasure for music which I hadn't known since my adolescence.

You want to talk about this enthusiasm, this feverishness…?
Yes, I was very happy to work with this technology. Effectively, I moved away from one thing and towards another. And then, I didn't feel any need to be faithful to a "sound". I found it an enormous challenge to make music which was commercial and, at the same time, true. And then it depends where you make the challenges. Perhaps you should call them concessions. But me, I don't call them concessions.

Are you a perfectionist?
I am: When you do something, you do it to the best of your ability. It's not just to show your face on the television, that's not very interesting. When one respects oneself, one isn't thrown by things.

It's an attitude which seems very different from that of many artistes whom one sees on the telly…
I think that you are generalising a bit too much. The artistes who are successful, are those who pay great attention to detail, you speak of Peter Gabriel and Madonna, the type of music matters little.

Hey! You are naming international stars!
But we ARE in the international market, it's only a question of having made it or not. And if one's not made it in Quebéc, it's perhaps because one probably didn't pay enough attention to detail, exactly.

There, you're generalising!
Seriously, I believe it. One often has the tendency to follow the easy path and to give all types of reasons to justify what one is doing. To say, for example: it's done like that; and if it's good enough for others it should catch on with the Americans. The real problem is that one is afraid to spend time on it, the work, the effort to bring it to a conclusion. One has the talent, but talent is also all which one puts into it.

To what extent do you believe that your attitude is accepted by your peers and by those in the artistic circle?
I don't think that it's always accepted by my peers. At times, I get the impression that I get up their noses a bit….

Because you are aloof?
Yes, I am bit too much of a perfectionist. Ultimately, it can appear a bit offensive.

Do you mean to be offensive?
No, it's not that at all. But I don't like to take people for fools. On the telly I had tailor-made questions aimed at the lowest common denominator.

And you don't want people to take you for a fool any more?
No. Let's forget the idea that it's that simple, because the good public like it that simple: it's condescension and basically that's unhealthy. But I'm going to tell you; I've some very good friends in the artistic circle. Those who like me and those whom I like. There are similarities.

Do you believe that you have any influence?
I don't know, I've thought about it for a long time. It's a question which brings me up short. The influence which an artist can have, the power…

And what do you thing about it?
If I trusted the evidence and those things which tell me that people like what I do, I believe that I do have influence. I suppose that somewhere I represent something. I've always taken for granted that I'm able to say something which influences people, therefore I have responsibility for my words. That's it.

And artists in general?
At the moment with you right here in front of me and with you saying something clearly, that you free yourself from strength, it's evident that you have influence. There, you're getting political.

Have you idols?
I admire the talent of Barbara Streisand, the compositions of Joni Mitchell, I admire the strength of Madonna. In general, it's not the person I admire but something about them. Before, I imagined that the great artists, the important people, were superhuman, and when you meet them, they have an absolutely luminous quality which washes over you ….

Mythomania!
In meeting many people, I've realised that we're all living on the same planet and we don't know where we've come from or where we're going.

That puts it back into perspective. Tell me, how do you see ageing, are you going to retire and all that?
Firstly, I've no intention of retiring. Retirement, that's a myth or the industrial society, something which re-assures people who are thrown onto the rubbish heap by their companies when they are no longer so productive. Retirement, marvellous? Bollocks!

Then, we'll see you giving a concert at 70?
Oh, I don't say that I wouldn't be doing something else, but I'm not going to retire. To live, that's to say to get up in the morning, to get on with all sorts of things and to go to bed tired at night. Me, I will write, garden, do housework, anything. I don't live just to arrive but for the journey there. So when I arrive there, so much the better; but if you don't have some fun on the way, it's pointless.

About the future, there's your show at the Outremont, I must guess that it gives you pleasure…
I think that it's the first time that I've really had fun doing a show. It goes a lot further than anything before it. I'm more daring in regard to myself, but not in regard to Alice Cooper!

I don't see you so much in that situation!
(We laugh) But I think that those who come to see the show will be astounded, And then, even more here, I can allow myself freedoms which are impossible in France. The Québecois know my material well, and … I'm going to try to surprise them.

Well then, let's all go to the Outremont.