Daniel Lavoie: the official website

Daniel Lavoie at the Olympia

Paroles et Musique, September 1987
Marc Robine

Daniel Lavoie is back from France. This Canadian-note he’s not a Québecois – who had livened-up the hit parades with Ils s’aiment, released a new album last November, Vue sur la mer, which I’d scarcely spoken about with him. Today then is when we made good the situation with Daniel himself. We’ve met up while he was preparing his show for the new season at the Olympia from the 15th – 20th September.

MR: In Vue sur la mer the sort of ambivalence is found again as in your show at the Rex*. One side very rhythmic, almost like dance, the other cooler more balladic.
DL: It’s true and that’s a bit in spite of myself: I make a balance. For me that’s essential. I can’t do just one thing as that bores me. I do a mixture of everything, as much in the shows as on the records and probably in everything I do.

MR: What is surprising is that it’s so distinct. One can picture a selection instead of the division, side A and side B.
DL: That’s why I listen to records in this way. When I wanted a mind-blowing side, I didn’t feel like putting in a huge section of rock & roll in the middle of it, because that upsets me. When I listen to something which changes, I don’t like the play being calmed down with a mind-blowing trick. I made an album like that. There’s a more rock & roll side and the other which is gentler for those who want to stay in the same mood. I hadn’t done that on Tension Attention but, since I adopted this method, people tell me that they like it a lot. There are some evenings where they get lumbered with a calm surface and they are not frightened to be livened up.

MR: You co-write some lyrics with Thierry Séchan, the brother of Renaud. Why?
DL: That happened by chance. The recording company, for which I work in Québec and which is a bit my label, released Renaud’s records. It was us who made him come to Québec for the first time, so there was a contact at that level. When, at a given time, I had wanted to work with a French lyricist, my Canadian manager who knew Thierry well, said to me “Why not work with him”. So he came to spend some weeks in Québec, and that was that.

MR: Did he arrive with some planned lyrics which you re-worked?
DL: No, at the beginning they were always mine. I chose the subject and the direction of the text more or less precisely. At the start I wanted to work with someone else. We got along; we defined it bit by bit until we arrived at the finished product. All the same, I had the total right of veto as these were the lyrics which I had to endorse and defend. So he put up with me well.

MR: For the first time you have a very political song “La Villa de Ferdinando Marcus”.
DL: That song was written without really thinking about using it on a record. One day I heard that Ferdinand Marcus was about to be given a villa worth $2 million by the United States, by the American government and I found that cynicism unbearable. On returning home, I sat down at the piano and composed that song in 20 minutes, words and music. I put it on tape and I forgot it. Then, when I was choosing the songs for the album I played it to someone who told me to put it on the record. So I re-worked the lyrics a bit to give it better definition. I believe that I had political songs from the start. Ils s’aiment was a very committed song. It’s perhaps not obvious because I didn’t write these things in black and white but it’s a stance which is very clear. It’s still a song which attacks the cynicism of power and of international politics. That’s not bound always to be as interesting as that which is in black and white but it’s there between the lines. Because I’m one of those people who thinks that, when you talk about something to more than two people, you are making politics.

MR: How’s your next show going to be at the Olympia?
DL: It will be a complete show, much more homogenous than the one I did at the Rex last time. It’s like a train, there are carriages and we go from one to the other with atmospheres and moods, and a stage-set which can be altered. I’m sending the set from Canada by container, a huge set to be used at the Olympia but we are going to use it everywhere on tour in France and in Québec. It’s a bit futuristic in effect, but it doesn’t represent anything in particular, except in the way the lighting is used. It can represent a town as well as a spaceship.

MR: What about the music?
DL: I’ve reduced the programming of machines. There was a lot of that at the Rex. This time it’s the musicians above all who play; a real drummer, a double-bass player, a guitarist, two saxophonists and a singer. Everyone plays a bit on the keyboards. There will also be a proper piano which I will play myself. It’s quite a powerful show and people who come to listen to some ballads risk being surprised because those are not too brill. I’ve got no scruples about it; when you get into a song you go deep. On the other hand, there are also some gentle and expansive moments.

MR: So today you don’t believe any more in the future of machines and sequencers etc?
DL: No, I think that is decreasing year by year. In the USA now there is a return to the guitar, the proper piano and, finally to more structured songs.

*His last show to date in Paris, October 1985.