What did you aspire to when you released your first EP “Saule et les mourneurs” in 2005?
When I published this EP, I had not yet signed a record contract. I wonder if this isn’t all a fantasy, if I’ll really be able to go in this direction and make it my job. I still ask myself these questions when my first album You are here (2006) is finished. The day it goes on sale, I go to Fnac to check that it is on the shelves because I still don’t believe it.
After throwing an entire album in the fire, Saule is back with “Dare-Dare”, his best record to date
Could you name three moments in your artistic journey that allowed you to say to yourself “I have just reached a milestone“?
The song “Personne” that I recorded with Dominique A in 2008 gave me confidence. I always had immense respect for him. This collaboration gives me the impression of being validated within what is called “the new French song“. The title “The Kiss” was also a turning point. Just like “Nobody”, it had to appear on this best of. One morning like any other, my eyes stop on the poster of Klimt’s Kiss that I yet comes across it every day in my room… Except that this morning, I “listen” what the woman in the painting said and it became a song. “The Kiss” was for a long time in Bashung’s shortlist who wanted to use it for his album Petrol blue. Then he said: “If Saule already recorded it, I don’t need to sing it anymore“. Too bad. My first Taratata was also an important step, I did a duet with M for the 25th anniversary of the show at Bercy. Nagui has always believed in me.
Have you ever thought about stopping everything?
It only happened to me once. I was invited to the LaSemo festival in Enghien. Arriving in the dressing rooms, I didn’t want to go on stage. For the first time in my life, I no longer felt anything. A big hole. Total emptiness… My guitarist took me by the shoulder, served me a glass of Jack Daniel’s which I drank straight down. He told me: “Now let’s do this concert and we’ll talk about all this again in two hours“. After the show, everything was forgotten. Three and a half minutes of depression in a twenty-year career can be okay…
Saule in the big interview of the week: “I wanted to get out of the routine”
The hit “Dusty Men” in 2012, stop or still?
It was the weirdest experience that has ever happened to me. I wrote this thing in a few minutes, recorded it with Charlie Winston and it was a hit. We hear it on all the radios in France. It’s just phenomenal. The other side of the coin is that we ask ourselves: “Who is the guy who sings with Charlie Winston?“Some think it’s Matthieu Chedid, others that it’s Julien Doré. However, it’s my song. For my next record, my label in France asked me to write.”another Dusty Men“and that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. “Dusty Men” generated a lot of income, I was able to buy a house, it opened doors for me in Paris that never not all closed. It’s just that at one point, I was in such euphoria that they almost managed to make me believe that I was going to have a huge career in France and that never happened.
Success Story de Saule : un Type normal devenu Dusty Men
On stage, you are a ball of energy with a 100% rock attitude. In your texts, you express more fragility and worry. Do you accept this contrast?
Completely. The stage is an outlet. Without concerts, I wouldn’t do this job. During the Covid crisis, you didn’t see me like so many others doing live streaming sessions in my kitchen, because I found it completely ridiculous. I need the audience, the microphones that we adjust during the soundcheck, the amps that spit, the cables that drag on the floor, the stress in the dressing rooms and the adrenaline of live. The stage is where I truly feel at home. As for the desire to write, it can be summed up for me by a quote from the American musician Jeff Buckley: “I need to transcend my everyday life”. In fact, reality weighs me down. I find everyday life horribly banal and repetitive. It makes me depressed. In the song “Saule”, the very first one I wrote (she opens it Best of. – Editor’s note), I say: “I am a tree that, when everyone is asleep, still worries“This worry serves as my driving force.
Which term best suits you?
Journalists did a sidewalk microphone at a festival to see what the public thought of me. The term that came up most often was “authentic“It suits me perfectly.
10/18. Royal Circus, Brussels. https://www.cirque-royal-bruxelles.be
