Valzin-en-petite-Montagne. The Dirty Majesties: “We don’t make too many compromises… Freedom above all!”

This summerthey will produce at the festival of Hangovers in Valzin-en-Petite-Montagne, Friday August 23 and Saturday August 24. National reference of punkthe group The Dirty Majestieswhose name is inspired of the song Satanic Majesties of the Rolling Stones, stay timeless And faithful to himself. Yves Cessinassinger-guitarist of Sales Majestés, is the leader since their beginnings in 1981.

Voix du Jura: Your music has crossed generations. You are listened to by twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, forty-somethings… Your group never goes out of style. Even today, you are THE reference for punk in France. How do you explain it?

Yves Cessinas: It’s true that we have all ages at our concerts. We make music to express ourselves, and we try to be consistent with what we sing. We have a fairly personal style, very energetic. Since 1995, the year of our first album, the themes are unfortunately still relevant: it has absolutely not changed, the situation has even gotten worse. The public recognizes themselves in our songs, and some are cult. The Macron song continues to wreak havoc. Be Poor and Shut Up is timeless, with millions of views on YouTube. And we’re getting poorer and poorer… On Tik Tok too, we have 500,000 views, but I don’t know why, we’re making big hits when it’s not even us who put them online! Some of our songs have been included in English-speaking series (America and United Kingdom). We are often featured on the radio in political shows. And we are censored: we have had concerts canceled by prefectures who thought there was going to be disorder. It’s very political. The laws are no longer voted on, they are passed by a vote of 49-3!

VdJ: Politically speaking but also musically, you have remained faithful to the model that you were when you started, more than forty years ago. How do you do ? Many artists change during their career and are not at all the same after a few decades. Not you…

YC: Les Sales Majestés is a way of doing things. In our references, there are a lot of English and French punk and rock groups: Sex Pistols, The Clash, Téléphone, Trust, Les Cadavres, Les Shérifs, OTH, Les Wampas, Les Béruriers Noirs… Our last album is quite hardcore, we listen to that too. There is no calculation with us. We do according to our desires.

VdJ: What do you do in life outside the group?

YC: For four or five years, we have been intermittently performing. We’re on minimum wage, but it doesn’t matter. We’re not in business at all, we don’t ask for exorbitant fees. Freedom above all. When you sing, you have to be consistent. Today, everything is a lie. I was a proletarian worker, who got up at 6 a.m. and took public transport. I have been in the hotline, IT, hospital agent, facilitator, delivery driver, IT specialist.

VdJ: Your latest album, Le Feu, was released in 2023. What are the projects of Sales Majestés currently?

YC: We are going to release a maxi on vinyl and CD in September, with five or six new tracks. We’re going to organize the next tour in France, maybe in Switzerland and Belgium, and why not in Quebec… Wherever they want us! We can play anywhere if our conditions are respected, and the first is freedom. We don’t make too many compromises. We defend human rights.

VdJ: What does the name of your group, Les Sales Majestés, refer to?

YC: I was fifteen when we created the group and when we were teenagers, we listened to all the groups of the 1970s including the Rolling Stones… They have a song, Satanic Majesties, which we transformed into Dirty Majesties.

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