INTERVIEW. Garorock 2024. “My music is made for partying at festivals”… meeting with Julien Granel, the artist with the inimitable style

How does it feel to make your first Garorock as an artist?

Today, I am delighted to be here. It is my first Garorock as an artist on the one hand. And it is also my first Garorock period. I have never been, even if it is a festival that I know because I lived for a while in Bordeaux. I have always been on tour at the same time as Garo.

You are from the southwest. We can imagine that this festival has a special flavor for you?

I’m from Landes and I lived in Bordeaux, it’s a bit like the big festival there. I saw the posters go by. I told myself that if one day I found myself on these posters, it was going well for me. And here we are, it’s now. It’s a real accomplishment.

“This summer, I will definitely stop by your place”

How would you define your musical style?

What I like is when people are asked to define my music, they don’t necessarily use styles but adjectives. And it’s great, it gives me real freedom. All the first songs created a whole frenzy. And often, what comes back are the sunny, joyful and unifying terms. And above all, it’s made for partying at festivals.

You are a true festival artist…

It’s clear. I have always built myself on the stage. And last summer, I did a lot of dates. I did 130. And this year, we had lots of proposals from big festivals. I told my booker: “we accept and we’ll do a festival tour”. There are between three and four dates per week. Next week, we’re at the Eurockeens in Belfort, the Pause Guitare festival in Albi and the Nuit de l’Erdre in Loire-Atlantique. And then, there will be the Vieilles charrues and the Nice Jazz Festival. I don’t have everything in mind but there are about forty festivals. I will definitely stop by your place.

“I met Angèle long before she produced all her hits”

You opened for Angèle a few years ago. What’s it like to collaborate with a singer of such stature?

It was a crazy experience. I did a tour of the Zéniths, I was able to play at the Palais des sports de Bercy. It was completely unreal. But what was even stronger was that we met well before she had produced all her hits. We had done a concert in an apartment in Bordeaux in front of twenty people. That’s how we met. So it was so cool for me to be able to see the evolution of my friend who has blown everything up. And to have the chance to experience it with her on a daily basis, those were truly magical moments.

What are your inspirations?

In my texts, my inspirations come mainly from what I experience, from what I miss in life and from what I want to see more of. And in music, they are very varied. There is a large part that is very pop. I grew up with icons like Elton John and Prince. There’s also all the music that grooved like funk and disco. This all touched me. And when I was 12 or 13, I got into electronic music. And that was the real trigger. When I discovered the “French touch” scene, Alan Brax, Daft Punk. I realized it was a bit like filtered disco. And there was a connection in all of this. The emotion and the power of production inspired me a lot.

You are a rising artist on the French scene. Where are you today?

I’ve always found that I’ve been a bit of an outsider in the French scene since the beginning. And that’s maybe why it took me a while to get going. And now that people are embracing the project a bit, that there are a few more people at concerts and festivals, I feel like I’m gradually finding a place that I perhaps wasn’t aware of before. A place related to a project that mixes all the electronics that are a bit “underground”, and all the pop that will be easier to grasp at first listen. And it’s a project that has a big “live” existence. So we fit into a kind of box that I fantasized about but that didn’t necessarily exist before. And I like that because we’re finding our place little by little.