Patxi Garat made in the Coué method. He chose to title his new album, released at the end of September, The world is beautiful. “Obviously, if we look at what’s happening now, it’s complicated. But we have to go beyond that, try to gain perspective and look at the world differently. We must, despite everything, find reasons for satisfaction as well as beauty in the world and among the people who make it up,” specifies 20 Minutes the 43-year-old author, composer and performer. But the artist is not a blissful naive, the questions of injustice, precariousness and environmental concerns run through several texts of the disc which also includes its share of love songs, including the very effective What am I to you? “It’s an album for today, which talks about all of us, our collective trajectories, how we manage to live together and the questions we all ask ourselves,” he summarizes.
Fourteen years passed between the release of your previous album in French (“Amour Carabine” in 2010) and this one. For what ?
Life, the journey of life… Maybe I wanted to go on stage less. I wanted to do other things. I did a lot of theater, then I wrote for a long time for others, it’s very pleasant to do that. I don’t really intellectualize what I do, I simply try to live day by day asking myself what I want to do…
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What was the trigger for you to tackle this new album?
I started working on it five years ago. I write songs every day – or, at least, I’m on song projects every day. From 2019, I wanted to sing them myself, I put some aside for myself. It happened naturally. The last song I wrote was The world is beautifulwhich came at the very end when the album was almost finished and it illuminated what had been written, it summed up everything that was in the record, that’s why I chose it as the title. The very first is What am I to you?
Three years ago, you returned with “En Basque”, an album of covers of classic French songs in Basque. What pushed you to embark on this project?
During the 2020 confinement, I was in Biarritz and I started covering songs in Basque. I’ve wanted to sing in this language, which is my mother tongue, for a long time, and I hadn’t yet found the right approach. The idea of the covers stuck to my discourse of double identity, of double culture. This resonated with the love I have for French culture, literature, cinema, and my Basque origins, my first culture. It’s an ultra-intimate album, which absolutely resembles me because these are songs that I love [Ne me quitte pas, Allo maman bobo, J’ai demandé à la Lune, La Grenade…]. It was very well received even though I didn’t know if it would be of interest. This is also what encouraged me to continue my French album project, to do something with it.
How would you describe your relationship to your Basque identity? Is it intimate? Policy ? Or something else?
It’s an intimate matter, obviously. It’s in the body, it’s in me. The first song I covered was Aline of Christophe, when he died. I had the chance to know him a little and, strangely, the pain I felt and the sadness were expressed to me in Basque. This language takes me back to the roots, to the interior, to the primary instinct, to childhood, to the beginning, since it is my mother tongue. Beyond that, I don’t know if it’s political, but in any case a cultural commitment. I am preparing an album with singers, I would say “territorial”, from different regions and cultures to try to make an album of regional languages, because it is necessary, we all come from somewhere, we are all rich in several origins . And then, it’s my daily life, I live half the time in Biarritz where I speak Basque. It’s there constantly, but no more no less than French, for me they are two totally mixed and intertwined cultures.
On your new album, there is a song that pays homage to Biarritz. Is it a necessary step for an author and performer to sing about “his” city, as Benjamin Biolay, Dick Annegarn or Miossec did for example before you with “Lyon presqu’île”, “Brussels” and “Brest”?
Indeed, in Biarritz there are not that many songs. There is one by Luis Mariano from the 1950s. There was Roche by Sébastien Tellier evoking “Biarritz in summer”, but it is more about his resort experience. My song talks about Biarritz and its inhabitants, it says what we can sometimes see there: this dark sky which arrives in the space of a quarter of a second and turns the day into night, the blue sky into a storm . And despite everything, the Palace is still eternal, the Great Beach is still there. She also represents the entire Basque Country with this desire to always remain standing, to move forward. They are a people of sailors, of the mountains, of great travelers…. She tells how we overcome difficulties, this ability is perhaps the quality that I prefer in the Basques.
Ten years ago, you wrote and composed “Day 1” for Louane, which became a hit. Was there a before and after this song for you?
Clearly. It’s the first time that I made a song that touched people’s hearts and it’s quite disturbing, in a good way, to think that we entered their lives through that. So many songs have carried my life, helped me, given me courage or energy. Louane and I experienced this adventure together, it was her first album, it was the beginning for her too, and we kept this strong bond. When I asked him to sing Wild animals in a duet with me on the new album, she accepted and it touched me. I think our voices mix well too.
She was revealed by “The Voice”, you by “Star Academy”… Is that what brought you together?
I don’t have the impression. I would say that it was above all his spontaneity, his infectious joie de vivre and his voice, above all, which completely bowled me over. She made a take on Wild animalsperhaps a second story to secure the blow, but it was all in the first words sung. She has an ability to move, to touch, to be immediately into what she does.
A new season of “Star Academy” begins on Saturday, if we invited you to go sing there or meet the students, would you accept?
Of course, with pleasure. I have very fond memories of that moment. It was in 2003, it lasted four months at the castle, six on tour, so it was a year-long adventure. It was sweet, carefree, absolutely joyful. So, yes, I would be happy to find this castle or this plateau.
Do you feel like you still have a “Star Academy” label stuck to you?
Yes, she is still there. But “Star Academy” has become a cult show, it is part of pop culture. The way it is viewed has changed over time. The label will remain until the end, the important thing is to do other things that allow you to add labels.
