Where does your passion for music come from and what does it bring you? When I was very young, I had a certain fascination watching my uncle play Oud or Saz. But I didn’t have an instrument at home and my parents couldn’t afford to pay for music lessons. I finally started music on my own, with a small keyboard before meeting people who introduced me to the guitar by showing me a few chords… what’s next? A lot of encounters and circumstances that made me develop my game as an autodidact, set up several projects, recorded albums, enjoyed the scene, learned a lot of things… in short. Music is part of my life and I have never been able or wanted to slow down.
You have been part of several groups. Why did you want to make a solo album? Let’s say I was getting frustrated composing for my bands and not releasing anything in my own name…it’s something I was hoping to do sooner or later without really realizing it. It took me releasing several albums with my groups and confinement to realize that I needed it. That I had the shoulders for it. It may also be that it is a kind of balance sheet to simply start again better.
Can you introduce us to your album In motion and his universe? It’s a kind of multifaceted progressive instrumental rock set on an introspective timeline. I tried to make an epic and poetic record where each title evokes a period of my life. Otherwise, from a technical point of view, I went with a DADGAD tuning to develop different ideas from my other projects and I called on different musicians to bring a more “free” interpretation of the themes.
What were your inspirations for composing your titles? The primary source of inspiration for this album is of course everything that I have been able to develop in recent years within my various projects but depending on the titles, I was also inspired by things like Snarky Puppy, Alice in Chains , Pearl Jam, Steve Vai, NIN, Depeche Mode, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock or even Mandinka music…
How important is it to evolve in music for you? It’s just a need. Personally, I like to rediscover the freshness, the astonishment that I felt when I was younger when I started to take an interest in music. So I test things… more or less successful… but I like this idea that there is still a lot of aesthetics to develop. It allows me to keep my musical libido intact and basically, I find it more fun!
What can we know about the guests present on your album? Apart from Morgan Berthet on drums and Shob on bass for the rhythm section, I invited 2 guitarists that I really appreciate: Richard Daudé on the title ” Her » and Christophe Godin on the piece « Surge “. I could of course have offered this to other shredders around me, but the titles in question were like, cut out for them! Otherwise, we also find my brother in arms in Step In Fluid, the keyboardist Gérald Villain. The title ” Under The Sun » on which he intervenes corresponds chronologically to the period when I proposed to him to join the group… And for the 4th and last guest, I called on my saxophonist friend Matthieu Metzger on 2 titles to enrich the sound palette of the disc. He even offered arrangements with his “Bidule”. An experimental home-made instrument.
Tell us about the title born again… This is the first title I composed for this album. Aesthetically, these are themes quite close to what I can offer with Step In Fluid and as I lived the writing of this one as a new beginning, I very quickly saw the relationship with this period of rebirth of the beginnings of the group…
How did your studio recordings go?
I wrote and designed the album over twenty days between November and December 2020 at home. For the drums, Morgan shot in drummer Jelly Cardarelli’s studio. Shob did his at home, and the guests did the same. Nobody saw anybody! I just forwarded the demos with a few instructions and I made sure of the consistency of the proposals before forwarding everything to Fabien Devaux who mixed and mastered the album.
What were your choices on the artwork for the album? I called on Gilles Estines, a longtime graphic designer friend with whom I had already worked for my groups. He simply asked me to send him a photo of my face and he did all the graphic work around it, evoking the ideas that came out of my head. He knows my universe very well and we have the same attraction for the Afro-futurist aesthetic. So it was only natural that I went to him when I embarked on this project.
Are concerts scheduled? How do you feel about the scene? I hope to be able to present this on stage during 2023 but it is still a little early to talk about it. Until then, there will be a lot of work to do on the sound and the arrangements to adapt it all for the stage, but I’m pretty confident!
What do you want to say to end? Thank you to you and to all the people who support me in this project, see you very soon!
Thanks to Harun Demiraslan for responding to our interview!
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