Eric Lapointe celebrates his 30-year career. Few artists can to count on such a mobilized pool of admirers after so many years. Anyone who has attended one of his concerts can testify to this. There is an almost Christ-like cult around the one nicknamed Ti-Cuir. And his most fervent followers seem ready to forgive him everything. His excesses. His setbacks. Including his recent conviction in a domestic violence case, which made him an unsavoury figure within the show business Quebecois.
As a reminder: the rocker pleaded guilty in October 2020 to a charge of assault on a woman. The Crown and the defense agreed on a conditional discharge, which allowed the singer to avoid a criminal record.
“I can never repeat enough that I regret it and that alcohol cannot excuse my actions. I understand that it will be a stain that will follow me for the rest of my life. But it is important for me to say that, fundamentally, I am not a violent man. I am against domestic violence,” Éric Lapointe emphasizes sheepishly in an interview with Duty.
The interpreter of My angel had already made an act of contrition earlier this year, in an interview with Sophie Durocher on TVA. Since then, radio stations have started playing his songs again. ADISQ has also rehabilitated him, as well as his latest album, I walk in my lifeis in the running for best rock album of the year. More and more venue promoters are also agreeing to trust him, including in Montreal, where he will be performing Friday at Espace St-Denis.
New Man
In recent years, Éric Lapointe has often had to fall back on smaller venues in the regions, where the audience has, however, always been there, even at the height of the storm. However, his presence sometimes causes unease, as in Victoriaville last winter. For part of the industry, Éric Lapointe has become radioactive. He no longer appears on TV. Other artists hesitate to partner with him. Sponsors continue to shun him.
“I don’t like to talk about my financial situation, but let’s just say it’s not a happy one. I’ve lost a lot of contracts. There have been a lot of lawyers involved in that. Add to that the pandemic. It’s really been a lean few years. At the same time, when I had money, I blew it all away. Maybe it wasn’t any better.” He thinks out loud, with a wry smile, taking care to add that he’s not looking for pity. He definitely doesn’t want people to think that his new, tamed image is actually a marketing ploy by which he’s trying to redeem himself in the eyes of the industry.
Undoubtedly, Éric Lapointe is no longer quite the same man. The proof: he arranged to meet us in a café at 11:30 in the morning, which would have been unthinkable at the time when he partied until dawn. The rocker has been sober for almost a year. He had never been abstinent for such a long period since he was 12, the age his youngest son is now. Éric Lapointe hopes to have protected his two children from his demons. He inherited the vices of his father, who had problems with alcohol and gambling.
“I love my father. I can’t say that my problems come from him,” he insists, just after ordering himself a Perrier. “I’ve had so many therapies to find out what caused my alcoholism, and I’ve never found the answer. I don’t want people to think that I had a difficult childhood, it’s just me who had a difficult childhood. I was in a hurry to grow old before my time. I was thirsty for freedom. I was an extremist, and I always will be,” adds this eternally sensitive person, with all the intensity that we know him for.
I have to admit that Roger Tabra and I sometimes talked about Éric Lapointe in the third person. In “show-business,” there is the word “business.” You inevitably become a character.
Ti-Cuir, the character
The bad boy image sticks to the skin of the man who will celebrate his 55th birthday at the end of the month. It did not come out of nowhere. His raspy voice and slowed speech testify to this. But this bum with a tender heart recognizes having a little overplayed his character of a finished drunkard.
“ I have to admit that with Roger Tabra [son regretté parolier]we happened to talk about Éric Lapointe in the third person. In “show business”, there is the word “business“. You inevitably become a character. There are famous people who are completely different from what they are in real life. I didn’t lie. I was really a guy from party“I just decided to show some of my sides less. People who like me, they like me because I transmit emotions, not political ideas,” explains the singer, who has sold more than 1 million albums.
There is, however, a whole section of the rocker’s life that remains little known, despite his 30 years in the spotlight. Many people would be surprised to learn, for example, that Éric Lapointe has read Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Jack Kerouac. At first glance, one would not imagine that he is rather politicized and that he likes to follow current events. However, those who are more knowledgeable know that he was a member of the PQ youth movement, where he met the current leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, who was his first manager and remains a great friend.
Éric Lapointe still says he is a sovereignist, and he is particularly concerned about the future of Quebec culture. “I am extremely worried,” he says. “When I started, Quebec music was everywhere. We sold records. People listened to the radio. There were just shows Quebecois at the Quebec Summer Festival. I’m not complaining. I’ve done the Plains twice and my rooms are full. But my God, I wouldn’t want to start this job today!”
Maturity
Éric Lapointe experienced the golden age of the music industry in Quebec. His first album, Obsession, released in 1994, sold over 200,000 copies thanks to hits like Promised Land And Anything. However, the rights to the original recordings of these pieces escaped him, the result of a long dispute with his first record company. “I was getting screwed by them, and they asked me to provide the Vaseline on top of that,” illustrates the fiery singer, who has lost none of his frankness.
He is currently re-recording all the songs fromObsession. A vinyl should be released in the coming months, which will serve as a pretext for him to go back on tour next year. At the same time, Éric Lapointe is working on an acoustic show.
Accustomed to the thunderous sounds of electric guitars and percussion, the rocker has long postponed his plan to put on a more intimate show with pieces from his repertoire. He now feels ready, the trials of recent years having made him more mature.