Purepeople: You’re making a big comeback with the title “See you again”… how do you feel?
Benjamin Siksou: A little exhausted because I’m at the theater at the same time every evening, in Think about the softness, but it is a very good fatigue! And for the music, I can’t wait. The album has been done since July, it’s going to be released in the spring, so it’s a long waiting period.
“See you again” is a message to the public that you haven’t seen for a long time?
So, no… but there’s a broad meaning to that. Basically, it’s for someone who’s gone. Several people who are no longer there. It was a bit of a profane prayer like that, it’s the only thing that came to my mind and mouth. But it can be for anyone who is missing, physically, emotionally. This is the red thread of the album.
Can you tell us what this album will look like?
There will be 12 songs and a particular aesthetic, hence the title saxophonia. I went after a delirium that I had had for ten years which was to have a brass band. This fanfare has narrowed, clarified in a set of sax. I started from there and I declined that in French pop songs, with a particular, woody, felted colors.
How was the filming of the clip?
It was very special because I called on my favorite director, who is called Roy Andersson. I didn’t know him at all, it was like a bottle in the sea. He’s 80 years old and he doesn’t do much anymore, but his assistant producer, who took over the box and the studio, agreed to do that with me, hand in hand, in Stockholm. It’s a clip that is like his films.
We see you singing alone while no one is listening to you…
As I’m talking about someone missing, there’s this idea of ghosts around us. It’s the opposite of the song. There is an ambiguity: am I the ghost or they are mine. There are two parallel worlds that coexist.
What did you do during this musical absence which lasted 4 or 5 years?
So I did… a lockdown! But it was a double-edged sword. It clipped the wings of all current projects. I was on stage at the Folies Bergère, I was doing The Red Shoe, the musical by Marc Lavoine. We played it for a month but we stopped mid-flight. We had been working on it for two years. And in parallel there was another musical show, more theatrical, it’s Think about the softness what I’m doing right now. We play all the instruments, we sing, we dance, we laugh, we cry, it’s pretty awesome. And then, of course, I wrote, composed, recorded. This very sudden stop allowed me to refocus on my songs.
Interview by Yohann Turi. Any reproduction prohibited without the mention of Purepeople.com.