“Being a vocal double of Johnny Hallyday was really complicated and a double-edged sword,” says Jean-Baptiste Guégan, who is releasing a third album.

Jean-Baptiste Guégan is a singer and above all a rocker. His career began in 2000 as a vocal lookalike of Johnny Hallyday. For 17 years he gave more than 1500 concerts and therefore really built himself on stage. The stage is his life. Since the disappearance of the Taulier, it allows many fans to soften the sadness of the absence of this voice so emblematic. It was in 2018 that he won the show La France has an incredible talent and began working with Michel Mallory, one of Johnny’s greatest lyricists. This Friday, February 10, 2023, Jean-Baptiste Guégan’s third album is released, All tears dry up one day with which he begins a tour.

franceinfo: All tears dry up one daywhat does it mean ?

Jean-Baptiste Guegan: It was a way to conclude this album and somewhere, I tell a little about the things of life. And all the tears dry up one day, it’s because we say to ourselves: “Yes, indeed, despite what we have suffered in life, despite what we have been able to collect, we end up going up and if we have the courage, we mourn.. I think all tears dry up one day, yes.

What’s strong enough about this album is that it’s really the first time you’ve opened up. Is it a change for you to be able to express yourself, to be able to evoke your emotions, your feelings?

This third album was above all a therapy. I thrived singing all those songs.

Jean-Baptiste Guegan

at franceinfo

I call it the album of maturity. The songs speak to me since I chose them and I think that people find themselves in them too. I still have a fairly large audience and we’ve all gone through different paths. We have almost all suffered the same thing in life, there are ups and downs and this album traces this journey.

This album also shows how much you have become an artist in your own right. You are no longer ‘only’ Johnny’s voice, in fact, you are Jean-Baptiste Guégan. Does that affect you?

Yes, it touches me because it’s true that at the beginning, it was not easy to get the message across. You know when I started doing the France an incredible talent, Johnny had died almost a year before and I spent a lot of time wondering: what am I going to be taken for? For a usurper? It was really complicated and a double-edged sword. I was really lucky because everything went really well and was well perceived by the public, but it could have been the opposite and there it would have been catastrophic.

A word about Saint Barthélemy because this song is extremely powerful in this album. It also allows us to realize that he has already been missing for five years. Was it a tribute you wanted to pay him? A last goodbye too?

We must not forget that Johnny still exists somewhere in the hearts of the French and we really had to make a flagship song that is strong. I think Michel found the words: “Did you have to go that far? find the end of your path“and it was beautiful.

Michel Mallory is obviously at your side. His texts are truly tailor-made. How were they written?

Michel and I know each other by heart and he knows how to put words to the character he has in front of him. He works with me as he worked with Johnny Hallyday, that is to say without filter.

You are a bit the same, you also have this instinct.

At first, we are a little intimidated because we ask ourselves: “But what does this guy want? Why does he ask me so many questions? And in fact, he doesn’t need to ask so many questions because when you understand his way of working, you know that he goes straight into the head, into the mind of the other. Above all, he knows what he wants!

I would like to talk about the scene. What does it mean to you to go on stage?

I’m excited to be able to show this wonderful show that we just redid. We transformed everything by putting Johnny Hallyday’s songs on one half and mine on the other. We try to please the public and it works pretty well.

The public is really present. It’s galvanizing, it feels good to say that they are there, that they are present?

Yes ! It feels good because we feel surrounded. We are not going to coal! The release of my second album coincided with the Covid and that was hard, complicated.

It also prevented you from going on tour!

Of course ! But it’s okay, we managed to pick up the pieces, so it’s good.

What does this third album represent then?

This third album is the opening of a being who reveals himself and who is not afraid today to say that he is.

Jean-Baptiste Guegan

at franceinfo

I think I’m less modest somewhere.

Jean-Baptiste Guégan will be on February 10, 2023 in Saint-Dizier, March 10 in Laval, 11 in Lille, 23 in Lyon etc…