Arthur Teboul is the singer and lyricist of the French rock and pop band Feu! Chatterton, he is also a writer. Baptiste Trotignon is a jazz pianist and composer. Classical, jazz, contemporary, British pop, nothing scares him, everything attracts and interests him. Together, they created an album entitled Piano voiceor 15 major titles of French song revisited by their two personalities. They will perform in Annecy on September 24, on the 25th in Noisiel and there is a new date at the Salle Pleyel, in Paris, on December 4.
franceinfo: This project proposed by Baptiste forced you to work without a safety net, without protection. There was a starting point, a show for Arte where you met. Something happened and you decided that the adventure had to continue. It’s a bit of a safety net after all.
Arthur Teboul: Yes, it’s without a net, but it’s also without a project. For me, this project was for Piano Day, an international event around the piano in 2022, Arte Concert. We decided to cover some great songs from the repertoire, but here it’s 40 minutes. I wanted to confront myself with that after 15 years in the business with Feu!
“It was still a big challenge. These are the songs of my idols and the piano voice, it’s total nudity for a performer like me who is used to being surrounded by a lot of people.”
Arthur Teboulto franceinfo
We have a great time, but once it’s over, I’m relieved. I tell myself that’s it, it’s over, we’re not doing it again! Too risky and too hard. And then I don’t know, a few days later, Baptiste, very enthusiastic, tells me: “We still worked a lot, it was fun. Let’s do other concerts” and I answer: no, no, no. It suited me to do a date at the Scène Musicale which is still a beautiful venue. I confirm and he adds: “Two dates!” and that’s when there is a shift. The album was born from that.
It’s true that Arthur has a particular voice, but at the same time, you have a piano playing that becomes a showcase.
Baptiste Trotignon: Which I hope is special too!
Is it difficult to go and accompany the artist and find the right sound, the right phrases?
Baptiste Trotignon: It is true that in classical music, contemporary music, jazz, or a certain number of musics, the language is a little sophisticated and sometimes a little rich, sometimes a little saturated with richness. What also interests me when I work with a voice in the field of song is to seek a purity, a simplification in the noble sense of the term. In a world where everything is very complicated, it is good from time to time to have simple things.
Arthur, you are the son of a Sephardic immigrant. You were lulled by the sound of French song, notably Léo Ferré and Brassens. We find them in this album. I imagine all the dimension that must be around that.
Arthur Teboul: This album is first and foremost the desire to share. Music and songs have the chance to be a universal language. It is not because it tells a true story, it touches something in our soul, perhaps millennia old. That is the power of great songs. We hear them and we recognize ourselves in them. We recognize something of our humanity, of ourselves. So when we said to ourselves that we were going to cover songs, we couldn’t do better than to cover these songs that are already ours. With the words of others, we talk about ourselves.”
Which is surprising, by the way, when you look closely at the listing, we still have La vie en rose of Piaf, Goettingen by Barbara and Bashung with No express. Was it also a need to go and get other palettes?
Arthur Teboul: It’s almost a pirouette, but it could have been called Self-portraits. People make Chinese portraits. What is a Chinese portrait? It’s saying who we are through the things we love, all those things, and there are still some missing! These are things that make up our worlds and in particular for the song, my sources, those that made me become a songwriter. There are light things, serious things, there are very old things, modern things and by dint of doing this exercise, we had lots of ideas and Baptiste stopped me. So there, I have a list of 150 possible songs for the future!
There is also the stage, is that the goal? Was it the starting point to be able to share on stage and to go and find this sound which is ultimately a live sound?
Baptiste Trotignon: I actually pushed you a little to do concerts again after Piano Day, but you were the first to light the spark to record it at the Scène Musicale, in the mode of let’s see what happens.”Ah, maybe that could make a record and it would be less heavy than going to the studio for a week.“. And there, we had two takes per piece since we had two evenings.
Arthur Teboul: The proof is that the album is recorded in public. It is in public that we deliver these songs best.
Baptiste Trotignon: But still, the first night of the Scène Musicale, I remember that we were really freaked out. After the concert, we said to ourselves that it was a bit tense and then we did the second night. We left the stage, hugged each other and said: “COkay, we have the disc!“. And what’s really funny is that when you listen to it again, on the album, there’s really a mix of about 50/50 from the two nights. That means that in this fragility that was in a lot of takes the first night, we said to ourselves that in the end it was better.
Arthur Teboul: Some pieces deserved this fragility.
Baptiste Trotignon: But we didn’t realize it at the time.