Bernard Lavilliers recounts the travels and encounters of his life in “Writing on site”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Monday January 15, 2024: author, composer and performer Bernard Lavilliers. He has just published “Ecrire sur place” with Éditions des Équateurs.

What most defines the Saint-Etienne author, composer and performer Bernard Lavilliers is the air of the open sea. Since 1965 and his first creations, he has never stopped mixing rock, reggae, salsa, bossa nova and French song. He never stopped traveling and even more so supporting the workers and their struggles, and therefore getting involved. It is through writing that his songs are born.

Words are therefore his foundation, the basis of the harmony he has been seeking for several decades. He has just published Write on the spot published by Équateurs.

franceinfo: Does this book, Write on the spot, is a tribute that you wanted to pay to what writing has offered you?

Bernard Lavilliers: Yes, because I couldn’t find a title. A more poetic, more evocative title, a sort of metaphor. And finally, I remained, like Blaise Cendrars or others, at Write on the spot. Because basically, I’m there, in a country where I don’t necessarily speak the language or only half of it, where I’m going to listen to musicians who always come mostly from the people. So I meet people who are at the same level as me, or even lower, who tell me how they live and how they earn their living, poorly, with music. So this is all very interesting. It was a time when I too made a very poor living from music. We talk about life when we talk about music because everyone plays music, everyone listens to music all day.

“If you stop the music, it’s like you stop breathing. If it’s too long, it’s fatal.”

Bernard Lavilliers

at franceinfo

Writing on site is a travel diary, it really is the most powerful moments of your life. You take us from Saint Étienne to South America. The first stop is Lorraine and the Caveau des Trinitaires in Metz. For a long time, you worked with contracts every three months and yet, at no time did we understand that you were wavering.

That is to say, from a moment on, I told myself that eventually, I could deny my organized crime tendencies. So, from the moment I wrote songs and started having producers, in 1976 or 1977 when I met Michel Martig, who became my manager, it went to rock bottom pretty quickly. . I’ve never played the opening act. I’m the only artist I know who’s never opened. So I sang in Youth and Culture Centers, with extremely mediocre equipment. But I got into it. It didn’t have to last too long. But I was on schedule and then I signed with Eddie Barclay.

He’s the first person who believes in you anyway.

Thoroughly. He had the means, he said to me: “How much do you need?” I tell him, “I need money to buy a truck and a sound system.” I needed posters because my manager was complaining because we didn’t have posters, thanks to him we had them everywhere, and that’s what could allow us to tour. And that’s what we wanted to do but we had to find a group, start a group, still be serious while having fun. But I am a worker. So I inherited that from my father.

This is also what makes you strong. This is also what allowed you to keep these convictions within yourself and to follow through with your convictions and therefore with your dreams and desires.

When I went to prison, first, my father said to me: “You want to continue going to prison? So you have to work.” So I worked in his factory. I learned to be a metal turner. I did that for three years, I was super qualified and I went to Brazil. And what did I do in Brazil? Metal turner!

Isn’t the factory ultimately the basis of the man you have become?

I’m not likely to buy Ferraris, it’s never been possible and never interesting for me. I remain a worker, that is to say that I am formerly poor, it is not the same as a nouveau riche. We also respect money because there is always a need for it for others. You know, an artist is the one who earns his profession with his art for me and as long as he doesn’t do that, he’s an amateur. You have to take risks to be a professional in any case. So I constantly took risks in traveling and even in the songs I wrote about power. Maybe I would have been arrested now, it’s possible.

Metz is one of your home ports, it is also where you were designated a deserter because you refused to wear the uniform. You have been placed in solitary confinement.

First I was a deserter without knowing it since I wasn’t there, I was in Brazil. I had forgotten…

Are you indomitable?

You mustn’t rob me. If I say no, it’s no. And then the consequences come with it. But I’m not moving, believe me. You don’t have to rob me, that’s all.

To finish, On The Road Again sticks to your skin. What does this song represent? Ultimately, this is the definition of the man you are. You are on the road very often.

On The Road Again, it’s a way of never stopping. It was the melody of a Chilean called Sebastian Santa Maria. This melody went in all directions. A song is a melody, so I took this bit, I play it on the guitar and all night long I ask myself: what am I going to be able to say about this song? Because when it’s someone else’s melody, I’ll listen to what it tells me. I find what the melody tells me, at that moment, in the state I am in and I found On The Road Again first. There are four chords, they are always the same and then I came up with a joke: “We were young and broad-shouldered, cheerful bandits, insolent and funny“. Ah! I said to myself: that’s great! It’s me. I’m a happy bandit, it’s true.

Watch this interview on video: