Pierre de Maere is just 22 years old, but he is moving forward in the music industry with impressive confidence and a veteran’s vision. It’s not surprising that the young Belgian – who is following in Stromae’s footsteps, but not that – won the title of Male Revelation at the Victoires de la Musique last winter thanks to his first pop album, entitled Look at mewhich he is presenting at the Francos de Montréal.
The young man has just come out of a long session filmed for TV when he picks up the phone. The night before was very short, and the next day is a concert day, but Pierre de Maere has found a small corner of the Parisian park to generously play the interview game. He talks a lot, he talks fast, but he speaks well and clearly about his background. Obviously, he is not moving blindly.
“If I have to define myself, there, like that, to a stranger who knows neither the music, nor the name, nor the face, the things that seem to me the most obvious and the fairest, it is that I have a nature that is very romantic. Both musically, but in the human that I am, and in the lyrics too. »
Romantic, Pierre de Maere, but not in the blue flower sense, of the little rose-water romance. His rhythmic and catchy pieces are steeped in intensity, tragedy, dilemmas and beauty, too. “When I talk about love, it’s love to death, always,” he explains. It is this kind of love forever, idealized or dramatized and tragic. A love that is lukewarm doesn’t necessarily interest me. »
We find this essence on the very effective child of, which neither Indochine nor Les Rita Mitsouko would deny. Pierre de Maere mixes family and love in something very Cornelian. “It’s beyond understanding love is fascinating / turns the world upside down / I am the child of the toreador and of the holy Mary / Do you want to give me death / or else meaning to my life ? »
I have a nature that is very romantic. Both musically, but in the human that I am, and in the lyrics too.
Already at the age of 12, de Maere was having fun on the Garage Band application on his iPod Touch, and composing titles by singing an invented language that has mutated into English over time. “I had the impression that French was old-fashioned musically. My icons were more American, like Lady Gaga. Then one day, around 18, he receives a comment that underlines the atrocity of his accent. Ouch, but phew. “It was the best advice I was given because that’s how I really revealed myself,” he says.
This is where Stromae, the Belgian electro-pop icon, interferes in the career of Pierre de Maere. “He shook my a priori” on the song in French. There was the charm of modern sounds, but also the attraction of “the overall aspect of his project”. “I was also fascinated by the image, the fashion, the visuals, the character, the remarks in the interview. It was all a very well put together package that made a lot of sense. And then he had a creative ambition that was, I find, much higher than the average in French-speaking Europe. »
All this is also found in the production of Pierre de Maere, who does it with great skill. The clips are licked, the cover is thoughtful. The Belgian says that from the age of 15, he started photography, first sketching the portrait of his little sister then that of friends for years, before working with models and actors. “There, we had to take care of the styling, the artistic direction of the shoots », which was an important school in his aesthetic consciousness.
“When I got back to music, I had this image baggage, and it seemed obvious to me that my project would be like Stromae, global. »
On the cover of Look at me, we see the head of the singer with blue eyes, and his turtleneck that rises to the jaw. The colors are vibrant: red and purple. “For me, these are Italian colours, these are the colors of the Valentino house. They are both dramatic and joyful at the same time, they are lively, they are pop, and I think they represent well both the accessible aspect of the album and the romantic, somewhat dramatic aspect. »
His pop, Pierre de Maere does not camp too much in a current trend, even that he calls it “almost anachronistic”. There are the Stromae rolled “r’s” here, the title Wednesday sounds very The Weeknd, I like your violence evokes Kanye West. But there are also very hexagonal and somewhat retro veins, such as Indochine and Polnareff. “I would struggle to survive in a single era and I like that. »
The singer will be with the Francos de Montréal on Tuesday, opening for Thierry Larose at Club Soda, and will have his own outdoor stage on Wednesday at 6 p.m. From Quebec, he knows a little Pierre Lapointe, but says above all that he was blown away by Hubert Lenoir, whom he saw on stage in Paris and whose performance “had transformed everything” in his attitude on the boards.
“He has a kind of absolute charisma, presence, creativity, genius,” says Pierre de Maere. The latter is not fooled: in Quebec, “everything has to be done, the story has only just begun. But I hope it will be beautiful and long. And quite romantic.