For a very long time, Garou conquered the public as a performer with his rocky and so particular voice. First as Quasimodo in the musical Notre-Dame de Paris (1998), which earned him numerous awards, even sales records, including the song: Beautiful. Then with a solo career whose first producer was René Angélil. He has become one of the darlings of the French, a Forever Gentlemen alongside nearby Rock and Corneille. An Enfoiré too, but for the good cause with the Restos du Cœur.
Garou returns with a new single available on YouTube: Upscene, before a new album, and is currently on tour in France.
franceinfo: This is the first time that you have written and composed.
Garu: I did it a few times, but each time it was really because I asked for something and it didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted. But it was not a step to want to write. And there, it’s true, it happened like that, a little because of my daughter who started writing songs. It was good. It annoyed me a little and I said to him: we are going to have a competition!
There is an autobiographical side to this song, a way of telling your story. There’s a very feminine side to it, so isn’t Garou’s greatest mistress the music?
Yes ! And the stage! We make love ! I like to entertain people. I love being a showman. I like to try lots of different styles. I do a lot of covers on stage too and I completely assume all that. I got comments that I wasn’t really up to speed because I wasn’t writing my songs, I wasn’t a sharp songwriter and stuff. I have nothing to do. Me, all I want is to have the ingredients to do my act!
The first meeting is with Luc Plamondon. He is crushing on you. He auditions you for something else and Richard Cocciante comes to his side and you become Quasimodo. At that time, nobody wanted this role, it was the most difficult role to play, to incarnate.
Everyone wanted to be Quasimodo in ‘Notre-Dame de Paris’ because that was the magic role to play.
I hardly ever looked at the pictures. It makes me very funny, it looks like it’s another life. And this afternoon, I watched a little bit on YouTube. Looks like I’m ready to watch it, but I’m like that, I don’t look in the rearview mirror.
Which is crazy because this role will change your life. What does it represent?
It’s crazy because when I’m offered this, initially, it’s really for the purpose of traveling. I never thought in my life that I would cross the ocean and yet today I live on the plane. And there, I say to myself: it’s cool, I’m going to do theater in Paris. This is exceptional. I never would have thought it would be such a success. I still waited three years before making my first album, while everyone said to me: “But you’re crazy, you’re not taking advantage of the situation!“No, I’m devoted to Quasimodo right now, then after, I’ll see. I’ve always been like that.
What do you keep your parents?
Exactly, I become very sedentary again. We see it precisely on the clip of Upscene, it’s in the forest with my friends making music. This is my current life. I did not play a character in the video. That’s really what I’m doing now, I’m back to basics. As my father often told me when I walked with him in the forest: “You know man, the two truest things in life are nature and music“. It’s a sentence that struck me and I’m well imbued with it since I lived on music, a crazy life for twenty years and there, I’m much more in the return to the earth.
I find it hard to imagine artists who have been happier than me and who have really done what they wanted to do. It’s hard to imagine because I feel very lucky on this course and I’ve never done it to be on top. It is rather the reverse. As it started so strong, I didn’t want to let go of the accelerator pedal anymore.
What does music represent in this life then?
Music is the sharing of the soul.
It’s this very intense communication of emotion. Already, I do not consider myself an artist. An artist is he who needs to express things and that we talk about him and who talks about his universe, who will exorcise certain things by making songs, then by being loved. Me, I’m not looking for love, I have it everywhere in my life. I don’t need to be on a stage to get some, but I want to give some. I share with a lot of people because I want to understand a lot of situations, great emotions to be able to deliver them on stage afterwards, to make people cry, because I’m a researcher of emotions.
So, what is the click of the music?
It’s that my dad had a band with my mom’s brothers when he was 16. I am three years old when I am struck by emotion in front of my dad singing in front of the whole family and the whole family, with stars in his eyes. Then there is a great emotion that is experienced, so it’s not as if we were putting on music or watching TV on December 31st. No, no, we were making music. He gave me my first guitar when I was three years old, so much, I was fascinated by that.
What is the main thing for you?
It’s authenticity because we live in a world of lies in which we pretend to do things, to help each other, to love each other. You have to stay authentic, you don’t have to do things to appear to be doing things, you have to be true.
Garou will be on April 12 in Courbevoie, April 15 at Blanc-Mesnil, April 16 at the Grand Rex in Paris, etc…