Grand Corps Malade (Fabien Marsaud), Ben Mazué and Gaël Faye are for a time a trio announced as ephemeral. It is moreover the title of their first album, a first baby which therefore has three committed fathers, three feathers which are one, so much their love and their passion for words, verbs, waves and even poetry animates them.
The mini album Short-lived d’Éphémère was released on September 16, 2022 and consists of seven unreleased tracks born of their common points and their experiences which, in the end, respond to each other. It is also an opportunity to discover them differently, in turn storytellers, storytellers, slammers, performers, authors, kidnappers and thieves!
franceinfo: You are all three very busy, but you still wanted to take the time to do a project together. Does that mean that you yourself needed to offer yourself a bubble of oxygen?
Grand Corps Malade : Yes, that’s really it. That is to say that the first objective of this project is to take this week and the time to be together, to discuss, to enjoy, to play. We had some big days, but at the same time, we didn’t see the time passing. The first objective before imagining that there would be an album was to meet all three for a week.
We had to wait for this trio to discover more about each other. I would like to talk about Under my eyelids, a song is amazing about letting go. It’s true that you take us by the hand and we have the impression of being with you, of integrating your lives, of being part of your family photo. Precisely, how did you work on the writing?
Ben Mazue: Each song had its process. For Under my eyelidsit was a sentence of Gaël Faye who said: “Images under the eyelids, well, if we started from that“. And we immediately thought it was cool with Fabien by answering: “Yes, that’s good, we’re doing it”.
In this album, you go back to your childhood. Obviously, it’s also a sounding board for those who listen to you, ourselves, we immerse ourselves in ours. Even if you don’t like to talk about your dreams, what did you dream about, children?
Gael Faye: What I remember from childhood is the moment, living in the moment. It was “Tomorrow is very far” and that’s what I loved about this short-lived project. And the song Short-lived I’m also talking about that, that is to say inhabiting this moment which is there, which is going to escape us.
“Writing is always a way of freezing images and emotions.”
Gaël Faye, from the group Éphémèreat franceinfo
I love writing, because it’s memory. Going back to childhood and living in the moment is the best.
Fabien, you wanted to be a basketball player and there is this pool accident that prevents you from achieving your dream. Well, your medical studies were not necessarily what interested you since you had this artistic streak. Gaël, you had to leave your native country, Burundi, and arrive in France at the age of thirteen with a host family. Is it important to put your finger on the memories, to share that with the public?
Grand Corps Malade : Yes of course. Especially since memory is really something that fascinates me. I am renowned in my family for having a very good memory and I am a real nostalgic so this is really part of what nourishes me. But yes, of course, memory is incredible ground for writing since all three of us have passed the 40th birthday, and we are starting to have a few turns in life and a few years of experience. So when you look back on that, it’s still a lot to tell.
Do memories build a life, do they shape?
Gael Faye: Yes, memories are the safe in which I will draw for writing. I also come from a history that has little memory, I have no photos of great-grandparents for example. In Burundi, in Rwanda, we have very, very little memory so I have always considered that it was extremely important to work on it and to use art to preserve it.
Need nothing is a song that takes you to the guts, it’s a communion in fact!
Ben Mazue: Yes that’s it. And I also think that there is the past of Gaël and Fabien (Grand Corps Malade) who know each other from that, from this need for nothing, just a microphone and to launch a text. In their way of writing on this piece, they reminded a little of the writing workshops. They wrote with constraint, you can hear it. In fact, each recovers each time the last rhyme of the other to start again on a text. There is a little exquisite corpse side, a little constrained, which was quite pleasant. And me, for my part, I hum a little tune, these are the vocalizations that I do before going on stage, in fact. We just sampled that.
This project is a continuity: to seek this freedom which is essential for you three?
Grand Corps Malade : Yes. I think this project is a lot of freedom.
“We offered ourselves a moment of freedom, without any constraint, without any objective. There was no stake.”
Grand Corps Malade, from the Ephemeral groupat franceinfo
There is a small logbook that accompanies the cd for which an author and an illustrator followed us all week to explain behind the scenes, the making-off of this entire week of creation. And on the first page of the logbook, there is the first message I sent to Gaël and Ben. I created a group called Dinguerie and I immediately said: come on, we’re doing something a little outside the codes, just for us, just for fun. We’ll see what happens. Maybe we’ll do a concert of that, maybe not. At least come, we lock ourselves up for a week to have fun together. We didn’t even know if one day it would come out.
This week of creation together was a lot of freedom. Freedom gives desire, gives play and finally gives a result of which we are proud because finally we worked a little!