His childhood, his parents, his successes in the United States and France… David Hallyday tells his story in his autobiography “Best Album”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Wednesday December 13, 2023: author, composer and musician David Hallyday. He published an autobiography entitled “Meilleur album”, published by Editions du Cherche-Midi.

Just like his parents Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan, David Hallyday is an artist and more precisely a singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Before he was born on August 14, 1966, his mother’s womb which sheltered him was already in the spotlight. It has been 57 years since his actions have been scrutinized, commented on and often fantasized about. As the title says High (1988) which remains his greatest personal success, he knew how to rise and achieve. Since the disappearance of his father and after the numerous procedures that followed, he decided to tell his story in an autobiography entitled Best albumreleased by Editions du Cherche-Midi.

franceinfo: This autobiography is the story of your life, of your family. Isn’t it first of all a furious desire to say and tell who you are?

David Hallyday: It’s true that in these professions, people always do a lot of talking for you. I have always been attributed certain personalities, sometimes rightly, sometimes a little unfairly. That’s why I thought it was interesting to highlight a little bit this way in which I built myself in music, but individually. I found that it was, from a psychological point of view, also interesting to express myself on this subject, to talk about my way of perceiving life in the midst of all that.

You very quickly understood that music was made for you, especially when you were in the room completely dedicated to your father, with this white Telecaster electric guitar which hung on the wall. You also say that you understood at that moment that you were made for this.

I was immediately endowed with a kind of gift, this rhythmic understanding. When I was little, I played the drums pretty well and my parents looked at each other and said: ” This child is weird“. And so, I was very supported by them. They understood very quickly that I was going to do something with it. Nobody knew how, but I developed like that.

“Music is more than a passion. I call it a vocation.”

David Hallyday

at franceinfo

You say that the drums will become a bubble and we understand that the music saved you. How did she save you?

Of many things. When you are a composer, you are alone in front of yourself. We have the ability to be a little introverted and alone. That’s why I’ve always been quite solitary in the end. I love solitude. Not all the time obviously, but I like to find myself in these same situations a little bit when I compose. While a performer sings the songs of others, he is always in front and never really alone. Fortunately I have both because it has saved me from a lot of things. I was able to turn inward a little bit and make something positive out of it and not just wait for it to happen to interpret something.

When High was released, you arrived in France and the album remained at the top of the Top 10 in all of Europe for 15 weeks. However, you decide to return to the United States. Your mother was very angry with you and I think it was one of the rare clashes you had together?

She didn’t blame me, but I still had some complaints. It was more of a lack of understanding.

“At that time, I wasn’t ready to hear all the questions that didn’t talk about music and only talked about my private situation.”

David Hallyday

at franceinfo

It was very celebrity and I didn’t understand at first, because coming from the United States where I had lived all my life, I wasn’t ready for that. When I went to other countries, people told me a little about my parents because they were known throughout Europe, but not as much. Here, I felt like no one was interested in what I was doing and I got fed up. I said : “I’m going to go back to the United States, do my groups.”

It was in 1999 that I was asked to compose the album for my father, Blood for Bloodunder the good idea of ​​Yan-Philippe Blanc, someone brilliant and quite visionary who told me: ” We’re going to make the album ‘Sang pour sang’ for your father and behind that, we’re going to make your first album in French“. I had never sung in French and I didn’t know if it was going to be good, I had doubts. And I said to myself: it doesn’t matter, let’s go, it won’t work anyway not.

We did Blood for blood for my father who was a hit and then after that, I made my first album in French, A paradise / A hell, in which there were songs like You didn’t give me time and all of a sudden, there is a kind of second artistic life for me which occurred in France. I always stayed.

What was the little boy on the cover thinking?

This is a photo that was taken in the countryside in our house in Loconville. We did quite a few shows for our parents, we made them pay a franc at the time to attend our wonderful show!

Is the little boy in this photo proud of the man you have become?

I think so. We can both look each other in the face, there’s no problem.