“I am free and when you are free, you are happy”

Author, composer, performer and lyricist Vianney is the special guest of Le Monde d’Élodie Suigo from August 12 to 16, 2024. Five days, five songs to get to know this essential artist of the French music scene better. On November 10, he released his fourth album containing duets and trios: “À 2 à 3”.

Vianney is the special guest of Le Monde d’Élodie all this week. The opportunity to look back on five highlights of his life, on five songs from his repertoire taken from his four albums, among which the latest one which contains duets and trios: At 2 to 3In less than ten years, he has established himself on the French music scene with songs that celebrate love, separation, family, nostalgia, the seasons, solitude, but all systematically with a smile.

His titles Not there, I’m leaving, Veronica, Father-in-law or his collaborations with Gims on the title The same or with Ed Sheeran on Call On Mehave already been incorporated into all the playlists. A journey marked by numerous awards such as the latest, in 2024, that of male artist of the year at the Victoires de la musique. Vianney has therefore become a voice that counts on stage, in the media, on the radio, but also on television with his role as a jury member on the show “The Voice”. Having retired from concerts for the moment, the one who likes to live in harmony with his audience and the artists who are part of his circle reveals himself in five parts.

franceinfo: You have been able to translate our emotions towards the world, with very strong titles like Man and Soulafter the assassination of Father Hamel. Always concerned about others, is this sensitivity sometimes ultimately a burden to bear? Does it damage?

Vianney: I don’t feel like it’s damaging me. I think I have a good foundation in my relationships with others thanks to my parents. But still, being in contact with people and having their support during those years gave me a responsibility that elevated me. It didn’t damage me, on the contrary, far from it. It’s the opposite.

“People really made me better.”

You released a new album some time ago. At 2 to 3 in which you invited very different artist friends, Florent Pagny, Gims, Boulevard des Airs, Zazie, Mika, Jean-Louis Aubert, Renaud, Ben Mazué, Éric de Villers, a former homeless person, met through Hiver Solidaire, an association in which you are involved. How did this album come about?

Little by little, as I met people with whom I really got along well. It turns out that we also had this shared passion for song or music. When you get along well with people, you want to see them again and if you also have a shared passion, you want to share it. I already did an opening act with Janie, then Ed Sheeran, Mika, and little by little, I did it with the people I met and it made several duets and a few trios. I simply put it all in an album.

You still went looking for very emblematic personalities.

There are really bosses, it’s true. There are people who are more beginners, others who are from my generation who are at the beginning of something but who are already a few years old and then there are really the fathers: Zazie, Florent Pagny, MC Solaar, Renaud, Jean-Louis Aubert. Obviously, they are bosses.

How do you manage to work on a text with Zazie? She is so sharp when it comes to texts, words, and transitions.

In fact, she’s so smart that it can only go well.

The title of the song is How do we do it?

Yes. There are a lot of things you don’t imagine when you do a duet with someone. There are a thousand reasons why it goes badly also because you have a legal or administrative aspect between the labels. You write the song with the other, you have the copyright etc. Well, thank God, everything has always gone well and yet, indeed, there are people like Zazie who have experience. She has a lot of experience, so it can petrify me, she can be disappointed. Except that she really has this enormous intelligence, all the time, to understand the human she has in front of her and to adapt. And that’s also why she is one of the last of her generation.

“Zazie is always there because she knows how to work with others, she loves others.”

Just like it went well with Ed Sheeran. Call On Me has become a must-have song. Was this song an obvious choice? In any case, it was an obvious choice to meet Ed Sheeran, who has values ​​that are somewhat similar to yours.

It was obvious to make music together from the moment we met. We didn’t think about it and we said to ourselves: “We make music“. Besides, it panicked his managers a bit since Ed is in a huge international sphere where everything is negotiated, everything is contracted all the time. But between us, there were no such steps. We didn’t think, we did our own things in our corners, which created a bit of a rush everywhere afterwards. But for us, the obvious thing was to make music. I arrived with a verse and we did Call On Me, and since we were together, we made other songs.

I know this is a difficult question to answer, but what song touches you the most?

It’s not the singer. I don’t rank the artists. But in the emotion, it’s the song with Renaud, NOW. I managed to say things in it that really made me feel good at the time I wrote them, put them down. To sing it again today, it really does something positive for me. I managed to say things to my children, to my loved ones, to my parents and at the same time, without it being too closed on my little self, I tried to see things more broadly.

Happy with this journey, with this life?

Of course I’m happy. I’m happy because I’m free. I’m really free to make this kind of album and say to my label: I’m doing this, and they still follow me and I don’t have a record company that constrains me. I’m free, so when you’re free, you’re happy.