“There are personalities who were born to be stars. Me, I quickly understood that I was made to practice the profession, but that I lived badly with fame”, delivers an open and vulnerable Bruno Pelletier, who lends himself to the game of biography, in a series of interviews he had with Samuel Larochelle. On the occasion of the publication of Bruno Pelletier. The time has come…, The duty met him in a café on rue Saint-Denis.
Outside, the symphony of the roadwork unfolded the treble of its concrete saws, the din of its jackhammers and the cries of its workers, while inside, the cafe snorted gently, ready to attack the crush. dinner time. Bruno Pelletier, with a radiant smile, immediately talkative and curious, seemed happy to share this vertiginous leap in 40 years of career and 60 years of life.
Samuel Larochelle had to take a few detours to convince the artist, “lonely, discreet and modest”, by his own admission, to embark on the project: “We met for the first time three years ago . Samuel asked me amazing questions for a journalist. More technical questions about music. It suprised me. One thing leading to another, the angle changed, we found ourselves on another ground, and I was ready to leave my modest side aside a little. »
The biography, organized in a question and answer format, lists 14 interviews, but in reality, there were many more. The most famous interpreter of Gringoire admits to having developed, over time, a real bond with the author, working with him “in an organic way”. To the book is added an album of 11 songs, a soundtrack to the book whose texts create correspondences with the stories.
The bar school
Like many performing artists, his adventure began in bars. Although these years are the occasion for tasty stories, Bruno Pelletier insists on their formative aspect: “I did sound, lighting, loaded trucks, I played in front of people who weren’t listening and I went to get them anyway. Basically, I learned all my trade, on the job, in bars. »
You have to listen to him again to understand how he takes his place within the big teams with which he works today: “It allows me to appreciate all the more the fact of having a team. I can sit with her and speak the same language, whether it’s about staging, sound or lighting. I am more connected with my team, and it allows me to develop a bond with them that is more like a family. »
The man is not stingy with glowing comments for the people around him, and he has this benevolent way of bringing them out of the shadows: “This summer, I was on Notre Dame of Paris. It’s a big team, about 70 people working behind the scenes. Nobody knew each other, but after two months, it sings, it’s kidding, it claps your hands back while on stage, there’s the show ! There’s a whole other ballet going on behind, an unsuspecting complicity. Without all these people, there would never be the same show. »
Save his skin
Bruno Pelletier invites us behind the scenes. We know him for his powerful voice, a mastery of his technique and a comfortable body on stage, but under this powerful body hides a vulnerable being.
The book recounts several anxious episodes that put him through hell, including the time when, at the premiere of Notre Dame of Paris, he admits having fainted on stage: “I was not yet able to understand what was happening to me. All I knew was that I had to save myself. In front of 4000 people. A Parisian premiere evening. He pauses, as if soaked in this still vivid memory, then looks up, a smile emerging at the corner of his lips: “And you know how Parisians are? »
His father having himself struggled with untreated psychosis, he hopes his confession will add to efforts to lift the taboos that weigh on mental health disorders: “I hope this vulnerable delivery will speak to people who pretend to be strong in their lives, who live through stories like that and who don’t want to talk about it. When my father fell ill in 1992, Bell Let’s Talk didn’t exist. »
A cultural ambassador
After his confidences, the man regains his composure. He does not stand on his chair, fist raised, but he wants to make his love of Quebec heard, “his country », which he defended here as elsewhere: “When I started to sing all over the world, I made it my duty to promote songs from our repertoire. To his words, well felt, is added a brilliance in his eyes when he evokes a passage in Russia where the public awaited his return on stage by singing The Manic.
Aware of having had the chance to make a living from his art, he worries about the next generation. An uphill battle will have to be waged against these giants who swallow up royalties belonging to creators: “The laws are outdated. Conditions have been deteriorating for more than 20 years. And meanwhile, the tech industry is exploding. I understand that young people love the accessibility of means of production, but at the same time, the value of what they do is not recognized. »
On several occasions, he raises the specter of retirement, but you have to hear him project himself into a future full of projects to understand that it is a fear, more than a desire, that he is expressing. He still has many firsts ahead of him, and we can only wish him serenity in the adversity to come: “I accept being sick sometimes because, afterwards, it’s going to be the fun. It’s like a roller coaster: there’s always the first slope that goes down and that risks making you vomit, but after that it brews and you end up laughing about it. Looks like that’s my job. »