Cali is an author, composer, performer, writer and actor. An atypical, unclassifiable rocker, a committed singer, concerned with social problems, who does not hesitate to express himself and to raise his voice against what seems to him to be injustices. He could have been a professional rugby player, but it was music and his passion for it that won out. His songs She said (2003), the real father (2005), When is happiness (2003), Your eyes (2005) or 1000 standing hearts (2008) have become anthems. This Friday, October 14, 2022, Cali is releasing a new album, Those days that we almost forgot.
franceinfo: Those days that we almost forgotvolume 1, it’s 11 personal titles, like a cry from the heart to express what lives in you?
Cali: I believe it’s the 10ᵉ. Each time it’s a photo, a Polaroid of my life at that moment. And then there, I found myself, like everyone else, with everything going full throttle. For me, it’s going too fast. So I arrived at the studio with my friend Julien Lebar and we both realized… I said to him: you know what? Right now, to settle down, I’m braking with both feet and listening to more Johnny Cash, Nebraska of Bruce Springsteen and then Bob Dylan and I want a bone album. And we did it the old-fashioned way, a microphone a meter away from me, my harmonica, my guitar and I did some takes.
For this album, we kept the first takes because I didn’t want to take the time to cheat. We kept small imperfections which, I believe, are the life of the thing.
It is true that there is a very songwritera one-on-one with the audience, but I feel like it’s first and foremost a one-on-one with yourself.
Yes, it’s true. It seems to me that there are many denominations. I realize one thing, it’s important to have sincere songs. In any case, do not cheat because we will defend them on the road for a long time. And since I play them on the road, they are true confessions. When I say to the public:I have the right to cry tonight and I have the right to say that it’s not going so well“That is disturbing to me.
I feel like it’s also a nod to all the women who have shared your life. Your mother died, you were six years old. There was a trauma, it’s that you couldn’t attend his funeral. It really is something that has changed your life. Is it also a way to pay homage to him?
Yes. Anyway, every day, I talk to my mom and I tell the days she hasn’t lived. I tell him every day. Obviously, a mother, there is only one. A mother, for a son, is the first great love. And a son for a mother is the last great love. And me all that, it’s at six years old that it stops and I was very angry with my mom, for a while, I thought she had abandoned me and today, I tell myself. ..
She was struck down by a devastating cancer…
Yes that’s it. But today, I tell myself that it’s the force that drives me and why I’m going on the road and why I’m lucky enough to experience all this. It’s because I do something, an activity that makes me cry out to people: I need love every day, and maybe more than others.
This sensitivity is hard to live with or not?
It’s a roller coaster, all day. I’ve got my phone there, watching and expecting extraordinary news or drama whenever there’s a phone call, when 99.9% of them are useless. But that’s how I live it! And then, I have very highs, I can cry during the day, that’s how I live it, I cling to people.
I trust a lot. I’m not badly wrong, but you only have to be right once and you win.
In any case, you have decided to lay down your arms. That’s what you also say in this album, at times anyway. You say in A paper airplane : “I laid down my arms at your feet“. Does it feel good to let go, to let go a little?
Maybe it feels good to write it down. So am I really living it? I’m not sure of it. It’s a starting point and maybe by listening to or singing my songs, I’ll be able to lay down these weapons. It’s possible.
We were talking about freedom just now. Wasn’t that ultimately your quest from the start?
Yeah, I’m pretty troubled by that all the time. That is to say that I say to myself that to chain oneself, to lock oneself up in chapels, why? Again, we live, we die. You have to bite. And it’s funny because if I talk about music, the word ‘freedom’, I bring it back to that moment when I first plugged in electric instruments, as a kid, to an amp. It makes an impossible noise and I said to myself: wow, I’m free, that’s it!
Was the music obvious? You were a fan and lover of rugby. Besides, it will always be part of you, inevitably. But for that to take over, does that mean that the emotions you had with the music were much stronger?
I knew very young that I wanted to be a troubadour and that I wanted to have lots of children. I am a troubadour, I have four children and meeting people and seeing the world through music is the total language. When I go to Ireland and play with traditional musicians, we don’t talk, we make music. In any case, I am with them in this incredible cradle of people who play and who perpetuate a tradition to fight the enemy. It was Thomas Cromwell at the time who was starving Ireland, he was fighting with it. Me, I talk to them about Catalonia because yes, I make them listen to Pablo Casals. My great-grandfather was the photographer of Pablo Casals and he fought through his music against Franco and fascisms. And it’s through music that everything happens and I think that’s the way I found the most fascinating to satisfy my fantasies and fight a lot of things.
So, what does this album represent for you? Knowing that it’s volume 1, so that means that there is already a particular emotion for you to want a sequel to this story, “These days we almost forgot”.
For me, this album represents exactly where I am today. That is to say, I brake with both feet, I raise my head, I look and I am amazed.
Cali is on tour throughout France, as well as in Belgium and Switzerland. He will notably be in Denain on 4 November, 17 in Nantes, 18 in Rosny-sous-Bois and 21 in Paris.