The Pirouettes, his former band with Vickie Cherieit’s been over since last summer. Singer Leo Leonard, 29, reveals himself in a new, more intimate solo album: Truths.
This solo career is the big leap, a whole new adventure. The sounds of the album released at the end of October “are more modern” than those of The Pirouettes, very tinged with the 1980s.”I feel like my solo sound really matches what I’m listening to. I consume a lot of rap, both French and foreign, I haves sounds that hit a little more“explains Leo Leonard. The six titles of the album are therefore more like him: “JI get closer to who I am with this EP. It’s a mix of my influences and what I want to convey”. “I open up, I feel like I’ve always done it but it’s more introspective than what I was doing before“. But as with The Pirouettes, there are pop songs with catchy melodies and sincere French lyrics.
To close The Pirouettes on a high note, the duo took the stage for the last time in Istanbul, Turkey at the beginning of July. They bade farewell to the French public at La Maroquinerie, in Paris, on June 12 and 13. Sold out concerts. The Haute-Savoie group with a ten-year career can be proud of three albums, concerts all over the world and above all an Olympia in 2018 after the release of their second album. “It was one of the strongest moments of our career, it was incredible” enthuses the singer. “The Pirouettes was really a very positive experience. Even today I really take responsibility for the music we made“he adds.
And Leo Leonard wasted no time: his first album was released four months after the separation. Singing together was his comfort zone. In college, he was already performing on stage with his group Coming Soon. The concerts took place on weekends or during school holidays with already some success. “I think it helped The Pirouettes succeed. I was already a bit in the middle and very quickly we became known like that with Vickie, thanks to my past experience with Coming So on“says the artist.
His inspirations are a perfect mix between the pop of Justin Bieber, the Canadian star who has sold millions of records for more than 10 years, and the writing of Orelsan, the French rapper who needs no introduction. Very influenced by rap melodies, he is listening at the moment “a very promising young rapper called H JeuneCrack. He is not very well known yet but I think he will become so because he writes very well“. Finally, he quotes Koba LaD, another famous rapper: “It’s a little less intelligent in the lyrics but I find that there is still a real talent, a real charm in what he does. I would very much like to do a featuring with him by the way, maybe one day“.
Truths, the name of his album is an echo of one of the phrases that the singer utters in Seen from above : “I have tenderness for humanity because we are all in search of a truth”. He also wanted to find a word that starts with the letter “V” because it is present in the name of each song. For him, Truths in the plural was obvious because “everyone has their own truth, everyone has their view of the facts, everyone has their own search for happiness“.
Her favorite song on the album? The singer doesn’t really have one but “See you again (billboard), is a piece of which I really like the text. To write Green Valleyit was great” he specifies, a collaboration with Alex Van Pelt who is my lifelong friend, he was in my first band Coming Soon. It’s the one I wrote the fastest. She came suddenly, usually it’s a good sign“. The little extra is that it is inspired by the world of cartoons The Little Dinosaur and the Valley of Wonders of which he was a younger fan. A return to childhood.
The album is mostly about love. A universal theme that speaks to the greatest number, that we all experience. An introspective and luminous EP: “First I find a melody, then I put a yoghurt on it and little by little it makes sentences. It’s also why I often find myself talking about love, it’s what comes to me unconsciously.”
“Truths” by Leo Leonard
In concert on December 10 at Pop Up du Label
14, rue Abel Paris (12th) at 8:30 p.m.