“People are good, contrary to what you might think”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Friday April 12, 2024: author, composer and performer Nicolas Peyrac. He is releasing a new album: “D’ici et d’ailleurs”.

Nicolas Peyrac is first and foremost a pen, a man with heightened sensitivity, inhabited by a furious desire to tell stories. These stories quickly took the form of songs, first written for others and then he released his own tracks. It was in 1975 that he exploded with the song So Far Away From LA He has been watching, observing and giving us a look at the world for almost 50 years.

With 23 albums to his credit, he now publishes From here or elsewhereor 22 titles inspired by the Moody Blues and their legendary record Days of Future Past. He will be at the Francofolies in La Rochelle on July 14, 2024.

franceinfo: The themes discussed perfectly define the man that you are, we talk about peace, tolerance. At your side, in duets, we find your wife, your two daughters and these important artists: François Berléand, Bénabar and even François Morel. Is this what was needed to mark these five decades?

Nicolas Peyrac: I had to think of an album in which I could bring together all the things that have marked me and that have always obsessed me. I took the example of the Moody Blues album, which was a concept album in which there was no stop between the songs, between the instrumentals. I met a musician called Philippe Lefèvre and when I heard his music, which is very world, new age music, I said to myself: if I ever have to make a concept album, I will do it around tolerance, around peace, around ecology and I will use the music of Philippe Lefèvre as support.

And then, I might as well be surrounded by people I love: obviously my family and then Bénabar, François Morel because we shared things together. François Berléand because I love the actor and I had the chance to meet him one day and something clicked between us. I called him, he said: “But obviously, I want to say a few words“, because in fact these people are invited not to sing, but to say a few phrases from songs written 50 years ago.

There is no catastrophism, there is awareness, things are said, but there is always this notion of hope.

It’s in no way a record that is desperate or that is, I don’t know, testamentary or whatever. In Here and thereI review all the things that are in my opinion scandalous and unbearable, but always with this little glimmer of hope.

“When you think about it a little bit, people are good, they are not completely narrow-minded, contrary to what you might think.”

Nicolas Peyrac

at franceinfo

Isn’t it also, through this album and therefore the reflection of the man you have become, a wink in this work of memory? Your father was supposed to sign with Gallimard, he refused to go into writing because they had to feed the family. He stayed in medicine. Somehow, you represent it today with dignity.

I tell myself that in fact, if this were to be the last album, you never know, that there is everything in this album, that is to say all the things that marked me, that followed, which made me who I am today. I have the feeling, I even have the certainty that this album is ‘Me’ with a capital M. We cannot say to ourselves: “Oh yes, he looked for where he copied so-and-so…“No, it’s really me. It really defines me through an honesty, a sincerity that I have always kept over the years.

You still have that voice of wisdom. François Berléand sings: “You know, our children swallow the same dust when they play. They don’t care about anything that made us go to war“. Is this also a message you wanted to send?

It’s from a song called: To love each other for another quarter of an hour, which was released in the album: Only Love (2003). It’s a real message. When we see everything that is happening today, whether in the east or the south, we say to ourselves that if we thought just a little bit, we would realize that our children are swallowing the same dust and that the war, they don’t care. When they are born, they don’t think for a second that people are there to fight.

You talk about human rights, indifference, the rejection of those who actually come from here and elsewhere. You say : “Our story is within us, same smile, same pain“.

If we dig a little, we realize that the story of certain people is wonderful or hopeless and that we just have to take the time to do a little research.

“I think that we cannot judge people by the way they love, by the way they pray, by the way they are, by the color of their skin.”

Nicolas Peyrac

at franceinfo

And so this song, Here and there sums it up. Stop judging people based on preconceptions. At some point you have to put things into perspective and I think that’s what this song is about.

For what Here and there ?

Because, without saying it on purpose, it is the sequel or it is the response to the first album. The first album was called Where are you from ? In 1975 and now, a few years later, it’s called Here and there.

Watch this interview on video: