He looks so serene, at peace, that it’s hard to imagine how rough his childhood was. As he prepares to unveil his 13th studio album, titled Shoot the stars at night, Etienne Daho is releasing a beautiful biographical book with his close friend Sylvie Coma. The opportunity to look back on his younger years, which he had never mentioned too much until now, and for good reason. He, who was born in Oran, Algeria, had to flee the city with his family in 1962, before the massacre, to settle in Cape Falcon.
In Algeria, life was complicated because of the war
“Those years were foundational but I lived longer in London than in Algeria, explains Etienne Daho in the pages of the magazine Paris Match. It is all these bits put together that make me. In Algeria, life was complicated because of the war but, as a child, you get along with everything and you can even play under the bombs. My sisters and I had to avoid dead bodies in the street, duck under windows for fear of getting shot, lie down in cars when we were driving. When I arrived at school in France, my little friends had a normal life, they lived with both parents, which was not at all my case. So I tried to make myself invisible. It lasted until adolescence when, all of a sudden, I was thought to be cool.”
Musically, Etienne Daho has inspired several generations with his fresh and innovative pop. “Cool” is therefore a very weak word to describe the 66-year-old artist, former partner of Elli Medeiros. However, the songwriter and performer is not the type to put himself forward. Hypersensitive, he outright asked a high school friend to write his autobiography for him, as he dreaded the exercise. “It’s easier to be told by othershe says. I didn’t choose Sylvie Coma at random, I lived with her when I was recording my first album. I ruined his life for a month by coming home every evening at impossible times…“
Find the full interview with Etienne Daho in the magazine Paris Matchno. 3834, of October 27, 2022.