Squeezie, youtuber with more than 15 million subscribers, and now singer -

© Franckie Allio

  • Squeezie, France's first youtubeur, is launching into song with the release of his first album,

    Oxyz

    , this Friday.

  • He gives a long interview to 

    20 Minutes

    , in which it is about this new project but also of his career on the Net, of the criticisms which he was able to endure and of his future.

  • "In a few years, we will accept much more easily that a guy who makes videos make music," he says.

It is sometimes difficult to get out of the boxes, to rub shoulders with other universes, to conquer a new audience.

This is the mission that Squeezie has given himself, who is releasing his first album,

Oxyz

this Friday

.

The youtubeur, the first in France with its dizzying 15 million subscribers, has worked for more than a year on this new project, has traveled to Japan to record it, and is planning a series of concerts when the sanitary conditions. will allow.

In short, he now dons an artist's cap.

It is in a hotel in the ninth arrondissement of Paris that we meet Squeezie.

For more than half an hour, the now singer confided in

20 Minutes

on the history of his album and the themes that he addresses over the fourteen tracks.

The opportunity also to take stock of his career as a YouTuber, almost ten years after the publication of his first video.

When did you think you were going to start producing an album?

It's after doing the fake summer hits on my YouTube channel.

We worked with Kezah, a guy who really worked in the music business more than YouTube, he opened the doors to the real world of music for me, with the people who do that full time.

I told myself that it was incredible to make music in these conditions with people who have things to teach you.

At first, we started just to have fun, and then over time, the weeks went by, and I said to myself that I wanted to make an album.

Chess is a recurring theme in the album.

Why did you choose to talk about it so much?

This is an opportunity to talk more widely about its weaknesses, its weak points, and somewhat striking experiences.

A negative experience is generally more memorable than a positive one because it upsets you, it traumatizes you.

I saw the opportunity to talk about that through this project.

In a YouTube format, it's not a lot of fun.

In the videos, people expect cool stuff at the end of the day that gives them a good time.

If they arrive on a video and I tell them that I want to be alone and give up everything, it's not the

mood

.

It was more interesting to talk about that in music, maybe that's why I abused it a bit.

The concept of the album is that it can help people understand who they want to be tomorrow.

Is this your case?

He can help me be less tormented by boat stuff.

We all have psychological locks and sometimes it's overwhelming for nothing.

I had to exteriorize, do certain things, ask myself about certain things… I had to go through this phase to write.

It was really a little therapeutic making the album.

It had that effect on me.

That's why I did the storytelling around this concept.

You announced a tour.

Do we know when it is due?

It was supposed to be from November 6 to December 10, but the Covid said no.

There we are in 2021. It can be either at the beginning of the year, or just before the summer, we do not yet know when because the situation is changing too quickly.

I had to do 24 dates all over France in theaters between 1,000 and 2,000 seats.

For now, we are on stand-by.

Has going into music under your real name and leaving Squeezie to YouTube been considered?

No, because Squeezie is not really an alter ego.

Overall I am on video myself.

It would have been too weird to put another name when Squeezie and I are a bit the same.

And then, with Squeezie, there is all this notoriety thing that there is not with Lucas Hauchard.

It would have been interesting to do if I had a character in the videos and wanted to dissociate ourselves.

Being the first French YouTuber, does that put additional pressure?

You have more responsibilities.

The only thing I tell myself is that if I didn't watch out for something, the consequences are annoying because I touch a lot of people and I have to be careful.

It's the only thing that changes, otherwise the rest is the same.

Except that financially, we are more comfortable, we can not give a damn a little more, enjoy a little more, ask ourselves fewer questions than someone who can barely live from his videos, and who will immediately have consequences in his life if he makes a bad choice.

This financial comfort means that there are a lot of questions that I don't ask myself when I make a video.

It is a real luxury.

This stability, I did not understand right away, moreover.

In several songs, you do not hesitate to clash the middle of YouTube ...

I don't like to paint a false portrait of my background.

He's like all walks of life, there's a lot of cool, very positive, caring stuff, and there's a lot of shit stuff too, whether it's on the front of the stage or behind the scenes.

I like to qualify things, that everything is not all beautiful or all dark, that people are aware of both.

I thought to myself that in the album, I was going to talk about both.

Is YouTube an end in itself, or do you tell yourself that we have to diversify so as not to find ourselves in a dead end in ten years?

Being a YouTuber is an end in itself, that's what I like the most.

What's cool is that it allows you to do other things on the side, it's compatible with a lot of things.

You have a fan base, you do a side project, you submit to them, there is half that says it's rubbish, and the other half that says she likes it.

It allows you to go to a community and immediately access incredible resources.

I want to take these opportunities, test, enjoy and submit it to people who follow me on YouTube.

The heart of it all, what ties all of these things together is my YouTube channel.

I don't do this to gradually detach myself from YouTube, I do it more because it makes me happy.

And besides, I immediately told myself that if it had to penalize the YouTube channel, I did not do it.

I will always do lives, I am a YouTuber and I will always be a YouTuber because I need that.

I built myself around this when I was a teenager, it's my engine.

Maybe that's just one thing you'll juggle with later, with a second album if the first one is successful?

It depends on if I want to, if I am able to do better and devote even more time to it.

You can't make a worse sequel, that's not possible.

We'll see, but in any case, I'll continue to make music.

Maybe I won't release a second album, we don't know yet, but in any case I will continue to do so.

I will keep it to myself, I will not share it, but I will continue because I love it too much.

When you are told that you are a YouTuber who thinks of yourself as a singer, do you pay attention?

This sentence is interesting.

There are a lot of people who say that I am a YouTuber who thinks of myself as a singer, and I said that before too.

You can't imagine someone doing several things in different artistic circles.

It's a human reflex, I can't shoot people when I myself have that reflex.

On the other hand, I think we are in a time where people do more and more what they want, have more and more freedom, and I think there will be a real transition to this. level there.

In a few years, we will accept much more easily that a guy who makes videos makes music, that it can be cool that guys try their hand at other circles.

What also plays a role is the fear that someone you love for their work will give it less importance and less nourish the environment in which they are known.

Time will show that both are possible.

There will be no fewer videos, and this album should be seen as a bonus that some people like and others not at all.

The most important thing is that it appeals to those who have followed me for a long time, who love videos and know me.

These are the people I want the album to please.

It is the opinions of those that matter to me.

Are you always so attentive to comments, the number of likes, views?

When I pull out something and people don't hook up, I wonder how it's done.

Since I've been here for a long time, I tell myself that people can get bored, and every time I mess up, it can accelerate this process where people let go of me.

It's silly but I can't help but tell myself that if I disappoint too much, it's terrible.

And then I've been here for a long time, I can't disappoint people.

These are only psychological locks.

There was a time when I was really addicted to numbers and I think all YouTubers go through it.

It's a very long phase, you look at your views all the time.

It's been about three years since I got cured of this, because it was hell.

You go crazy, you don't focus on creating anymore, you get neurotic because there is a lot of stuff that you don't explain in the numbers.

Sometimes it's stories of algorithms, of uploads at a time when there are partials.

There are things that cannot be explained.

But even today, when I upload a video that really doesn't work, I wonder if it's an algorithm story or if it's the people who really didn't like it, I have to find what .

You left Webedia earlier this year.

Why this choice ?

There is nothing sensational.

I arrived there in 2016, two or three really amazing years with lots of opportunities, a great atmosphere.

I was working with Mixicom, and they took a direction that didn't suit me.

I told them I didn't agree too much with what they were doing, I wanted to pull away from it, and then there you go.

Squeezie smashes LeLive and talks about the money invested in this project pic.twitter.com/Hts060nHrc

- Out of Context Twitch (@TwitchOOC) February 7, 2020

As with Le Live, for example [a channel broadcast in streaming, created by Webedia, Editor's note]?

Live is just a reflection of the direction they were taking, and I didn't want to go in that direction at all.

And then we did what we had to do together.

It was so good, these are great memories.

Today there is no war at all, everything is fine.

I had this need to break up, build my team, have my hub of people I love, and that's it.

It is a real personal desire.

During confinement, when I was making the videos from home, I really liked this return to basics, being in something a little smaller.

People fantasize, think there was a big clash with Webedia.

It was just the control room I was working with, Mixicom, which was taking a direction that was wrong so we broke up.

I spoke with the real boss of Webedia, and he told me he was OK, this was not a mega war.

The separation in itself happened on its own.

They listened and it was cool.

In "Far", you sing "They disappointed me, it was planned".

Do you have any regrets, things that you would have done differently?

Not at all.

I am so happy with my whole journey.

Even mistakes are beautiful, it's cool to make mistakes, it suddenly makes you grow, you learn things.

We always get up with a slap and we evolve, we become a better person, we understand more things.

I wouldn't change for the world the journey I had on YouTube which is miraculous.

What sets me apart from a lot of people is that I have been very lucky.

Even if I made mistakes, good, at least I learned some things, it's interesting.

I would never change the past, it's not something I want to do at all.

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