Interview

Diane Dufresne, incendiary wisdom

Diane Dufresne. © Philippe Evenou

04/12/2019

Eleven years we expected new original songs from the Quebec diva. Diane Dufresne, still alive and vibrant, takes the pen to be alarmed by the future of the planet or draw an unstoppable record of the passing of time. And his interpretation is particularly wonderful on three brilliant pieces signed by Cyril Mokaiesh. The album is entitled Best After . Except that excellence is a constant at home.

RFI Musique: Are you aware that it took patience to receive a new album from you?
Diane Dufresne: I worked a lot with Marie Bernard, but she took another direction in her career. Today, to make an album, it's complicated, you have to be reckless. We are very dependent on others. It is not always easy for me because, since child, I am a loner who works in his corner. I knew Jean-Phi Goncalves, with whom I've been working for a long time and who did a remix of I met the man of my life for my shows, Antoine Gratton, Catherine Major, Daniel Bélanger. Then the producer Olivier Gluzman told me that it would be nice if there were French artists in the project. And that's where Cyril Mokaiesh arrived.

A connection with him immediately?
A beautiful rebel with sweet eyes (laughs). Initially, I was skeptical, convinced that the younger generation did not know me. Ignoring first who he was, I went to see him on the net. I was struck by his purity, his poetry. We can see that Brel and Ferré are his bases. When he knew I was coming to Paris, he sent me a song as a welcome, Like a damned . Wonderful ! You can not miss this, it's still a woman of a certain age who still has a kind of rage to believe in love. There have been other attempts like Alex Beaupain, but it did not work for me (he nevertheless signs the music of Nocturne , Ed).

Do you have the same appetite to fight?
I try to keep the desire. When I was young, I just had that desire to go on stage despite life. A privileged life, of course, but full of pitfalls with men sometimes who behaved badly at the time. There was no #metoo. In making these new songs, I told myself that I wanted to find sensations. And when you have Mokaiesh who land, you do "fucking, that's good" ! A song like, But live , when you get it, it stings you to desire, it's an adrenaline shot. It's good to sing The Anthem to the beauty of the world or Oxygen , but it's also good to go elsewhere.

What brought you to the title Fear to the Fear about this couple who survived the Bataclan?
First, these are things you usually can not touch. But the love story was beautiful, this guy who lies down on his wife to protect her from shooting and who whispered in her ear words of love to hold. Terrorism is omnipresent in our society and an artist is there to exorcise his fears. I lived at one time in the Marais, rue Charlot, it was not far from the drama. Doing that in a concert hall and in a cafe is terrifying. I was trying to write my love song, but it was always the Bataclan that came back to my mind. Impossible to move on, so here it is my love song.

In Time makes me skin , you say "In front of the mirror that chills me / My childhood has lost my trace" . They are so chilling, these reflections?
Yes of course. I do not look at myself all the time. What's good is that I can not see clearly, it's rough and it suits me (laughs). I will have to have eye surgery. I thought it was very personal to write that, and then no. Fifty, that's fine. Sixty, it still goes, but when you enter the seventy, it's another matter. You get up in the morning and you're ready to do anything. Except that you look at yourself and you do not think how you see yourself. People want to live forever, but they do not want to be old. There is a contradiction. At home, the skin wrinkles, but the brain does not!

Cyril Mokaiesh wrote you From crazy love . The elected is your husband and manager Richard Langevin?
I did not think it could exist (they have been married since 1995, Ed). At one time, it was necessary for a woman to have a man in her life. Me, I had the public and that's what helped me to live. We always dream of a prince charming, of an ideal man, Richard was identical to that. When I saw him for the first time in a room, there was a light around this man. At the end, and while we were recording a video, I could not help but ask him if he was married. It was to laugh because we began to tease. Because I can tell you that men have not always been fun for me.

Is the scene the place where everything is allowed?
We can not do everything. I'm not Cirque du Soleil, we do not have the same budgets. I think I allowed myself all because I had transparent dresses. As I could not afford a huge set, I put the package on the costumes. After the imagination, everything is allowed from the moment you respect the public. When I did the show Like a Fellini movie , I asked him to come disguise. In the end, I would get people on stage to show their amazing costumes to everyone.

You also write all your shows yourself ...
Exactly. I even write the energy of applause. It is not necessary to applaud too long not to lose in dynamics. There have been shows where I preferred that people come to me by not necessarily liking, and that they stand out by being a little jostled or at least with something remarkable. The public is not passive, otherwise it's too easy. That's also why I stopped singing Le Parc Belmont on stage. I did it in many ways and I had to give myself a discipline to be in it. If you start thinking about something else, it's useless. No way for me to sing without being totally concerned.

We know your concern about the ecological threat. Is this your fight?
I do not see what is more important than that. When people go to the end, they will react, it is not possible otherwise. I saw that young people were mobilizing to break their habits, stop eating meat. We must find something positive, that motivates. Changing our codes is important. People are afraid to step out of their comfort zone, but at some point they will end up losing everything. Jean Lemire, who is here our Cousteau, wrote The Odyssey of Illusions and said it was not worth it to continue. It makes you think anyway. I live in the country and the animals are not nothing. If they disappear, we will disappear too. I wanted to sing with whales on the piece L'arche . I have always wondered: what can they tell us?

Is it true that Juliette Greco was a great source of inspiration for you?
She's a goddess. Humor, too. I'm made of this mix of Juliette Greco and Janis Joplin. When I sang in the cabarets of the left bank, I had eczema and I watched the gestures of Greco, its arabesques, it looked like a butterfly, I was completely subjugated. So I started putting my hands forward as she did. The interpretation comes from her. There was Catherine Sauvage, Pia Colombo. But Greco was the absolute class.

It satisfies you, your crossing the path?
I did the best I could. I lost my mother at the age of 12 and soon learned about death. As a result, I did not have lightness and there is this dark side that never left me. I'm not a happy person, I could have been a Carmelite. I'm happy with my life with Richard. All this way to get to the elected, as you say (laughs).

Diane Dufresne Best After (GSI Music) 2019

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By: Patrice Demailly

Diane Dufresne

Canada - French Song - Album