The singer Hervé is nominated in the category "male revelation" of the Victoires de la musique, which will take place in February, for his album "Hyper".
Guest of "It feels good" Wednesday, he remembers at the microphone of Anne Roumanoff his beginnings, and in particular the moment when he wrote three songs for Johnny Hallyday, present on the posthumous album of the rocker.
INTERVIEW
It has been the fantasy of many artists.
Hervé did it.
Three times.
The singer, nominated in the "male revelation" category of the Victoires de la musique, wrote three songs for Johnny Hallyday, released in his posthumous album
My country is love
.
Hervé recounts this "completely crazy" moment in his life, on the occasion of his invitation to Anne Roumanoff's program
It
feels
good
.
The adventure unfolded in barely a week, when Hervé was a producer and working in the Postaal duo.
>> Find all of Anne Roumanoff's shows in replay and podcast here
“At that point, I hang out in the studio a lot,” Hervé remembers.
He then worked on a project with Yodelice, the stage name of Maxime Nucci, who produced Johnny Hallyday's last three albums.
And he asks Hervé for his help.
"Yodelice had composed music, but he had no texts", explains Hervé.
"He only had texts in what is called 'yogurt', which is to say a kind of false language which does not exist, a bit like Frenglish."
Yogurt is used as the basis for the composition of a song, before being replaced by real lyrics.
A weekend to write it all down
Yodelice asks him to write texts for Johnny Hallyday in a weekend, just before he goes to join the rocker in his studio in Los Angeles.
"The last time, Johnny gave up all my texts. So if he doesn't like it, he won't take," Yodelice warns him.
Hervé then takes his mission very seriously.
"Like everyone else, I listened to Johnny Hallyday. He is a legend, one of the rare artists whose world can cite about fifteen titles", recalls Hervé.
In two days, he and his sidekick from Postaal co-wrote five song lyrics.
Yodelice leaves with for Los Angeles.
The rest of the adventure follows very quickly.
"Yodelice leaves Monday for Los Angeles. He arrives Tuesday. Johnny discovers our texts Wednesday", explains Hervé.
"Maxime Nucci calls us and tells us that Johnny thinks it's great".
Hervé is in heaven.
On Friday, the rocker retains three of the five texts.
Among these three songs that Johnny Hallyday will sing is the song
Pardonne-moi.
Recorded in Los Angeles in 2017, it will become one of the singles of his album
My country is love
, released posthumously on October 19, 2018, 10 months after the death of the rocker.