"I need to start from scratch," says Julien Doré

• On

  Vous & Moi

  , which was released this Friday, Julien Doré delivers the acoustic versions of his album

  &

  , released in 2016 and sold more than 500,000 copies.

• He explains to "20 Minutes" that this is a way of closing the parenthesis of the past two years, charged with emotion during the tour.

• From April, Julien Doré will begin a series of concerts, also acoustic, during which he will improvise in interaction with the public.

“Remove the bark from my songs, entrust them to you in a different way.

To see them again naked & with a new eye.

Reinvent, always reinvent.

“Nothing is lost, everything is transformed, even multi-broadcast hits on the radio, says Julien Doré.

He returns with

, an album made up of acoustic covers of songs from his previous opus,

, released in 2016 and which has sold more than 500,000 copies.

A success which was confirmed by a tour in packed halls and which inspired this intimate reminder to the artist that

had on the phone…

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What was the trigger that made you decide to deliver these acoustic versions?

These songs traveled for months on tour, I saw them evolve.

They took different forms from the time I wrote them, they went through various arrangements for the stage.

In their acoustic version, they tell a totally different story than when I play them with my band, with more energy.

That's what made me want to re-record them in a form closer to that of the writing stage and that we never reveal.

Almost all the songs from

Vous & Moi

are on your album

&

which has just been crowned with a diamond disc.

Did something really happen with this album?

(The evidence - it feels like asking him if the pope is Catholic - makes him smile)

Yes, to say the least.

A few weeks ago, we celebrated this diamond disc with my team.

It's my first, it's completely crazy.

I feel like the story started on the previous album,

.

The artistic team bonded in a very simple way – we've known each other for more than ten years – and something happened with the public.

It's pretty crazy what we've been through for two years.

When we did the last date of the tour in Bercy in December, I knew that these would be my most beautiful artistic memories.

I couldn't get used to the idea that it ended there.

We have a way of living these experiences, with my team and the public, immersed in emotion.

It's really not easy when it stops, it's a big void for us.

It terrifies me.

I wanted the slope to be a little gentler to finish, to continue this sharing in an intimate way.

Is that why you write, in the

You & Me

booklet , that it is a question of “saying goodbye”?

The farewells are linked to the history of

but also to history itself.

When I write a song, when I carry out a project, it's each time a new story, it corresponds to an experience, to ways of telling.

I don't write songs when I'm on tour, I don't know what will happen.

I'll see if these farewells will turn into a new story...

Could you be thinking of saying goodbye to music?

Music is what keeps me awake, alive and makes me feel useful, active.

It's visceral.

Without her, I wouldn't know how to deal with my emotions, with what I am.

What is certain is that chaining albums, the idea of ​​media “surexistence”, does not obsess me.

came at a pivotal time in my life when I questioned what it meant to write a song, and felt there were connections between the songs.

That's what resonated with people who like me.

For the rest, I don't know at all what will happen, but it's good, very sincerely.

I need time, to understand what happened, to start from scratch.

Coming back on stage alone, beyond the fact that I'm quite scared, is taking a risk in itself.

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Will it be an opportunity to discover another Julien Doré?

Yes, even if I don't tend to hide facets of myself.

It will be another way of approaching live performance because I will be playing in many theatres.

The big difference is that the staging will be absent.

There will be no scenography worked on for months, the matter will be improvisation and feeling.

We will have to create something with the public every evening.

Most of the dates are sold out, the public expectation is there and your fans are benevolent... Doesn't that reassure you?

This benevolence, I am more than aware of it, I felt it.

But I can't just trust what has been acquired, I have to go on stage proposing something and build that with the people present.

I want to put myself in danger by being on my own, with just a guitar, a piano, a ukulele, and then maybe getting people on stage, discussing certain issues, making it totally different every night.

Each concert will therefore be, in a way, “unique”…

This is where there is great excitement.

I want to play lots of songs, but everything can change, evolve in a fraction of a second.

The previous tour was a very big piece of machinery, we had a lot of fun, but we had established a way to move forward as the show progressed, we depended on the video, the special effects.

There, it will be totally free…

You have launched a call for applications for non-professionals to ensure the first parts.

Why ?

I did four tours and each time I tried to give a boost to artists who were signing or working on an album.

There, I said to myself that it was an opportunity to do something with "non-professionals", that in each city, someone who has a different job but who, at some point, has done music, write songs, get on stage.

That they perform in their city, in front of their family… that pride is pretty.

It's going to be stressful for them, but I'll be on stage to introduce them.

On

Vous & Moi

, you cover

Africa

by Rose Laurens in duet with Dick Rivers… Why this song and why Dick Rivers?

It's a bit always like that that I make my choices: at some point, there is a desire.

There, I was in the South and, hearing

on the radio, I realized that I knew it by heart, that the arrangement was cool.

I found it odd not to have thought of doing it again earlier, because I could have done it at the time of

.

So I hear the text and I know I can take it somewhere else.

Arrived at home, I put myself at the piano, I find this arpeggio which tints the song of something

and hypnotic and I start making the arrangement.

I thought it would be nice if it was a conversation.

I called Dick, who I've known for years and who comes out to me in a crazy voice, in the lows, I was hallucinating.

This turns the song into a sort of shamanic version of a father/son dialogue.

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This cover is quite symbolic of what you are, that is to say a popular singer, in the noble sense of the term, who manages to be respected by a more "elitist" fringe, generally quick to despise artists who have success with a wide audience.

How do you explain it?

I think what saved me was that I never asked myself the question.

Before I made music, I never asked myself the question of taste or good taste.

Between high school and the Beaux-Arts, I listened to Leonard Cohen, the Dandy Warhols or the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as well as the Gipsy Kings, Francis Cabrel or a lot of French variety.

No one ever came to cut me off from this passion.

Even today, when I talk about what I do, I never ask myself the question.

I mix what nourishes me without asking myself why.

An almost sold-out tour

More than twenty dates of the

scheduled for April and May in France, Belgium and Monaco, are already sold out.

There are still places available for about fifteen other concerts, including those on May 16, June 22 and 23 at L'Olympia (Paris), May 5 at Silo (Marseille), May 20 at Halle aux Grains (Toulouse ), from May 23 at the Théâtre Femina (Bordeaux), from May 25 at the Cité des Congrès (Nantes) or from June 8 at the Erasmus room (Strasbourg)… More information on Julien Doré's official website.

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