Los Angeles (AFP)

"The path has always interested me more than the destination," says John Cale, co-founder of the Velvet Underground with his "enemy brother" Lou Reed and eternal avant-garde rock, who will revisit his work from Monday to Wednesday at the Philharmonie de Paris.

It is in a rehearsal studio hidden in the labyrinth of a building in Los Angeles, that the awesome 77-year-old Welsh artist receives AFP, surrounded by his instruments, piano, guitar and violin with which he learned child music.

Passionate about Erik Satie, passionate about Dadaism, he perfected his classical training with composer Aaron Copland in New York, "where a cultural revolution was in full swing" in 1963. "Everybody made music, movies everywhere. in the streets, the houses, I found myself in the heart of the artistic reactor. "

Quickly, he meets an electron named Lou Reed and the current passes immediately.

"It was at a party organized by a box of classical music production that started rock, Lou made them songs on the Beach Boys, and he just wrote + Venus in Furs + and + Heroine + and said: + I will never be allowed to record this. + It made me crazy, "says John Cale, who convinces him to do it himself.

Thus begins the adventure Velvet Underground. In the band, also composed of bassist / guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Moe Tucker, the hooked atoms quickly give way to an electric rivalry. "But I learned so much from him and he learned so much from me that something always happened on arrival," he says.

Their first gigs make so much noise, that the audience hears ... only noise. "In fact, we did a lot of work, there were a lot of nuances, interesting combinations to explore, this music would surely not get us anywhere, but we jumped together."

Pop-art godfather Andy Warhol spots and produces them in the Factory. He contributes in his own way to the conception of the first album, "The Velvet Underground and Nico", by creating the famous pouch with banana.

- "Dissatisfied with rock" -

It also imposes the presence of the model Nico, whose serious voice is heard on "Femme Fatale", "I'll Be Your Mirror" and "All Tomorrow's Parties". "Andy did not like our look, and with her the band would be nice, we did not realize it, but he knew exactly what he was doing," Cale smiled.

"But we did not want to please our music was destabilizing, but I was aware that we were creating a new sound, unique in rock," says the one who will leave the group after "White Light / White Heat" in 1968 .

In 1970, John Cale launches solo with "Vintage Violence", a pop album. Surely too much in his eyes ... "You want to make a living and we tell you what to do for it.The record company wanted me to follow a direction, I did it, I will not do it again."

"You can not go far pretending to be what you are not," insists the artist, who released three years later his masterpiece "1919", in which he brings rock osmosis and classical.

"I was this Welsh living in Los Angeles, who remembered all those things in Europe that I missed, pure nostalgia," the author decrypts, denying the idea of ​​not having been born at the right time.

"Becoming a classical composer, I knew how to get there, but I preferred to contribute to the natural evolution of music," he says.

In parallel, John Cale lends his talents of arranger and producer to others: Iggy Pop, "someone very organized", for the first album with the Stooges, Patti Smith on "Horses", Brian Eno "who was I think as unsatisfied as me by rock ".

"I like to see in others what they do not know about themselves, musicians know what is expected of them, but not necessarily what they are capable of. at stake, "says John Cale, who admits to being frustrated at being more recognized for his work for others.

"We make progress whenever we can, the main thing is that I keep improving, there's a new album coming out in January and I'm very happy with it. ".

© 2019 AFP