It's hard to imagine, but the Canadian, who appeared in the early 2000s with his hip-hop/electro tinkering, was in demand as an arranger for Charles Aznavour. Story that inspires "Gangstavour", song of "French kiss", album that comes out this Friday.
"Aznavour was pushed to make an album with another team, he thought +why not? I like it when my record company spends money on me+ (laughs), but he was skeptical," Gonzales, who divides his time between Cologne (Germany) and an apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis in Paris, told AFP.
And to describe an "atmosphere of balance of power", with this megastar of the French song to the attitude of "rapper".
Example: arrived early on the first day and crumpled to wait at the door of the studio for the arrival of Chilly Gonzales, the interpreter of "La bohème" gives appointment the next day at 10:00. And will obviously arrive at 11:00 am by launching to the cantonade: "+So, was it good the appointment of 10:00 ?+".
"Somehow it's great," says Chilly Gonzales, who speaks of "touching" memories. Even if he and his band "were fired after three weeks: one day, Mr. Aznavour did not come back and remade the album from the first note with another team".
Other monuments of French culture are mentioned in "French kiss". We hear: "I am too proud to speak the language of Voltaire/Flaubert, Baudelaire and Bangalter". Thomas Bangalter is half of Daft Punk. "Gonzo", one of his nicknames, had worked on "Random access memories", album of the helmeted duo, now separated.
- Duet with Juliette Armanet -
"I just met them again, they made a series of videos for the 10 years of +Random...+, I told them +but you are very active now that it's over+", laughs the singer. It is one of his many prestigious collaborations, in a career in great gap between association with the superstar rapper Drake and solo piano recitals in dressing gown and slippers.
At Bangalter -- whom he knows better than Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, another Daft Punk brain -- he praises the approach for "Mythologies", a piece for symphony orchestra written for choreographer Angelin Preljocaj. "Thomas could have hired an orchestrator and focused only on the outline, but he dove into Berlioz's instrumentation treatises, to find what I call the beginner's brain."
Canadian musician Chilly Gonzales, September 6, 2023 in Paris © JOEL SAGET / AFP
"Gonzo" pays tribute in "French kiss" to the pianist Erik Satie but also dedicates a song to Richard Clayderman, "Richard et moi", giving him the keyboard on this title.
"Richard, I've known him since 2005, he's a bit like my musical dad, he proved to me that being a pianist you can dream of being a star, and not just a piano teacher: girlfriends my age had his poster, teenagers." "He's gotten a lot of people to listen to the piano, I don't understand why he's so snubbed."
The title above is called "Piano à Paris" and we hear the voice of Juliette Armanet, another beautiful sample of a pop album and surprise cover.
© 2023 AFP