In the middle of the interview, because he shares a duet with Juliette Armanet on her new album, we ventured to ask Eddy de Pretto what he thought of the controversy over Connemara Lakes. He assures us that he has not heard of it. He seems sincere, but we suspect he is bluffing – he is a good actor. We still give him a summary of the media hype. We feel that we should have kept our question to ourselves, that he does not want to comment on it. “If I give interviews, it’s to share my music. I want to talk about what I’m proposing, he refocuses. Now that everyone is releasing albums, it feels like it’s just thrown away and off to the next one! No, in my records, there are things to dissect, a lot of material. » Indeed, his third album, CRASH HEARTwhich comes out this Friday, despite its apparent pop lightness, deserves to be approached with a scalpel.
Your previous album concluded with this sentence: “Listen to it a lot in advance, the third one, I might not be able to do it. » What allowed you to achieve this?
A big process of changing mood [d’humeur]. I was coming off a very complicated tour with these Covid stories which required certain dates to be scheduled four times. There were missed appointments. There was also a team with which I reached the end. The cyberharassment lawsuit added to this. I went to Los Angeles to look for producers and creativity, a new lease of life. All of this changed the vision I had of myself, of my way of managing everyday life. I realized the importance of mental health. I decided to no longer put pressure on myself by having to dissect society, take a look at it. I didn’t have the shoulders, nor the strength, nor the legitimacy at that time. I needed a step aside so I tried to write about this quest for love and everyday happiness.
You were talking about the trial. Eleven people were convicted a year ago for homophobic messages and death threats against you. When you gave your concert at the Saint-Eustache church (Paris 1st) where you were invited to sing, did you expect it to generate such reactions?
You never expect that. That’s why I bounced back pretty quickly. Having seen the hatred so radically and clearly in the courtroom, I told myself that I had to change my perspective. I certainly wasn’t going to write about that shit, but about the search for positivity, for happiness.
Since then, have you been able to protect yourself from these hateful attacks?
No, that’s life… We can never protect ourselves from the malice or hatred of people, otherwise it would mean that we remain cloistered at home, and again, even on the networks we can be affected by things . We need more education, to go further in the fight against cyberharassment. This is why I filed a complaint. We need to put responses in place so that this becomes less and less systematic.
There is a lighter, sunny tone in this new album, even if the subjects covered are not…
With each album, I’m told that… It’s resolutely pop, assertive, maybe that’s what gives it this lively side. I had the powerful desire to be able to make people dance, even if the lyrics are melancholic. This record is full of breakdowns. There is hope, light, but it falls back into extreme solitude like in the songs House, no one for the winter…What does happiness come from? That’s the question of the album.
Besides, the word “crash”, which appears in the title of the album and in that of two tracks, is not the one that has the most positive connotation…
The clip of LOVE’n’TENDRESS sums it up. The hellish loop of the crash. For me, it is the allegory of a life. No matter the breakup, what we get in the face, the wall, well, we still try to get back up every day. The fact of being able to put things behind you, of trying to find explanations, of sometimes being in denial, of getting back up from crash, after crash… That’s exactly the feeling I wanted to express in the album.
This is your third studio album. For you, is a record a separate project?
I like the idea of releasing albums, that they are worked, that they exist for themselves but can be linked to each other. CRASH HEART is thought out, reflected, like a candy, a heart lollipop that we unwrap. It is designed to be impactful, direct, like a punch of melody. I like to open projects, highlight, highlight periods of my life.
Did you have free rein for this album?
The only limit I gave myself is that it be a straight album, which brings a breath of fresh air and allows you to look elsewhere. It was real work for me who was educated in the “against”, in showing the negative. I had to work to change my vision, my state of mind.
In the song “R + V”, you cite many LGBT figures such as Raimbaud, Verlaine, Elton John, RuPaul or Franck Ocean. Do they make up your personal Pantheon?
Above all, they are people who have a voice, free speech and have opened paths that did not exist. That’s what I wanted to highlight on this song and that’s what I try to do, modestly, in my music. I try to create new paths, to get people who perhaps don’t think the same way as me to ask questions. Kid was all the way to the National Assembly during the debate on the ban on conversion therapy. Little Lucas’ dance association danced to this song to pay tribute to him after his suicide… The song, at that moment, goes beyond me, and becomes political, it transmits a message stronger than mine and it is that’s music for me.
You play with the (typo)graphy of the song titles by making nods to SMS codes (“pApA $ucre”, “be wellnn”, “CRASH <3”…). For what ?
Because I liked it to bring a smile, to sketch something more pop. It goes well with the 2000s. As in the record there are influences of R’n’B from those years, it suited it. It reminds me of when I was a teenager listening to Leslie, Jalane and Timbaland.
If this album had one key song, what would it be?
happy :))), the last. There is the paradox of trying to do well, in the most cynical way possible, with an injunction to be in good spirits at all costs while the precipice is so close. It’s the fine line that I want to represent in this record, this constant in-between, like that of the tightrope walkers who hold on to little and can tip to one side or another.
Are you happy ?
(He pauses) The tightrope walker… These are phases. It’s as stupid as that. We all believe in eternal happiness and I believe it is non-existent. Sorry, everyone.
You reached the milestone of thirty this year. Was this a formality for you?
The passage of time has a big impact on my writing. He is always there. I wrote songs about it, about that and being in my thirties, but I didn’t put them on the album.
Does the passage of time scare you? Or do you tell yourself it’s good to mature?
I don’t find it terrible to see singers age. It’s always a bit sad. This is what comes to get me a little. It’s complex growing old as a singer.
Can’t imagine yourself at 70 years old on stage?
I don’t know, I don’t think so. Today, I have no idea. But I would be surprised if I did a Charles Aznavour.
But would you still stay in music?
To have…