Music for Waxx is the “binder of his whole life”. Younger, he listened to “a lot of rap” rocked by the guitars and folk that his parents listened to. Until one of his cousins made him listen Smells Like Teen Spirit from Nirvana: “I had the impression that it spoke to me directly, that it combined the rage of rap with hyper efficient guitars, there was a magic thing that I cannot explain. It’s a bit like all the first times you want to find yourself behind, ”he recalls. Bass, guitar, drums… Waxx learns everything, alone, by playing in groups, “In my life, I have two passions, music and basketball. Basketball, I knew I couldn’t make a living out of it because I wasn’t good enough, but also because I wasn’t competitive. Me, I like to play with people, I don’t like to play against. Music is perfect because we play together, for people. This is what suited me best and I had found the bottomless well ”.
This founding “love at first sight”, Waxx tells us surrounded by his instruments, in the studio in the southern suburbs of Paris, where he has been recording since 2019 his show Fanzine. From Hoshi to Oxmo Puccino via Chilla, LEJ or Youssoupha, all styles, all talents, all generations follow one another to perform but also to tell the music that made them. ” One Fanzine, it’s something passionate for enthusiasts made by enthusiasts ”, summarizes Waxx with the same gentleness and kindness that he grants to his guests. Passionate interview with a “music fanatic”.
Is the resumption of standing concerts news that you are excited about?
I’m a bit like everyone else: we sail by sight, we all have jammed radars. Me, I believe what I see, so I hope it’s safe for people. It is health above all. But obviously, I’m super happy if we can have some semblance of life that comes back as before. It’s not out of pure altruism, but I remember when I was 17-18 years old, events like the Fête de la musique were very important to me. We have already done away with a big year of culture for young people. And I think especially of them, I hope that they will be able to enjoy the same pleasures as us at their age. Hope all goes well quickly for them especially. These are important years when you are young.
The concerts resume but in reality since the first confinement, you have never stopped playing, especially on your social networks …
With my wife, we quickly understood when we saw what was happening in Italy that we were going to be confined much longer than what was announced and we wondered how we were going to do in our apartment to support each other, to support this new life whereas up until then we each had big activities. So we each gave each other a rigor. I said to myself: “I have lots of anecdotes about music, I’m going to do stories where I’m going to tell people stories that I find extraordinary in music and every time, I’m going to do it around riffs of guitar ”. Very quickly I found myself with more than 80 requests for artists that I adore, making improbable duets with Young Blood, Shaggy, whom I listened to when I was a teenager or Gérard Darmon…. We accompanied a lot of people and every day I learned a new song. Frankly, it really helped me.
From the cover of Nirvana with Juliette the cellist of LEJ to that of Wejdene with Julien Doré. Are WTF covers your trademark?
Yes, I think there is no limit. For me, good songs can be done in any way possible, with just about anyone and the more the gap is abysmal the more you realize that in fact there really is no border in the music. For me it is something very important. We too often forget to say that the Beatles were a cover band before being a composition band. That Elvis and Johnny Cash started with covers. That most artists start with covers. You grow up with the idea that the achievement of a career is to make your own songs. I am not sure. I think there are a lot of different careers and I think a good song is still a good song no matter who it’s covered by. I did a Sinatra cover album when I had never listened to it in my life with Ben l’Oncle Soul. We were signed on Blue Note which is still I believe the classiest label in the world. And it was a crazy adventure: I immersed myself in the Sinatra universe. I read Sinatra, I listened to everything possible and imaginable about Sinatra and discovered that he too does a lot of incredible covers. The recovery is an exercise that will always exist in the history of music. I think it’s one of the nicest things because it’s the bond between everyone.
After your program “Le Comité des covers” on Canal +, you launched in 2019 with producer C.Cole the musical program “Fanzine” on your YouTube channel. How did this project get started ?
I have done a lot of promotion in my life for my own projects and for the projects of others and I always felt that there was a desert boulevard for artists to express themselves musically. We often invite artists to react to the news, to talk about their latest album or even to ask them if they say “Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi.” It doesn’t bother me at all, it’s very entertaining, but let’s say that I who am really a music fanatic find it increasingly difficult to find a place where artists can express themselves about their music and the music that made them. And I had the impression that artists rarely perform. In France, apart Taratata, Daily or C to you, there are few shows to perform and therefore few elected.
Instead of saying that it is missing, with my friend the producer C. Cole we said to ourselves “let’s create it”. And we created our dream, which was to see artists come and sing the songs that made what they became and that changed their lives. It’s a real place where we can create, make music together while remaining entertaining. But it is the most important music. It was our bet and I think it was not just in our head because all the artists who come are happy to have come and over-share the stuff.
Do you play but you also talk a lot during the twenty minutes of an episode?
At the beginning, we didn’t talk much because I had the impression of being an impostor: I don’t know how to interview, I’m not a journalist, while I have very long discussions with all the artists who come here to make songs or albums. I said to myself, however, that I would like to podcast these moments of recovery and discussions between artists. I love the poscast Featuring by Driver because he is an artist who speaks to other artists and therefore they understand each other and manage to break a glass which is difficult to break between a medium and an artist. When he asks a question that can be a little disturbing, the artist does not see it as a trap because he is talking to someone who himself has been through these things, there is mutual respect. I find it interesting.
Do you now see yourself as a YouTuber?
Not at all. I have no problem seeing me like that but I feel more of a musician. In fact, I think youtubeur is a word that doesn’t really exist, it’s a bit “boomer” as an expression. At one point, we couldn’t explain how young people could make money on a platform and so we labeled them with the name of the platform they were on. In reality, we just used it to do relatively the same thing as what is done everywhere but with creations which, for me, are unheard of in terms of freedom.
Many young artists participate in your show: are you playing a stepping stone role?
There is not a before and an after, I would not make that claim, but let’s say that there is a validation for certain artists who come here because those who follow Fanzine form a community of people who are really music lovers who will then join the artist most of the time. One Fanzine, it’s something passionate for enthusiasts made by enthusiasts. And so, we invite passionate and fascinating people. And I think that suddenly, indeed, the episodes look at each other, look at each other. But I think that it has no influence on their career at all, it is rather us that it is enchanted!
You have also received a lot of young women like Hoshi, Pomme, Chilla,… Do you have the feeling that something positive is happening for these musicians now?
I’m a white man so I can’t put myself in their shoes, but with what I see and what I hear. there is still better but I think that we are still only at the beginning. Me, I have always been convinced that there is a huge talent among women in music. I’m the biggest Feist and Fiona Apple fan in the world and have always been shocked at the lack of visibility and even more of the “legacy” they are given in music. When Rolling Stones Magazine made the top 500 of the albums, the first woman arrives in twenty-fifth position. I am scandalized! Really, this is crazy. There are a lot of female guitarists who are incredible and it goes beyond the technical level and yet, they are so invisible, especially in American guitar magazines where there are only men. I wouldn’t say it’s my fight because it’s their fight. But if I could almost only work with women, I would do it because I feel better with them, I feel more myself and because I find that they have a talent that touches me more. It’s stupid to “gender” but here it is, I am lucky to be surrounded by wonderful women and they give off an emotion that touches me much more than anyone!
It shows in your programming….
I pay close attention to this. When we created this medium with Chris, I didn’t want it to be a show where we invite a variety of people. I would like us to really invite the whole world to this show, that everyone can find their way around and that we, above all, can feed off of that. From Eddy de Preto to Hoshi to Youssoufa, to Medina, Pomme. Everyone has something unique, unique to tell. And I think it would be a shame to get rid of that and very easily invite people that we have already seen for 40 years. And I have had enough.
Do you have other album or program projects?
From September, I will host a weekly program on RTL 2 which will be called Lightning and in which I will invite the artists to talk about their musical thunder. And with C. Cole (with whom I do everything!), We are working on a rock album project where we only invite people who are “rock’n’roll” in our eyes. “Rock” is a style of music, but “rock ‘n’ roll” is an attitude. There are a lot of characters in the history of music who have been very “rock’n’roll” without being. Diam’s, for example, for me was rock’n’roll, like Bob Marley who played Reggae. And so on this album we invite a lot of rappers. It should be released at the end of the year or early 2022 because we really take time. We do like my solo album Phantom : it’s craftsmanship, we polish each song for a long time because we want to be able to listen to them again in 15 years and tell ourselves that it hasn’t aged.