Sometimes mocked, often on the bill at festivals, always determined, the French song group Trois Cafés gourmands begins its latest tour with Mylène, their singer, who is leaving for a solo project. For 20 minutes, Jérémy, one of the founding members, looks back on their ten years of an atypical career. They are in concert this Thursday in La Ciotat, in Bouches-du-Rhône.
The announcement of this separation was widely reported and commented on, did that surprise you?
What we saw especially this year while touring the festivals was that people were telling us: “don’t stop, keep going, we still want to hear you”. And that’s extremely pleasing and it played a role in our decision to continue together with Sébastien. It will be another story, it will be different.
How do you replace a singer?
(Laughter). Good question. Because we don’t have the answer yet. What is certain is that the two of us will start again to write a new album. Sébastien has started to get started and I’m going to go back to the studio in November. Afterwards, we’ll see what’s going on with the label because contractually we still owe them an album.
What is your state of mind, after ten years of three-person concerts?
When we take stock, we have a fairly atypical journey compared to other people in the music industry. For the moment, we don’t have too much nostalgia yet because we still have around thirty dates left.
When did your careers change?
So there were several stages. The first was to put the clip To our memories on YouTube, in 2017. And then, it was in the summer of 2018, when we signed with the Play two label. That’s where we became nationally known. It took off, we made our first televisions, notably at Drucker. It’s not nothing as a first TV! Well, it was all a bit violent to tell the truth.
Because you weren’t programmed for that?
I think that no one is because it goes so fast, so high, so strong, that no one is made to experience this whirlwind. Especially since Sébastien and I had not absolutely planned an artistic career. We had completely normal professional careers. Sébastien was a mathematics teacher and I was a mechanical engineer. We made music out of passion like others play football. Music and concerts were on the weekends and we loved it. Mylène is a little different, singing has been her job for several years.
Along the way there were other separations, two musicians had left the group…
We had to make some pretty complicated decisions at that time, because we had to go on a professional tour and these two musicians decided not to follow the adventure with us. They had other plans, including family constraints. They decided to leave, trying to take advantage of the situation and attempted legal action which was unsuccessful.
What role could the fact that you come from Corrèze have played in your career?
So, first of all, keep your feet on the ground. Mylène left for Paris because it was more convenient but Sébastien and I stayed to live in Corrèze. Our families were very present and I think that if we had gone to Paris, success could have gone to our heads. The funny story is that everywhere we go, on TV, at festivals, there is always someone who sticks their head in and says “Ah, I’m from Corrèze too”.
You do the variety of French song, guitar singing. Do you see it as the last representatives of a genre that is less and less present?
So in view of the crowd in concerts, it’s a style of music that is not yet dead, as you say. It’s also up to us to always try to renew ourselves, to find new musicalities, new things to offer. There may be some fashion but popular music will always exist. We already made the point to Jean-Jacques Goldman a few years ago.
There may have been harsh criticism of your music, how do we react to that?
We are not interested in comments on our social networks. Social media is not the truth. What interests us is to see the public in front of us, that is the truth. We made a song that talks about it a little. But we rather wanted to talk about the people who are still there with this magnificent phrase that was whispered to us: “listen to the silences of people who say nothing”. So we’re taking the opposite view from the haters.
One of the traditions of French song is committed music. You’re not in that vein at all, why?
Indeed, we are not a committed group at all. We didn’t want to go into that area. Of course we have convictions, but when there are three of us it’s difficult to agree. We preferred to talk about moments of life. Childhood comes up quite a bit in our three albums. The only position we were able to take was the song we co-wrote with Jean-Jacques Goldman which is When ?, where we take stock of the world in which we live. The sentence is: “When?” When will the change occur? “. It’s not engaging, but we wanted to do a little inventory to raise awareness.
And what is this state of affairs like?
Ah, well he’s not happy. But if we start from the principle that this is how it is and that we can’t do anything about it, it’s damaging.
The decision to leave Mylène is unilateral. How did you receive it?
Alright. Because from the start we made a promise to each other. Promise, it’s actually a song and the title of our latest album. So we agreed from the start that if one of us wanted to leave, it would be without animosity. And that’s why we’re continuing this three-person tour. But when people gave their all, they gave their all.