You took your stage name from a song by David Bowie, who worked with Lou Reed for the creation of Transformer in 1972. How did you discover this record?
I first came to it in high school, but not through a hit song like “Walk on the Wild Side”. Discovering Bowie at that time meant entering an ecosystem. The name of Lou Reed quickly reached me, and it was a revelation. I went to class listening to this album on my iPod, already filled to the brim! In any case, my first experience with Transformer took place outside of my family. I kept running into it over time, especially in films. The Velvet Underground, which came before Lou Reed’s solo career, I only discovered later. Transformer was a totemic album in my teenage life. When I was asked to cover it live, I knew all the songs already. Thanks to this album and others like it, I started working on my English as a teenager by complimenting my own translations with those found online in order to better experience those lyrics and images.
Lou Reed has a unique way of singing, halfway between speaking and singing…
That’s what makes covering this album challenging. Lou Reed writes for himself; to sing his songs, you have to consider his way of saying words, that unflappability of his. There’s something personal in the way he’ll tell a story, with beautiful melodies which sometimes seem to drift away from him, as if he was no longer there! We made sure to feel Lou Reed with us throughout the creative process, his ghostlike presence… And then there’s the glam rock period, the freedom of the lyrics, the avant-garde nature of the songs. Those are “themes” that move me; those songs could come out today and be just as successful. The influence of glam rock is immense, across all generations.
Why did you choose to cover this album with only a piano-and-voice, or guitar-and-voice, set up?
With pianist Vincent Thorel, we explored those songs as a duo. From the first session, we realised how perfect those songs were, born from the meeting of Lou Reed and David Bowie. They’re so well written! There’s no need to add instruments. Our collaboration grew from there, beyond the sumptuous original arrangements. Our stripped-down version works well, and holds up throughout the concert. We had to let go to feel those songs without plagiarising or mimicking their codes. To embody them with simple, spontaneous gestures, with a different way of being on stage. What I love above this album is its attention to detail. I didn’t live through the 1970s, but this record tells the story of an era—with its clear lyrics and metaphors, with the relationships it explores, there’s something very beautiful, a real moment of life that overcomes the darkness of Lou Reed’s world. And it’s so rock’n’roll!
Interview conducted by Marc Blanchet and translated into English by Gaël Schmidt-Cléach