What is the history between Neil Young’s Harvest and your group, La Maison Tellier?
Guitarist Sébastien Miel (“Raoul Tellier”), with whom I co-founded La Maison Tellier, grew up surrounded by vinyl records at home, and became a true fan of this album over time. As for me, I only discovered Neil Young’s album as a teenager. While my peers were listening to Depeche Mode, Mano Negra, or Metallica, I discovered folk music: Johnny Cash, old Leonard Cohen albums… and Neil Young. He was a major influence on our group. Covering his masterpiece, Harvest, was an obvious choice. We’d done a few covers, but never all at once. If we are a folk group, the main difference is that we don’t have a harmonica player, but a trumpeter instead! And then there is the very substance of these songs, of this record. That slight breath before the opener, “Out on the Weekend”, it’s like seeing the wallpaper of our childhood kitchen. Something we no longer notice over time, even though it’s an essential part of our environment…
How did you approach this record and its rather composite nature?
It is a composite record indeed, but paradoxically, it’s also exceptionally simple. None of the tracks was recorded in a legendary studio. “Words (Between the Lines of Age)” was recorded live, two others songs were recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. Through its absolute coherence, it tells the story of the end of the 1960s, both as drug comedown and as sunset. It even openly explores drug addiction in “The Needle and the Damage Done”. We can listen to it thinking: “Back in 1972, that was life.” These are not catchy songs, there are tears in his voice. It doesn’t matter if the lyrics aren’t as important as those of Bruce Springsteen or Leonard Cohen! There is in this record a feeling like you’re missing something, a melancholic dimension we feel as musicians. Perhaps some kind of wandering inherent to folk music. And aren’t we Normand cowboys from Maupassant’s country, even though we never had a ranch like Neil Young? It doesn’t matter. We wanted to get as close as possible to these unique musical compositions by opening them up to as many guests as possible, which is characteristic of both our history and the conception of this album, made out of friendship and numerous collaborations.
Interview conducted by Marc Blanchet and translated into English by Gaël Schmidt-Cléach