[Interview] Fire! Chatterton: passion, love and poetry

We no longer present the group Fire! Insulating tape. UFO group in the French variety, Fire! Chatterton has managed to establish itself and find its audience since its debut in 2012. Between controlled music, sold-out tours and a sense of showmanship, Feu! Chatterton became the band to watch. On the occasion of the resumption of their tour "L'Oiseleur Tour", JustFocus met the band. We settle in, and we enjoy! 

We expected a dedicated press area when we arrived. But it was finally in front of a coffee at the Carreau du Temple bar in Paris that the group was waiting for us. Like this meeting, Fire! Chatterton shines with its simplicity and good humor. 

Hello all 4! (Raphaël de Pressigny, the drummer, was absent that day). For people who might not know you… How could you define Fire! Insulating tape? 

The group then launches several definitions, each different from each other.

Arthur : [laughs] It's already a complex question!

Clément : I think it's the right synthesis between Gainsbourg, Radiohead, Trenet and … Daft Punk! 

Arthur : It's not pretentious! [laughs] It's a bridge. A bridge between Gainsbourg and Radiohead yes. 

Sebastien : So for you the right synthesis of the word that was missing for the right synthesis was bridge?

Clément : Let's say it's a drawbridge between Gainsbourg and Radiohead then. 

Drawbridge then, is it okay with you? 

Antoine : Come on, sold! 

About your second album L'Oiseleur (released last March). How was he received? 

Arthur : It's deadly! The tour was sold out, in venues of more than 1500 people. It's a second album, so everyone was saying: "yes, a second album is the most complex". The first one having worked, it is a fear that we had. Are we going to displease? It's a feeling that needs to be chased away. You have to be ready to disappoint if you have to. The five of us listen to each other, and we are first guided by the pleasure we have in finding something together, it is an enjoyment, the departure of something.

"People who love what we do are waiting to be surprised."

It's a demanding album, which we made with a lot of intransigence, so we wondered how it was going to be received. Luckily, the audience was there. And in addition to being there, what gives us a lot of strength is that people who love what we do are waiting for us to surprise them. So they are ready to fall into the unknown, and it's a chance for a musician, to know that you can explore without giving something that was already there to the audience, surprise. 

As a result, we saw some changes in terms of experimentation, as you said. Was it risky to win back an audience? 

Sébastien : The album was very well received in the end, it shows by the filling of the rooms, the filling of the Zenith of Paris next January.

Clément : In addition there have been fans and new fans who arrive. 

Sébastien : Even if yes indeed the album was different. Not so different because it's still an album of rock songs, quite poetic lyrics. But our fans are in there, and we are quite happy to see that we can take them on different paths and that they continue to come to see us, buy the records… 

Arthur : There is something that remains, I believe in spite of ourselves, it is a way of addressing through our songs. And this address is an intimacy. We tell something intimate, whether with grandiloquence, lightness, or even with rhythm. People found that. But we did not ask ourselves this question of whether we were going to win back the public or not. If you start thinking, "I can't disappoint the fans," you're screwed. And we like to have this connection with them when we meet them in concert. 

It is easy to imagine that the reaction of a festival audience is different than that of one of your indoor concerts? 

Arthur : For the festival tour, it was big stages and people are not necessarily there for you. It's another challenge to go in front of an audience that doesn't know you. 

Sébastien : That's another good surprise. With the predominance of rap, the fact of finding ourselves this year, much more than two years ago, with artists who are more distant from you than the more classical, more rock song, we had the impression of having more of our place. We did a few sets, a few parties with rappers too, which confirmed our impression. And that we are capable, that our audience is still there, and that with songs like Souvenir, which are progressive ballads, the audience can be captured by the music. So yes, we felt like we had our place in the festival. 

We were talking about it a little earlier, your first Zenith of Paris, it's coming soon! 

Sébastien : It will be a slightly different concert… We're not going to reveal too many surprises now, but I think it's going to be really beautiful. We are building this date, but we can not say more! 

Recently, you participated in the "Sound Recreations" of CultureBox (to watch here), which had the principle of letting fans make your music with the basis of a simple rhythm. This show gave birth to one of your last titles Zoé. Can it take a direction for your way of creating, for example on a third album? 

The group, all together : Oh, good question, we had never thought about it! 

Clément : It's true that with the "Sound Recreations", it was quite fluid to create a piece. It was not easy though, because we received more than 500 texts. 

Arthur : That's what was good, as it was well edited by CultureBox, we received a lot of things. And we were very flattered! The people who listen to you and love what you do don't just listen, but it makes them want to do, to create. It's quite beautiful. At first we accepted this challenge, but we were worried. Because it doesn't look like us, usually we isolate ourselves, we put all five of us, and no one enters.

"The people who listen to you and love what you do don't just listen, but it makes them want to do, to create."

Luckily, it worked this time, maybe it could work for an album. But we would have to take a year, we do one a month to have something really conceptualized. Because we hate to release something that we haven't had time to mature. And for us, it's a criterion this maturity for the validity of a song. So we learned to do things differently, which is good too! 

Sébastien : Well, what happened was that we still spent a lot of time in the studio behind to finish the song. 

Arthur : It's a song that belongs to the public and to us, and we're proud of it! We have assembled texts by several people who tell a coherent story. That's what gives a certain lightness in the task, is that it's not our song, it's a multi-handed song. It gives you new inspirations. 

As a result, how can we manage to make songs with different universes coexist in concert? 

Clement : It's always an equation with ten or fifteen unknowns… [laughs]. No seriously, the question of setlists is always a debate even an hour before going on stage. And that's always something super important. Because me, for example, I have a very bad sense of setlist…

Antoine : …Me too.

Arthur : He admits it! [laughs]

Clement : While Sébastien and Arthur manage. I know that, and I also know that the debate on the order of the songs, which are done without me suddenly, is something that will be very important on stage. Well, of course, there are assemblages of songs that we know very well will work. But choosing the songs is very difficult. What is happening, what are the movements to be coordinated… It is a mysterious exercise. 

Sébastien : It's like a show. There is a kind of dramaturgy, an order. There are already questions of texts, where you cannot chain two titles whose texts are opposite. But there's also the rhythm. 

Arthur : We really take special care to make sure that a concert is not just a succession of songs. It's a show. It's essential. We ourselves try to live from beginning to end a story. This is not a playlist. In our universe there are ballads like very rhythmic songs so it's really clever. 

Sébastien : We found our rhythm this summer in the festival and we realized that there was only one formula. The festival is ten or even fifteen thousand people, before or after very powerful artists like Vald or NTM. A powerful order had been found at Landerneau that worked. It's first up to us, the five members of the group, to feel if it works. And then you trust the sixth person, the audience. They are the ones who will tell you if it works or not. 

fire! Chatterton will resume its concert tour from this Thursday, September 20 at the Avant Seine in Colombes. And as mentioned, the band will play for the first time at the Zenith in Paris on January 24, 2019. And we are already looking forward to seeing them perform on such a stage!