My Career Was Saved by the Internet!: The Louis Phillippe Interview

The new CD by Louis Philippe aka Philippe Auclair, who has released albums since 1983, sounds like an elegant and poetic breath. If you like Brian Wilson, Chanson, Easy Listening, a touch of Jazz and suberb harmony vocals you will love this frenchman. In the interview, he talks about angry songs, his England, record labels and his ongoing love for the swedish popband Eggstone.

Robert Pally: You seem to be very disillusioned about the music industry. What excactly happended?

Louis Philippe: Nothing "happened", it's more of an incremental process. A sedimentationof unhappy experiences, which many independent artists will be familiar
with. There is a tendency within the media to portray independent labels
(with whom I've spent most of the 20 years of my career) as the "good
guys", as opposed to the baddies, ie the multinational corporations
which do not care a hoot about artistic integrity and the like. The
truth is somewhat different; you'll find many top guys in the indie
business, but very few who account their artists properly, or are
willing to risk anything to promote them as they should. The means are
different, the resources too, but the agenda - no, not any more. Keep in
mind that my emergence more or less coincided with the decline of the
labels which had made the 1977-1984 period so exciting to live through,
and the total collapse of independent retailers. Indies were forced into
a corner and, disastrously, decided they could only survive by
surrendering their one redeeming quality: imagination. People like me,
who are hard to categorise, and do not have an obviously commercial
profile, have been sidelined regardless of their merit - or potential.
It's just a fact I've learned to live with. However, things have
changed, a lot. The industry as I knew it is dead, and new channels are
emerging, thanks to the Internet. One problem remains, though: indies
have to clean up their act. I could, but will not (no need to settle
arguments here), name at least half a dozen indies which have royally
screwed me over the years. The only modus vivendi for an independent
artist today is to be the sole master of his/her catalogue, as Lambchop
has done so successfully. And this is the path I've taken now, working
with a small number of properly-run independent companies which I trust.
Note the distinction: with, and not for.

Robert Pally: Despite of that you still manage to write very peaceful and elegant music on your new album "The Wonder of it All". How come?

Louis Philippe: Anger can be a source of inspiration. Frustration even more so. But anger at the music industry? Doubt it. My songs do not come to life because of a personal agenda, but out of necessity; they demand to be as they are, and it so happened that those I've written over the last couple of years were reaching for a different zone; I yearn for peace,
and believe that one of music's highest virtues is to induce a sense of
presence within the moment, which in itself is a bringer of peace. As to
elegance, I don't know if I can comment on that. I'm a very careful
midwife to my songs. This care comes across as a certain sense of what I'd call dignity - by all means, put your heart on the table, show
yourself naked - but, at all times, strive for balance, reach out for
whatever beauty there can be.

Robert Pally: How would an angry song by Louis Philippe sound?

Louis Philippe: "An American Friend" (on "Jean Renoir") is an angry song; so are many of
my love songs, such as "Jealous", or "Jackie Girl"; so you know what an
angry Louis sounds like...but mine is not the kind of voice that sings
the blues, not that kind of blues anyway. I'd sound pathetic if I rolled
on the floor, screaming. The process of writing, and singing, is so
cathartic anyway that I have serious misgivings about "angry" artists. I
thoroughly detest Mark E. Smith, for example - a nasty phoney, in my
opinion. The Manic Street Preachers make me laugh when they put on their furious suits and hammer out "angry" slogans. I could go on. There are exceptions, of course, like Cathal Coughlan, who transforms his turmoil
into a beautiful beast, but not by choice, by necessity. My necessity is
of a different kind. There should never be any formula at work.

Robert Pally: You recently had health problems. What was it?

Louis Philippe: Don't want to go into too much detail, if you excuse me. I'll just say I've suffered from a "mystery" neurological condition for three years which, at one point, made it impossible for me to play the piano. Things have evened out a bit since then, but are still pretty ropey. Could be worse, is what I tell myself.

Robert Pally: Out of fianciall reasons you did not use any strings or brass on "The wonder of it all". How much that chance your approach to write songs?

Louis Philippe: Recording my albums on shoestring budgets has taught me how to make the most of what was at my disposal and, frankly, not being able to call on
as many extra musicians as on previous albums hasn't hampered me at all this time round. It is a "good thing" to work within constraints; it
concentrates the mind wonderfully, as Dr. Johnson said in a rather
different context. A happy consequence of this has been that I've had to focus on the quality of the vocals as never before, with, I believe, very happy results. As to the songs, it's quite simple: I never write
one with a paricular formation in mind. The arrangements are part of the writing process, not some operation that is conducted afterwards. In this particular case, it means that a couple of outstanding tracks never got past the demo stage, because I knew I wouldn't be able to record them as I heard them in my head. They'll have to wait for more
prosperous times!

Robert Pally: What surroundings do you need to write songs?

Louis Philippe: It could be anywhere. In the street, often. The beat of your steps on the pavement can trigger a line...I remember writing "Venus" (on "Jackie Girl") on a scooter on a Greek island. It all came in a spurt, and I kept driving until the thing had congealed in my mind. However, most of my songs are written at home, in the confines of my music room (which doubles as a dining room), at the piano, pencil and paper to the ready. I guess that silent surroundings help, but that's not very original, is it? What's more original is that I once started a tune while lying
inside a Catscan machine. So it could be anywhere, really - except in the studio.

Robert Pally: What structures do you follow when you write songs?

Louis Philippe: None that I can think of. It just "comes out". Then come the fiddling about, the chord substitutions, the counterpoint...A song like "My England", for example, took two and a half years to finish. Not that I sweated on it; for some reason, the original structure didn't work - too convoluted, too oblique...so I left the thing go to sleep in a drawer. Then, one evening, I just hit on a solution: remove all the unnecessary harmonic trickery from the verse, and replace it with a very simple progression around A minor: the more ornate a tune is, the clearer the arrangement should be - and reciprocally. As soon as I'd hit on that, it all flowed beautifully. However, a sense of structure is a must-have quality for a decent songwriter; it can be honed though experience and practice, sure, but there has to be a feeling for organicity from the beginning. You cannot build a song like a child makes a house with blocks. It has to grow from within; the craft consists in knowing how to prune the plant, so that it comes in full bloom. I don't use the word "prune" lightly: one of the hardest things for any writer/composer is how to get rid of everything and anything that is not absolutely essential within a particular piece of work. On "The Wonder Of IT All", my engineer Ken Brake and I spent as much time removing parts than dubbing new ones. One of the reasons why I am so proud of this new record is that we were able - and brave enough - to pare many tracks to the bare minimum, which in this case, also happens to be the maximum.

Robert Pally: "The Wonder of it All" was financed by fans. How did that come about?

Louis Philippe: I didn't have the money, simple as that. Mute Song, my esteemed publisher, had come to the rescue for the previous album, "My Favourite Part of You". But this time round, I had no choice other than try my luck, see if there were enough fans around who'd be willing to subscribe to the record to enable me to cover the (modest) recording budget. Fortunately, there were. Angels came to my rescue. There could have been no alternative; I was sick and tired of having to beg record companies, and sick and tired of the unbalanced relationship that resulted of this. My career was saved by the Internet!

Robert Pally: What does "Your England" ("My england") look like?

Louis Philippe: Not quite as it looks in the song, which is told from the point of view of a disillusioned (and quite sarcastic, if you listen carefully) exile, which I am most definitely not. I have made my home here, and cannot even contemplate the thought of ever going back to "my" country. There are many things I yearn for here; a certain sense of Englishness
perhaps, which is ever more diluted by the passage of time. You'll find
that a common trait amongst cricket fanatics, of which I am one. I
sometimes despair of "my" England, of its politics, of its materialism,
of its thuggishness. But everyone longs for Arcadia, and mine lies
somewhere here, I am sure.

Robert Pally: What is "The wonder of it all" all about?

Louis Philippe: A big "yes" to life, a capacity to be born again. The main characters of the song were engaged once, and meet many years later - what could have been, what if...? It's a song written in the conditional, with this all important proviso: what remains is a sense of wonder that it could have been, rather than the regret it hadn't.

Robert Pally: What inspired the song "A wiser fool"?

Louis Philippe: Two women I have loved and still do. A sense of loss and the recognition that there was still love in life's ordinary prose. That's quite enough of that.

Robert Pally: How would the ideal world for an artist like you look like?

Louis Philippe: I have no vision of an "ideal" world; I used to, I'm sure; it had something to do with loving, and especially being loved. But the present consumes all: we are accidental beings, let's accept it, let's embrace it. I have stopped believing in anything resembling happiness, as in - a constant state of harmony within and without oneself. I have hopes, moments of elation, aspirations, and fears, and a profound sense of disenchantment. My aims are modest; gain a modicum of recognition for what I have achieved, and the way I have achieved it, carry on writing and singing for as long as I can. But no, much as it surprises me, I have no vision of an "ideal" world for an artist. I often say I am part
of a resistance movement within (a loose word) pop music; the values I
stand for go against what I see around me; and the little strength I
have stems from this sense that I have to fight. If I didn't have to, I
might lose the very source of the energy that drives me forward.

Robert Pally: How is your love for Eggstone doing?

Louis Philippe: Still as strong as ever, and tinged with fury that Eggstone has been
silenced, after having been cannibalised by many lesser talents. Hardly a week goes by without my playing "Vive La Difference". This kind of love doesn't fade with time.

"The wonder of it all" is available
through www.louisphilippe.co.uk

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