The inteview with Geoffroy was done during year 2005.
:: Could you bring some light on a person behind DERNIERE VOLONTE? Who are you? Where are you from? For how long do you create music?
DERNIERE VOLONTE is only me. I am the core of this concept, even if Pierre's work makes more and more part of it.
I come from the center of France, and now I live near Paris. I started and baptized my music DERNIERE VOLONTE in 1994. I play music, or should I say "I create sounds" for more than 10 years. I already feel so old ! (-:
:: Do you have any musical training? Have you ever had any musical projects in the past, before DV?
I have no musical training at all. I just learnt by myself, playing with a synthesizer's keyboard and trying to obtain some sounds. Sometimes, I wish I would have learnt and I regret this lack. But in an other hand, DERNIERE VOLONTE wouldn't have existed that way and would have been different.
Before DERNIERE VOLONTE, I didn't do anything interested. Only many kinds of musical experiments.
:: Personally I believe that your 2CD compilation is the best military pop release of the last year. But what do you consider your best work so far?
Thanks for these nice words ! To answer to your question, I would say that Les blessures de l'ombre is the more mature work I've done. But unfortunately it's not the better produced one.
Things must change, so tomorrow will be totally different. My work must be a constant evolution of research and satisfaction. Concerning my next album, I want to obtain the best and be totally satisfied. So, I have to work hard.
:: Do you have any favorites among your own tracks? Are there any 'most important' ones... 'milestones' of your musical career?
Every song is a new step in my DV's history. I never thought that DV was a " perfect formula " like other bands sometimes do. And I know that I have to keep on working. Every part of my work makes me doubt. I hate doing the same things again and again. I need to do sometnig new. The most important steps of my work were born at the end of important productions, from Obeir et mourir to Commemoration.
:: Almost all my friends who have visited Paris and France agree, that contemporary Paris does not have anything "French" at all, even people who populate it are mostly blacks and colors. They say, that modern Paris does not differ a lot from any other big European city. I do not know what is going on in small French towns, but Paris seems to be a part of global village. At the same when I listen to your music I feel that DV is 100% pure French band and your music awake feelings I associate only with France. And it's not because you sing in French. I have never been in France and - shame on me! - I don't know much about traditional French music. What do you think about your own music if we compare it with above mentioned traditional French music? Does French musical tradition affect you somehow or your music is creature of your own mind and you do not feel any pressure from your cultural environment?
Your friends are right when they describe a city without soul and without value.
There are still rare places where you can feel the French spirit. Every European city look the same, it's true.
About France, the most important problem is the death of small villages. The economical activity disappeared in the country because of people's exodus to towns that started 30 years ago. When I was young, I knew the life there was in small villages and I have wonderful memories of this period. Maybe I try to materialize these memories with my music. You know, when I started singing, the only attacks I encounter were from my own country ! I was upset to see that people don't understand what they're listening to. As if everything should be asepticized.
And, as an answer to your question : yes, I feel affected by this tradition and environment. And that is why DV is a very personal project.
:: Music of DV deals with patriotism, honor and, in the end, war. All these matters do not belong to modern world. So why do you write music about - almost - obsolete subjects?
I follow my states of mind when I'm writing, but I don't analyze them. I don't think I use abstracted words. I do believe in those values. Talking about honor is not obsolete, it's still a contemporary value. I often hear people talking about honor but never live according to this.
It's the same for patriotism : this is not a political deviance, this is only an attachment to our roots. Honor, patriotism, and war are still current and make part of our contemporary time.
:: Creating of "military" music for you is a way to escape from ugly reality or it's a way to awake people and remind them about real values? Is there a message in your music?
I create music because I need it. There're no message in my writings. I'm musicien, not theologist. Trying to express a message is useless because it wouldn't have been correctly understood by the audience.
I only try to express through my military image that in this world we have no other choice that fighting for our lives in an hostile land. For ages, men are used to fight, that's what I try to express.
:: Somehow this question continues the previous one. What do you expect from your listeners? Do you want them only enjoy music of DV, or you expect from them something more?
I don't really thing about it. I just hope they are pleased to listen to my music. That's the most important ! All the rest is only words…
I just try to create an emotion with a moving music. Drawing lands in the mind, open the heart of those who wants to listen to me through an unique emotion. That's why I'm working. This is DERNIERE VOLONTE's will.
:: I try not to ask musicians about their music, cuz I think that people should not "explain" Art. But how much your own view on DV music differs from views of your listeners and critics? Do you see that people understand everything you wanted to say or there is a misunderstanding in some way?
Express an emotion through a music is a difficult thing. You can easily play happy things but I don't think the audience feel the same than I do. For example in the song " Si… " , the atmosphere isn't always correctly understood. Of course, this is first a problem of our difference of language. " Si… " is probably the most dramatic song I've ever written. Unfortunatly, very few people noticed this.
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