Get CharlElie’s answer

• Where does your passion for travelling and meeting people come from? (from Patrick Raffier)

I don’t know. My parents were not real adventurers, but they were used to travel every year in a different country. I dreamed of the world, staring at the photos that my mother used to take with her Kodak camera. Also, it might come from the « beat » culture of the road. Bob Dylan (and then Kerouac that I read afterward) gave me that sense of absolute freedom. Nothing to win, nothing to lose… Maybe, it comes from a certain desire to make myself surprised by the unexpected.

I have long wanted to understand what was happening, and why people react like this or like that.

We do not see the game the same way when you’re in the stands or when you’re on the field. When you travel the codes change, the rules are different, the laws, the value given to things is different in each country.

In another pragmatic way, you disorder yourself by challenging your perception: new flavors, new recipes, new perfumes… When you’re abroad, people’s eyes and their habits are also different. When you’re elsewhere, you’re penetrated by new emotions that help to interpret your own existence.

With that being said, since I settled in New York, I don’t think I have the same craving for traveling (and I don’t have quite the same availability too). Now, the whole world passes in front of my eyes behind the windows of my gallery, or comes in for a few international words…

 

• Where do you find such strong power of creation? (from Patrick Raffier)
  

The energy comes from the pleasure I take in the act of creating Art. Inventing is drunkenness; it turns you into a turtle as we say. I don’t take it seriously. I mean… I don’t care. I know the end of something is the beginning of something else. Every creation brings you to another, because you want to correct it, and do better. There is no ending in painting, sculpture, photography, music and poetry.

It seems to me that I see things that are invisible to others, and it is my duty, my mission, my charge to share these with thw world.

As a kid, I felt that some easy obvious things for me didn’t seem that simple for others. I must express my inner under pressure precious feelings.

Can’t control it. It’s pretty tiring, but I do not grant the right to listen to the fatigue. I can’t escape it. I MUST do it. If not, I feel guilty. This comes from a moral sense of duty that has been taught. Art is useful.

 

• Do you remember the people you meet along your journeys and how do they influence your creation work? (from Patrick Raffier)

I remember some, yes. Memories and characters are like seeds in my brain, they’re the roots of any legend…I don’t have a very good memory so I keep some notes on papers, or my pocket books. Some of these people I met, eventually suggested songs or short novels, inspired by their confessions, stories or secrets.

At the same time, I don’t let them haunt me. It’s good to forget. I don’t let it freeze by nostalgia. You are fresh when you feel empty.

 

• Do you already have new melodies and songs in your mind? (from Bernard Quirici)

I always have something in mind. I cannot stop thinking, except when the TV programs drug me. As a neuroleptic or a sleeping pill, the TV takes us into trances as catalepsy. To avoid getting deeper into a viewer submission, I take notes on what people say. I have notebooks full of figures and numbers.

When I’m lonesome in my artspace, when I walk in the street, on my scooter in Paris or when I pedal my bike in New York, when I read a book or a scenario, I hear notes in my head. When I wanna hear them, then I whistle. I’m not good at that, but I like to whistle.

If I had to record a CD tomorrow, I could do it but I’ve heard of a market asphyxiation, a media suffocation, caused by an overproduction. So now, I impose myself some vacancy. These business reasons prevent me from doing a new album tomorrow…. So I wait and I leave it so it matures as I do some other things. As Paul Audi the philosopher says:  “By a system of repentances, we are eager to erase the traces by making some other ones, which gives rise to other repentances, other corrections…etc.

 

• What about projects with other artists in the music industry? (from Bernard Quirici)

It might work, but it is rare that the two protagonists find their account. We’re lone minds, each one goes in his way.

In the obsession of the novelty, some crazy artistic directors would love to associate humans and horses, women and fishes, to give a Centaur or a siren. They say that a certain  « voyeur » audience is fond of duets. But for me, only rare associations between two artists work. That is when we come to a junction with an equal power of seduction. Otherwise these forced marriages sound wrong, like absurd genetic transplants, consequence of mad scientists expectations… have you watched the movie of John Frankenheimer: The Island of Doctor Moreau?

Do you believe that miscegenation would tend to create the ideal work?

I’m not a fan of duets. That turns quickly into a battle. In addition to this, it takes time to convince managers, the entourage and the planets around the star…

 

• I love all of your albums and shows, and every time you come out with something new, I am already looking forward to the next one. I heard the Fort Reveur Tour was exceptionally good, but unfortunately I was not able to attend any of the concerts. Is there a live DVD or CD expected for the Fort Reveur Tour? (from Alain Lande)

Eight cameras covered the Fort Reveur Tour Show we played in July 2011 in Nancy. It’s a good night that deserves to be released on DVD. It has been mixed and it is finished. I was told that this should be broadcasted on television, I was delighted, but nothing happened… now I regret it. I do not understand why there are no plans for it? Perhaps, because the DVD market is in crisis…

Many of my shows were recorded on video, but none of them were ever released on DVD. I’m not an enough popular artist. Apparently, my work doesn’t concern the mass audience…

• Check out more photos: Live concert photos of CharlElie by Nicolas Gaire

 

CharlElie, April 10th, 2012 – from Paris, France.

April 11, 2012 | Categories: Get his answer | Tags: absolute freedom, beat culture, cd, creativity, duets, DVD, interviews, kodak camera, Live, shows, travel, travels, videos | 1 Comment »