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Robert Lelievre - Interview - February 25th, 1970
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Robert Lelievre - Interview - February 25th, 1970
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The following Robert Lelievre interview was conducted on February 25th, 1970. It was recorded in the Wifos studio while Pan were recording their debut album. The interview was transcribed to French, then translated into English from an audio recording kindly provided by Claus Rasmussen. The roughly 5-minute audio recording is also featured below. Thanks to Claus for the interview, and Jeanette & Frédéric from GAF for transcribing and translating this piece for me.
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INTERVIEWER: What does recording an album signify for you Robert?
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ROBERT: "It’s recording a piece of your life on it, a big piece of your life."
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INTERVIEWER: What does recording an album signify for you Robert?
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ROBERT: "It’s a piece of your life, a piece of your experiences, your memories, your hopes, your dreams."
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INTERVIEWER: And compared to, for example, a concert that is given for the public?
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ROBERT: "With a concert it’s something far more real, an enormous amount of problems; technical problems, communication problems, problems of… an enormous amount of problems, well a lot more problems for a concert than to record an album. For an album you can take your time, you can think whereas with a concert it’s a lot more, well, it has to be a lot more spontaneous."
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INTERVIEWER: Yes, but with an album there are technical problems.
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ROBERT: "There are technical problems for everything. Every time we try to express ourselves or each time that we try to say something there is a technical problem, there is a technical problem for talking, technical problem for recording, a technical problem for playing, in fact just about everything consists of nothing but technical problems. What counts is managing to dominate this technicality, in English they say, “Master technique” and then at that moment obtaining the freedom of expression."
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INTERVIEWER: Yes, how do you start to produce an album?
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ROBERT: "I believe that to begin the production of an album you have to forget many things, you have to start simply, to be mentally and physically relaxed, start with the ABC of music. It’s always the same, the big mistake is to try to place everything at the same time, at the beginning and what counts is really…I believe you have to forget a lot. By rethinking about things, re feeling all those things we have lived before."
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INTERVIEWER: What did you forget for this production?
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ROBERT: "I tried to forget all those problems I had before, tried to forget the surrounding world, tried to forget all the craziness existing around a studio, a studio is a strange place, you leave the world a little, the world of cars, the world of factories, the screaming world to enter into a place where you should make something pretty, something beautiful, something that makes people dream more, a little happier."
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INTERVIEWER: If you had to compare this album with others you have done?
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ROBERT: "There is no comparison, it’s unique, it’s another type of music entirely. It’s a group project; therefore you can’t really make comparisons. I made an album with Cy and Maia that wasn’t a group project, it was more of a cabaret work, it was far more detailed, I mean far more intricately worked in some ways but on the other hand it lacked a naturalness, whereas now it’s far more spontaneous, far younger in spirit."
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INTERVIEWER: And the album that you made in England?
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ROBERT: "That is my album, it’s the one that I made alone and I hope that one day it’ll be released. I like it for certain things but in the end it can’t be compared to what we’re doing now. It’s…Making an album alone is a sort of ego-trip, it’s entirely different, you have to see that from another angle, it’s very enriching but also very revealing."
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