Brussels-Paris-London

"At the ICP studios in Brussels, I immediately spotted the swimming pool with a guitar-mosaic floor and a gym all to myself – musicians aren’t early birds. John, the studio boss, goes all out to look after them. I got my calling wrong. They’re spoiled like royalty. The life of a recluse, work almost all the time (from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m.). Pure joy. Four-star service.

Bashung recording in the room next door. The teams meet up after sessions like at the end of mass. A luxurious cloister with multiple chapels. But one where the sharing of libations and the exchange of words conjure up army barracks rather than the Eucharist…

A world of men, of hard workers. (…) It reminded me of crewed races. Things have to go well and Captain Renaud has the gift of being loved; his charm and fragility make it possible for anything to go down well. Since Tabarly, I haven’t been anyone’s crewmember. Renaud is something else – or else, in fact, the same thing… This an old story, ancient, around twenty or so years old…"

Extract from Zoé Zoé, Femmes du mondes, 2007, Éditions Gallimard