Are you ready to meet the young and talented French musician Thibaud Vanhooland?
Songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist musician, started his music career at the age of 4 by taking trumpet lessons. Afterwards playing bass in bands such as Elephanz, Rhum for Pauline and Pégase in France, he started his solo career under the name Voyou.
We had an amazing chat with Voyou, about his music journey and future plans. At this point, let me announce to those concerned that he is very eager to give a concert in Istanbul :)
How are you? What are you dealing with these days?
Hi guys, I’m fine! Just finished the first part of my tour with festivals in France, Europe and Canada, and now finishing a new record in studio, and then I’m gonna take some holidays at least !
As we know you were interested in music at a young age, and took some trumpet lessons. Then you joined some bands as a bass player. Can you please tell us how did this musical journey start and is it going on the way just as you want?
I started to play trumpet really young and then started to learn more instruments, bass, but also guitar, piano and drums. Recently I also learned the trombone, clarinet and flute. I spent so many years being musician for others and being frustrated of not having the final word on the music, I think I needed to be able to master everything on my music. Being able to record all the instrument to be the closest possible of what I have in mind.
How and why did you choose the moniker "Voyou" ?
I’ve always been bad with technologies, and i never understood how to put music on my iPhone with iTunes, but I wanted to put my music on it to be able to listen my demos while walking down the street. So I created a soundcloud page and randomly named it Voyou. Then I kept it.
What are the pros and cons to live in France as a musician?
Pros and cons, is a really long debate to have! In France we have this really nice system called « intermittence » witch helps musicians get payed even when they are not on tour. This is really confortable, but also enclose a little bit musiciens, cause if you want to be in this system you need to do music that actually can play in certain kind of venues. Also French industry is a lot of money and exposition for mainstream music and less and less for indie music, so sometimes it feels exhausting to try doing always good music, not taking the easy way of getting into the boxes of mainstream music.
But also we have quite a crazy great heritage of good music and a lot of musiciens releasing super cool albums so at the end I feel super lucky.
Have you ever visited Istanbul before? Is there any possibility for you to give a concert here?
I’ve never been there but I’d love too so much. I’ve discovered a lot of city’s and country being on tour, and I secretly hope to be booked here to take some time in the city to finally discover it !
And which bands/musicians are you listening on these days?
I have a lot of old records at home of Turkish music, most of it is psychedelic music from the end of 70’s and vege Ning of 80’s, this is one of the reason I want to discover this country, I want to spend some time in record shops and in venues to discover more bands and artists of the new generation.
Your first album released in 2019 and the last one early this year. How do you think your musical sense evolved or changed among those years?
I think I slowly replaced all the electronic materials with real instruments. Between the two albums I also made an instrumental album that was a perfect playground of experimentation, looking for new textures and ways to arrange the music. Also I think now I am more precise on my lyrics and on how to make all the instruments communicate without bothering each others. But still a lot to learn, that’s what is fun !
And at your last single "Hypra-Sensorial", you collaborated with Yuksek and Paula. How did this project come out?
Yuksek and I love eachother’s music, and we are good friends. We met in a super cool countryside hotel call « Le Barn » in France. One day he called me to ask me If I wanted to make a song with him for his album, I instantly accepted, and we met at Le Barn, where we did the song in just one day.
He started with building a rythmic inspired by some music we love, and then i recorded a bass line and guitar, then I found themes with trumpets and put some harmony on it. He produced it, I found a melody for the voices, we recorded it and we had a version of the song at the end of the day. Later we met in Paris and decided to call Paula, super cool Franco Brazilian singer who sings in PPJ, a band I love. We asked her to write something in Portuguese on my melodies, and we sang it together, that was a really fun studio moment, we were dancing, laughing and screaming dumb things on the microphone, yuksek used all this material to make the impression of a huge party with a lot of people, like a big carnaval.
Can you recall your first major breakthrough in your career? How did it make you feel?
I think the big shows in your city are always moments where you realise what you’ve achieved, before that I didn’t really realise so I couldn’t name one breakthrough. Release an album is always something, and I think with this new album, and being on tour playing in full venues makes me realise that I maybe had some breakthrough I didn’t realised i had. I’m just having a lot of fun doing music and also searching for new things to bring to my music.
What do you enjoy the most about performing live concerts?
I enjoy being able to transform everything, to make things evolve shows after shows. I have a wonderful musicians team with me on stage and we don’t depend on computers or backing tracks so we can do whatever we want. I love that every show can be different. And of course the energy between us and the audience.
Have you faced any challenges in your career, and how did you overcome them?
I think everything is a challenge, composing or writing for other people for example is alway a huge challenge. To write good songs, that can touch people is always a challenge, as being coherent in everything you create. it’s also really satisfying when you make something that actually has sense, for you first, and then for the others. that’s why we continue to compose song I guess, to be alway moving, to understand things about ourselves and others.
Is there anything that you are so passionate about except music?
A lot of things yes, I love all kinds of art, I spend so much time watching movies or in museums, also I love discovering new cities, landscapes and cultures.
What are your plans for the near future? What's on your agenda?
I have some studio time to finish an EP, and then some holidays, till end of august, then I’ll go on the road again and release some new songs.
Thank you very much, is there anything that you want to add?
Hope to see you really soon guys :)
Yorumlar
Yorum Gönder