A Quote by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
Any time an English band came to Paris we went to the concert. All the French crowds were really bad and really blase. We were the only ones wanting to have fun.
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There was never a choice to sing in English or French, that's the thing. We started a band and sang right away in English. You reproduce the thing you like, and most of the bands we liked were coming from England or the U.S. We also came to cherish the fact that there was no one in France singing in English -we were so happy Phoenix to be the first. Even if we are traitors to France, our country, which I'll never understand, because we talk about things that are very French.
The first time The Runaways played in Britain, Joan Jett wore my bullet belt onstage. The Runaways were really the first all-girl band to really strut their stuff and say, "F**k you." "Cherry Bomb" was the best song for a girl band to sing. It was just outrageous at the time. There were American families sitting on the sofa watching television going, "F**k me." It was great fun.
English is really free for me; there's no limits to the music and the imagination. And French, it's just I live in Paris, and it's really a poetic language where you can really play with words.
A lot of it was really, really fun, but at some point, things started getting weird. We didn't allow each other to breathe. We didn't really have a sense of ourselves individually. We were very insecure... We were really threatened by the thought of 'Oh my God, what if someone goes off and does something outside the band?'
It really wasn't fun any more, everything was too business-oriented. I just remember the old days when the band was really tight together, playing Eagle poker and just having a really good time while we were doing it. Towards the end, it just got too cut-throat.
I still love 'The Cure' more than almost any other band. But they were really, truly like the first band that I really loved and felt was mine, you know. At a pivotal time in my life when I was 13, 14 years old.
I really enjoy touring period! I had another band called Killing Machine, we went out on tour which was only fifteen shows & we went out in a really old motor home. That had to be the most fun. I didn't have to do radio at nine in the morning everyday. It was me & a bunch of friends. The singer was my tattoo artist. My girlfriend would fly in & we would sleep in a hammock above the bed the band were sleeping in [laughs]. I like that stuff that's really fun, I like the camping experience.
I think I'm really part of a whole generational movement in a way. I think a lot of other people since and during this time have gotten interested in writing what we can still call experimental music. It's not commercial music. And it's really a concert music, but a concert music for our time. And wanting to find the audience, because we've discovered the audience is really there. Those became really clear with Einstein on the Beach.
If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.
It's a common mistake for vacationing Americans to assume that everyone around them is French and therefore speaks no English whatsoever. [...] An experienced traveler could have told by looking at my shoes that I wasn't French. And even if I were French, it's not as if English is some mysterious tribal dialect spoken only by anthropologists and a small population of cannibals.
We have really good parents, and even though they broke up when we were little, we were still raised by two people who had really good ethics. They were never going to let us turn into Paris Hilton. I think that it wasn't really an option to become spoiled brats.
In Montreal, where I taught in 1970, I met many people. The only ones who said to me they were Canadians, were Jews. All the rest were Scotts, Irish, English, French, Swedes.
You never know what little idea or joke, what flame flickering really quickly, will become a song. That first idea, it can come any time. If it's in Spanish, you go on in Spanish. If it's in French, French. If it's in English, English. Or Portuguese. I'll try to do my best. I like Italian, though I don't speak it much.
I said that the only way I could have a band that would work in the format of my show is if the band were crap. So if I have a band they'd have to really suck.
I'm an only child, and in college, I was given a single, and then I lived with people for, like, two years but were my best friends, and we had a really fun time. And then I lived alone or with a boyfriend. I've never really had a bad roommate situation.
I don't feel French at all. That was never really a concern, and it's limiting to think that way. I think Paris is more of a playground for international designers, so I don't really feel French. And I don't really want to feel French.
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