Laurent Garnier Interview

We talk to Laurent about his techno-meets-jazz Public Outburst project.

Laurent Garnier is one of the most-loved regulars to The End’s DJ booth, and is returning on Dec 1st for our 12th Birthday. He spent the summer of 2006 touring festivals and venues around the world with musician friends Bugge Wesseltoft, Philippe Nadaud and Benjamin Rippert, playing live sets inspired by a fusion of 1970s jazz and techno. They released Public Outburst, an album of recordings from these performances, in September so we caught up with Laurent Garnier for an interview about the tour and album.

Endclub.com: Mixing techno with a live element has been part of your shows for a while – whether it’s live sax or keyboards. But when was the first time you got all of the Public Outburst musicians together in this format?

Laurent Garnier: I started working with Philippe Nadaud a good 10 years ago – the very first track I recorded with him was ‘The Man With The Red Face’. Years ago I was booked to play at the Montreaux Jazz festival and I thought "I have to write a proper jazz track" – so I made ‘The Man With The Red Face’ for that one gig. It happened to really touch people and so I decided to record it properly. Bugge Wesseltoft has been a friend for quite a while and we’ve been doing a lot of little projects together with me DJing and him playing keyboard. We did a big tour together two years ago – me DJing and him playing live, and at the end of that tour we decided to go live properly, so last year we recorded a lot of shows together. Working with Benjamin Rippert came about when I moved to the South of France, about a year and a half ago – he lives in the village where I live now, and his brother is a very good friend of mine. Everyone was telling me "You need to have Ben playing, he’s a really talented keyboard player" and I asked him to come over one day when I was doing a remix for DJ Marky. We worked on a track called ‘Butterfly’ which is now on the album. It worked really well - at the end I said to him "So what are you doing for the next ten years?" (laughs). In general, the live shows and album have come from meeting the right people and starting to do little projects with them.

And was the intention always to make this album?

Absolutely not. The idea was the live show – going on stage and creating, building, advancing something by playing live. I wanted every night we played to be different – using some of the themes that worked the night before, but feeding off each individual night to create a new take on each track. With a track like ‘First Reactions’, now when we play it live it’s totally different to the album version because we’ve done another 20 or 30 shows since then – we’ve found new things, changed it completely. It’s the same with others on the album - ‘M Bass’ is different, ‘63’ is completely different because now the end is a reggae track. The album is a snapshot of some of the live shows we’ve done. It’s the way we were playing then at the time, and I’m happy with those versions, but I like knowing that half of the versions have completely changed now. For me, this is what live music is all about. I hate live shows which are completely rehearsed from the first minute to the last minute. If I go to see a live show twice and see exactly the same thing both nights I get bored very quickly. When people come on stage and perform, you as a punter have to feel that you’re living something special, something unique, inventive, exciting, something fresh. It’s like a DJ set – you never repeat yourself – you have the same records but you play them in a completely different order and each night the vibe is different.

What was the process by which you created the new tracks? Was it solely you guiding the direction, or did everyone contribute elements?

I directed them all, but if you take a track like ‘63’ or ‘M Bass’, where there is a proper jazz theme, those were created during rehearsal. When we were working on the track I said "I’d love to get a jazz theme in here", so Benjamin started to play something, I was saying "change the 4th note, and the 5th, change this rhythm" – so in the end we built these bits together.

It’s quite a different direction for someone who most people recognise as a techno artist - what prompted the change in style?

Techno has always been about freedom, in the beginning techno never had rules, it’s never been about boundaries. So for me, there’s no difference between what I do and what I hear in minimal German techno, what I hear with the Underground Resistance electro records at the moment, and in some of the more electronica non-danceable music – for me it’s all the same, it’s all techno music. There’s a lot of different styles of making music in techno, but we’re all working towards the same purpose, which is making music we feel good with. Even through this sound is a bit different to what the fashion says it should be, I don’t feel a million miles away from the German techno scene, it’s just created differently.

Because techno is about 20 years old, there’s a new generation coming in and saying “this is how techno should be” – which is fine – but they’re applying rules to techno, saying it has to be defined by technology and a certain way of using sound in your tracks. For me this is completely wrong – techno has always been about different routes, complete freedom, with no rules whatsoever. Techno has always been about lots of different things, lots of different ingredients, which make it so rich and exciting.

I still make techno – but jazz is the nearest music to techno for me; experimental, music with no words, that can be recognised anywhere around the world. 1970s jazz influenced me on this album because it was a total land of freedom with no rules - pure experimentation. So that’s what this album was about – experimenting with electronica as well as jazz, but both having exactly the same purporse.

Are you pleased to be bringing jazz to a whole new audience?

Yes, and also bringing my sound to a new audience. When I released the album, I went to a very good friend of mine who’s programming the music for Radio Nova (a Parisian station), he said to me “With this album, there are a whole lot of people who used to never listen to your music who will start listening to it”. And I’m like “Good, I can reach new people”. I know I’m going to gain some, but also lose some, because you can’t always repeat yourself, it’s not good, not healthy, and you’re not moving forward.

Tell us about the Montreux Jazz festival – you programmed nights at the Miles Davis Hall…

The idea was to go and play there live, and then they asked me to programme the whole night. I invited a French hip hop artist called Rocé who plays with jazz musicians, his music is very clever, very jazz orientated. His album ‘Identité En Crescendo’ (‘Crescendo Identity’) is amazing. And of course, as this was the first year I’d been invited to programme I realised we had to focus on the music’s roots, so I brought Underground Resistance over. I asked Mike (Mike Banks from Underground Resistance) so he came with Galaxy 2 Galaxy - an amazing live show with seven or eight people on stage, jazzy, p-funk techno music. It was so beautiful – people couldn’t believe how good it was. Then we played live and a French rapper called Abd Al Malik came to do two tracks. The show was amazing for us.

Outside of Public Outburst, have you got plans for another Laurent Garnier studio album?

Yes definitely – we’re performing next in Paris, Czech Republic and Spain, and those are the very last live shows. Once we’ve finished those, we’re going to do one last private party in the village where we live, for the neighbours. And then after that I’m going into the studio – hopefully I should have a new album by May next year.

And has your Public Outburst experience affected how you’ll approach the album?

One hundred percent yes.

Now that you’re a fully fledged live musician, are you still enjoying DJing as much?

One hundred percent yes! I love DJing. DJing is about sharing love with people – it’s such a strong thing to do when you take it seriously. It might sound a bit corny but it’s true. DJing is my life - I wanted to be a DJ since I was a very young boy, and for me it’s like breathing - I need to DJ. The feeling of going somewhere and sharing music with people, making them dance until they drop, having a relationship with the crowd and sharing all these really strong moments is pretty unique.

And you’re playing here next for The End’s 12th Birthday in December?

Yes - I can’t wait! Say hello to everyone from me...

Published: 5/11/2007

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