#KODDMUSIC has met with BROKEN BACK, the artist who makes music to tell stories. Launched in this adventure 3 years ago, the breton musician chained concerts dates and reveals its history from A to Z. And he’s not going to stop there. An interview not to be missed !
#Koddmusic : Can you tell us about you and your career ?
BROKEN BACK : My path? In fact it all started for me when I broke my back. Broken Back means broken back. 3 years ago, I moved a vertebra and I was blocked for almost a year, and I took advantage of this convalescence where I was completely blocked, to start writing songs, composing, recording also. That’s where I discovered the production of the titles. And it all began with a “misfortune” and everything that goes crazy at the moment is because of this health problem that happened to me 3 years ago.
#Koddmusic : Before Broken Back, what was your plan for life ?
BROKEN BACK : Before I was in business school in Master Entrepreneurship and I had 2 start-ups because I love entrepreneurship. I had a web agency and a brand of leather goods that I set up with my partner in the last year of business school, called De Rigueur. It is a brand that always exists that I founded with Adrien Deslous-Paoli 2 years ago already.
#Koddmusic : And why did you choose the music next door ?
BROKEN BACK : That was the dilemma as I was leaving school, I had to choose between music and start-ups, and I chose music. I thought maybe I had an opportunity in my life to be able to do it really well and so I grabbed it. And after what is interesting also is that even in music there is still a big part of entrepreneurship, because when I started I set up my label which is a start-up, in which I can really have fun, make my music. So I kept this entrepreneurial side and that’s what I like too.
#Koddmusic : Why did you decide to sign with Columbia in addition to your label ?
BROKEN BACK : In fact, my label is to have a structure, to be independent, and to be able to explode artistically speaking, to do whatever I like and not to have restriction. And then, it’s my label, Broken Back Inc., which signed with Sony a license to operate, which allows Sony to be able to exploit the album. And so, Sony helps me on all the marketing and promotional side of the album. And artistically speaking everything happens between my label and me. That is, between me and me, it’s quite schizophrenic as a conversation ! That’s really allowing me to be free and at the same time to have the side that I could not have all alone, the power of Sony since they have the means to really be able to make the songs travel much further than what I could do it alone. It is the butter and the silver of the butter, as a Breton would say !
#Koddmusic : Why indie électro folk ?
BROKEN BACK : So it’s not at all prepared, it’s because that’s how music appeals to me, that’s how I want to express my emotions. Folk because all the songs start with a guitar, or a piano and a pencil, so it starts with a song. And electro because at the moment of recording, it is at this precise moment that the music takes on a more electro. In my little studio in Saint-Malo, with all my microphones, my machines etc, I give this look more electro. So indie-electro, folk-electro, it’s really this mix of 2. This is exactly what I wanted to do on the cover of the album, with this double face of man and machine, folk Versus the electro, the composer-performer versus the producer. It is this paradox that is embodied in the cover.
#Koddmusic : What are your musical influences ?
BROKEN BACK : The most important, I think the most obvious in any case, is Cat Stevens, which I listened to enormously and which influenced me a lot on my way of singing; The way maybe also to write the songs. And in terms of production, another influence, for all the small touches of acoustic percussion, a little more world in certain sounds, that can be found on Halcyon Birds or Lady Bitterness, it is a band that I really love that Is called Buena Vista Social Club. It has nothing to do with what I do but I think it’s a little bit like that, right, left, mine of nothing, that makes a kind of mixture in my subconscious and that gives this result.
#Koddmusic : Can you tell us about your last title Got to Go ?
BROKEN BACK : Got to Go is a story created from any room that speaks of a good Samaritan, a nice guy, but who is fed up with just being all nice, and who wants to become a bad boy, but he does not know how make. So, he decides to go down to hell to pass a pact with the devil, so he spends an interview with all the little devils who ask him to sing his motivation. And so this character finds himself in the underworld to sing his motivation, it is the refrain of Got to Go. And we realize in the 2nd part, because it is a text in two pieces, the 2nd part is Better Run, the 3rd piece of the album, that this character comes out of the underworld and goes up and that it has not walked at all, it has not changed at all. That’s a bit of a burlesque story on which I really wanted to have fun in terms of writing.
#Koddmusic : What are your future projects ?
BROKEN BACK : So I have one mainly, it is really to be able to enjoy this album with people on tour, to be able to make a maximum of concerts, is really the big priority this year. Now that the album is out, is to skim the theaters in France and abroad, to meet all the people who support me. After I continue to write, there are other titles in preparation permanently, I do not know how long I will have finished !
#Koddmusic : Do you have a last word for Kodd’s readers?
BROKEN BACK : I think the best way to get an idea of the music is to come and see it live. And I invite people to cross our path on the road, we play in Paris on January 7 at the Elysée Montmartre, do not hesitate to come and it will be with pleasure !
Information collected by Angela Anz
Location: Le Pigalle
Victoire Beyens
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