In an interview, before starting your tour, you said that the scene, “it’s a physical and mental shift”… and that it was almost “an unnatural gesture”, “an obligatory passage and also a logic close to high-level sport…
“Yes, that’s true, even if walking two people an hour to a piano is not that close to high-level sport (laughing). What is similar is programming yourself for a specific moment. When you have a concert, you have to say to yourself: “At 10 p.m., that’s when I’ll have to perform”, even though the schedule isn’t very natural. It’s more a question of precision than muscular intensity obviously. Especially in this show, where I have to be very precise, because I’m alone on stage, and I navigate between two keyboards, but, above all, I have to work with all the videos that are sent.”
“When you’re on tour, you have to agree to come forward, to approach people.”
Your audience is incredibly loyal and loves these meeting times. You have a hard core of fans who have followed you since your beginnings… That must be touching, but also destabilizing at times?
“Oh no! I kind of have all the good sides of that without the bad. As I rarely appear on television, it’s quite rare for me to be recognized by people who don’t know what I do. So that means that concretely, in the street, if people come to talk to me, it’s because they have something to tell me. For example: “I saw you in Toulouse in concert” or: “We played this song at my cousin’s wedding”. These are things that we can bounce back on and that make the discussion natural. When you’re on tour, you have to agree to come forward, to approach people. It’s a special moment which is also pleasant.”
“I have control over what I do and at the same time, I have a normal life.” Photo Aurélie Sauffier
Looking back, how do you look back on 25 years of career since Fanny Ardant and me ?
“I’m exactly where I dreamed of being when I was a student. I wanted to have control over what I do, to be totally free, and still have a normal life. I have two children, I took care of them really thoroughly. There was this idea of writing the shows one after the other. I come from theater and also, I was able to mix several genres. It’s a great chance to still be able to offer things after twenty-five years.”
What would you have done if there wasn’t this meeting with the public?
“I come from a family background where my parents were teachers and where, at the same time, they were immersed in an environment where painting and writing coexisted. Their friends were also teachers and they talked about poetry, literature, theater. Having studied literature, I naturally intended to become either a teacher or a journalist. Why not music journalist. I came to music, too, because I liked singers and singers. And then at the same time, I was making my songs and I was lucky that it worked.”
The song that introduced Vincent Delerm in 2002.
Your latest album The Fresco, published in 2025 (by Tôt ou tard), has the appearance of a sensitive inventory, like a sort of notebook of memories with many faces, as on the cover, many encounters, slices of life… You also say in the eponymous song: “All those you were able to meet or almost”. Is this your most personal record, the assessment of maturity?
“No not really, albums are made step by step. The same thing happened on another album which is Les amants parallèles which is very personal and where we follow, like that, the destiny of a couple over ten years and which is in fact my story. Afterwards, we say what we want to say, but on the other hand, there is nothing invented even if, on Parallel Loversas it was linked to my love story, in promo, I said that things were invented so as not to expose myself too much. Anyway, in general, I’m for the idea of celebrating the reality of life and the only reality I know is around me.”
The “Fresque”, are huitième studio album.
Cover of the latest album. Photo Sooner or later
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The Frescoit’s also a way of saying that we all have an imaginary cork board on which the photos, encounters and memories of our lives are displayed. Are friendship and family essential to you?
“It’s always a bit abstract concepts. It’s the people above all. People, it’s still crazy. When we’re a child, the real people we see are often our parents’ friends and as a result, we construct a sort of mental geography linked to that.
“People, it’s still crazy”
Who is this gentleman or this old person who scares us a little? And then, finally, when we’re teenagers, in the playground, we’re attracted to people, we don’t know why, and we want to sit with this person more than with another because we like them. And often, the people I sat next to in class subsequently remained my best friends. To come back to the question, it’s the idea of celebrating people and that what affects us and moves us is people. If we sometimes don’t want to leave a house or apartment, it’s because of the memories. If we cross the city, it’s often to meet people, it’s rarely to go eat a pizza that we like.» Â
The music video for “Si beau”, with actress Frankie Wallach
“There are no big things and small things”
You often say: “I have the impression of always writing the same thing, but in different forms”. ability to create emotion with almost nothing…
“I made a track that talked about Raymond Carver a few albums ago because it’s a poetry of celebrating very tenuous things. There are no big things and little things, it doesn’t make sense, or there is the Mona Lisa on one side and a box of matches on the other. Frankly, if we were on a desert island, we would be much happier to have a box of matches than to have the Jaconde. There are writers who are very good at this. Brautigan, he will describe a fly on the window or how his glass of coke left a mark. They will connect this to a deep feeling they have within them at that moment. There is a sort of illustration of human feeling by something that they have before their eyes and which seems anecdotal.»  Â
Vincent Delerm is in concert Monday May 18 at 8:30 p.m. at La Comète in Saint-Étienne. Information and tickets for the Paroles et Musiques festival: www.festivalpm.com
“I’ve always listened to a lot of film musicâ€
You are a great film buff as we know and for ten years, you have also been writing film soundtracks (The Very Private Life of Monsieur Sim, Sixteen Spring, Out of season), is this, like Alex Beaupain, something you would like to move towards even more?
“Actually, I take it a bit like playtime. It is a pleasure of limited involvement as Truffaut said for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. That is to say being part of something, but not having full responsibility. I can’t do it alone. I often have an orchestrator. I make the melodies and, afterward, we work together because I don’t know how to write for a string orchestra, for example. There has to be someone who can come and support me.”
In 2008, on Fifteen Songsyour fourth album, the composer François de Roubaix appeared in one of the titles. Who are the other film music composers that you like?
“I have always listened to a lot of film music. By Michael Nyman, Georges Delerue. Delerue’s music is very loving. For me, he’s the strongest in this area. Mancini, Morricone of course. Howard Shore, too, closer to us who is a very strong person. And François de Roubaix. When we listen to his music, it immediately puts us in the mood for the reconstruction of Paris in the 70s. He is very typical of a moment. Very often, human beings have a little attraction not to their childhood, but to the years which preceded their birth with, like that, a kind of mystery. We’re not there yet, but we’re not far. For me, the years before my birth, it was a bit like the sound of François de Roubaix.
F.G.
“The Last Metro” by Truffaut, his bedside film
« I always watchThe Last Metro de Truffaut avant la première d’un spectacle »Â
If you had to rank your five favorite films from all eras, which would they be?
“Oh, it’s not very easy because it can change. I would say that there is the top 5, which is a bit permanent with My Night at Maud’s, by Rohmer, Woody Allen’s films meant a lot to me, Annie Hall, Manhattan, have built me a lot even if today it is more complicated with regard to the affairs which affected him. Afterwards, there is The Last Metro by Truffaut that I always watch before the premiere of a show because, for me, it is the film of the transition from normal life to the stage. The Circle of Dead Poets also had a big impact on me when I was 14 in relation to its message about the meaning of one’s life. For me, it’s a powerful film. » Â Â Â
“I need to take photos and videos all the time to support my shows.”
Is it true that for years, you have photographed Paris almost every day during certain periods? Is your book published in 2022, Paris(Soon or Late), a fragment of subjective kaleidoscopes of everyday life but also your very intimate vision, was evidence that you wanted to share?
“Yes, every day. Sometimes I only do fifteen, but I carry my camera everywhere. I have a Leica body with a fairly discreet 50 lens which also films. My whole second film A heart that beats is made just with this case and this optic. But I also take it on tour. It’s quite moving, an empty performance hall in the afternoon, the dressing rooms, everything in that area, even if it disappears quite quickly, because the next day, we’re elsewhere. It’s nice to be able to fix things and look at them again later. As for the book, it’s more of a coincidence. In fact, I need to take photos and videos all the time to feed my shows then I store them and some, I know, will be useful to me one day, even if, at the moment, I don’t know when and how.
“When you take photos, you live your life twice.”
Photography is a true passion…
“The first time I really started doing it was on my fourth tour and it was the subject of a book about the tour that accompanied the show. Claude Nori, who is a photographer that I like, says: “When you take photos, you live your life twice.” My favorite medium is songs, but on the other hand, we capture things more with photos. A rental that you took somewhere in the Landes, 8 years ago, well if you don’t have photos of that, you will completely forget what the wallpaper was like and especially your children at that time.
F.G.
“I support my children who are PSG supporters!”
We can love Truffaut and Modiano and also Platini and Patrick Vieira. Do you watch football on TV? Do you support a team?
“I watched PSG-Bayern yesterday, it was a crazy match (Editor’s note: 5-4 victory for Paris, the interview was done on April 29). Afterwards, it was quieter than usual at my house. I have two sons who are 15 and 17 years old and the older one has a whole gang and generally there are around fifteen of them watching the matches at home. So, we were able to listen to the comments! What if I’m a fan of Paris? I support my children who are PSG supporters! (laugh). But I don’t have any more ties to Paris, even if I liked the PSG of Safet Susic and Rocheteau in the 80s.
“When I was little, I was a Bordeaux supporter.”
On the other hand, I have a fairly significant football culture that I share with my children who, very young, loved it and who also know the history of football and the eras that they have not experienced. It’s interesting to watch the matches with them. When I was little, I was a Bordeaux supporter because it was the French team that went far in the European Cup. Afterwards, I’m from Evreux and there wasn’t really a big club near me. On the other hand, Dembélé and Upamecano (French internationals) are from Evreux. L’Equipe did a big article on them two days ago. So, it’s a bit of pride. » Â Â Â
Vous n’êtes jamais allé à Geoffroy-Guichard ?
“And no, never. I would love to! But hey, you have to come at a time when there is a match. Afterwards, when we leave the station, there is always this bar a little further up the street where there is one end of the square poles under a bell (Editor’s note: the restaurant Les Poteaux carré, place Jean-Jaurès). »
F.G.
/2026/05/07/69fca3bcd2c5b283200882.jpg "Testimony. \"War, there is nothing worse\" : at 108 years old, Jean Turco dives back into his memories of being a soldier prisoner during the Second World War")
