Serge Teyssot-Gay 13 Questions

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Serge Teyssot-Gay, born 16 May 1963 in Saint-Etienne, is a French guitarist, co-founder of the group Noir Désir, active between 1980 and November 29, 2010. He also created the groups Zone Libre and Interzone. Serge Teyssot-Gay was born in Saint-Etienne, but moved in her childhood to Bordeaux, where he discovered the desire to play the guitar listening to Django Reinhardt at the age of nine. His youthful influences comes from AC / DC. He meets Bertrand Cantat and Denis Barthe in Bordeaux where they all studied at the Lycée Saint-Genes and form the group Noir Désir. While active, the band consisted of Bertrand Cantat (vocals, guitar), Serge Teyssot-Gay (guitar), Jean-Paul Roy (bass guitar) and Denis Barthe (drums).

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With the success of Noir Désir in 1987, he became a central element of the musical group creation while engaging occasionally since 1996 in solo and experimental collaborations with musicians and writers from other backgrounds than rock. It sets to music literary texts (Georges Hyvernaud, Lydie Salvayre, Bernard Wallet, Attila Jozsef, Stig Dagerman, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Allen Ginsberg, Krzysztof Styczynski, Mike Ladd, Michel Bulteau, Saul Williams...).

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After the ending of Noir Désir in 2003, Serge created in 2005 the duo Interzone with Syrian oud player Khaled Al-Jaramani, he met in Damascus during a tour of Noir Désir in April 2002, with whom he made three albums. His encounter with Marc Sens (guitar) and Cyril Bilbeaud (drums) also gives rise to the trio Zone Libre. They performed together the soundtrack of the film Magma Stone Vinour, and added to their free-rock texts and voice rappers French scene: Hame, Casey, B. James. He has also released two solo albums "Silence Radio" (1996) and "On croit qu'on en est sorti" (2000)

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He also works as a duo with the painter Paul Bloas to achieve a performance painting / guitar on Ligne de Front (Frontline). He participates in the project SleepSong with New Yorker Mike Ladd, depicting the war "from the testimonies of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts." Since January 2012, he performed in duo with jazz bassist Joelle Leandre, and with Carol Robinson and Bultingaire. He regularly plays cinema concerts in duet with Cyril Bilbeaud as Zone Libre. Since 2013, he played with the musician Barrow (baschet crystal and seraphim).

In 2013 Zone Libre  created  Aimé Césaire’s  Cahier d’Un Retour au Pays Natal  (A return To The Native Land) with Marc Nammour on vocals. In 2014, Zone Libre extended as Zone Libre Polyurnaine with Marc Nammour et Mike Ladd on vocals. In 2014, Interzone Extended quintet became a sextet, featuring Carol Robinson (on clarinets, birbine and vocals ), Keyvan Chemirani (on percussion), Médéric Collingnon (on trumpet and vocals) and Marc Nammour on poetry and vocals).

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"I finally feel free. Happy and proud with my own label, Interval Triton." Through this direct operation that requires him to speak to treat music as grant applications, it can make a record "every six months" and now " refuse to play for streaming music sites that have passed contracts with big record and shall repay per share listened to artists." For Serge Teyssot-Gay , things are now much simpler. "When I 'm unhappy with the direction of the label , I look in the mirror and I yell. "

What do you remember about your first guitar? 
Whats the last guitar you've bought?

(D’avoir les doigts en feu).
Having my fingers on fire
(Une guitare de marque Meloduende avec un corps en aluminium. Pour vivre une expérience différente de celle vécue avec des guitares qui ont un corps en bois.)
A Meloduende guitar, with a body made of aluminium. To live a different experience from the ones with wooden bodies.



What do you expect from music?

(Qu’elle me remplisse tous les jours.)
That it fills me everyday




Which work of your own are you most surprised by, and why?

(Aucun particulièrement, j’ai adoré tous les accidents, les découvertes, sur tous mes projets.)
None of them in particular, I loved every accident and discovery in all my works.



What's the relevance of technique in music, in your opinion?

(La technique au service du langage, oui c’est très important.)
Technique in the service of language, yes it is very important.



What quality do you admire most in an musician?
What’s the difference between a good player and a bad one?

(La capacité de  jouer en  engageant tout son corps, en se laissant transpercer par les sons.)
The ability to play with the whole body, to let sounds go right through you.

(Le son.)
Sound



If you could, what would you say to yourself 20 years ago, about your musical career?
What is some valuable advice that someone has given to you in the past?

(Rien de spécial, enfant je voulais être guitariste.)
Nothing in particular, as a child I wanted to be a guitarist

(Difficile à dire tant j’absorbe tout ce qui peut m’aider dans mon travail.)
Difficult to say,  I absorb everything that can help me to work.



Depict the sound you're still looking for. (You can use an image, a quote, an oblique or indirect picture).

(Je ne sais pas, je cherche, c’est ça qui m’intéresse.)
I don’t know, I am searching, that’s what I’m in.

Can you describe a sound experience that you believe contributed to your becoming a musician?

(La joie d’être envahi par des sons.)
Joy of being overwhelmed by sounds



How would you define silence? and noise?

(Très proches.)
Very close

What are your motivations for playing music?

(Etre en vie.)
Being alive



What other tools do you use?

(Du métal, du verre, du bois, des coquillages, des plumes, un archet, mes doigts.)
Metal, glass, wood, shells, feathers, bow, my fingers



What's your best musical experience?
What would you enjoy most in a music work?
What do you like the most about being a musician?

(Des milliers.)
Thousands of them.
(Le processus de travail, la conception pour la composition, ou la composition en temps réel pour la scène.)
 Work process, design for composition, or composition in real time on stage
(Jouer)
Playing



What projects are you working on now and what does the future hold?

Creating the crossing of a cyclone right to the center and get out of it,  25 mn piece

- Trans 2, a second album with Joëlle Léandre, to be released in march 2015- Debout dans les cordages, recorded by Zone Libre and Marc Nammour with Aimé Césaire text Cahier d’Un Retour Au Pays Natal.



-  Zone Libre Polyurbaine : fusion of rock riffs, rap flows, African Polyrhythmics and
oriental rhythms, with Mike Ladd et Marc Nammour on vocals

- Riposte, a book-and-record, with  poets Krzysztof Styczynski, Michel Bulteau and
Saul Williams on vocals

- Ligne de Front  DVD with the painter Paul Bloas.



Where are your roots?  What are your secret influences? 

(Mes origines sont dans la nature.
Mes influences secrètes sont les gens.)
My roots are nature
My secret influences are people.



What do you recall about your playing learning process?

 (Des milliers d’heures de recherches solitaires, des milliers de fois les mêmes gestes pour que le corps apprenne à être précis, des milliers d’heures de réflexions.)
Thousands of hours of solitary research, thousands times the same movements so that the body learns to be precise, thousands of hours of  thought.



What is your relationship with other disciplines such as painting, literature, dance, theater...?

 (Je joue en duo avec des artistes travaillant dans ces quatre disciplines. J’en apprends toujours
quelque chose de stimulant pour ma musique.)

I play duets with artists in those four disciplines. I always learn something that will stimulate my
music.



Selected Discography 

Noir Désir

1987 : Où veux-tu qu'je r'garde?

1989 : Veuillez rendre l'âme (à qui elle appartient)

1991 : Du ciment sous les plaines

1992 : Tostaky

1994 : Dies Irae

 

1996 : 666.667 Club

1998 : One Trip/One Noise

  

2001 : Des visages des figures

2004 : Nous n'avons fait que fuir

 

2005 : Noir Désir en public

 

Solo

1996 : Silence Radio

2000 : On croit qu'on en est sorti

Interzone

2005 : Interzone

 2007 : Deuxième Jour

 

2013 : Waiting for Spring

Zone libre

2007 : Faites vibrer la chair

 

2009 : L'Angle mort (With Hamé de la Rumeur and Casey)

2011 : Les Contes du Chaos (With Casey and B.James from collectif Anfalsh)

 

With Joëlle Léandre

2012 : TRANS (Intervalle Triton/L’autre Distribution)

 

2015 : TRANS 2 (Intervalle Triton/L’autre Distribution)  




Books and Records Sets

with Lydie Salvayre

2002 : Contre
2006 : Dis pas ça

With Krzysztof Styczynski

2007 : Des millions de morts se battent entre eux

With Denis Lavant

2008 : Attila József, à cœur pur (ISBN 9782020967990)

Participations

1993 : Hunger of a Thin Man de Théo Hakola
1997 : Blues Stories de Little Bob
1998 : 1000 Vietnam de Giorgio Canali
1999 : Les P'tits Papiers With le collectif Liberté de Circulation.
2000 : Faux-ami de Marc Sens
2001 : Who Defecates in Your Head Bob? de Quincannon
2004 : Paris nous nourrit, Paris nous affame sur l'album Regain de Tension de La Rumeur
2007 : Je suis une bande ethnique à moi tout seul sur l'album Du Cœur à l'Outrage de La Rumeur
2007 : Je cherche (enregistré en 2004) sur l'album 1997-2007 Les Inédits de La Rumeur
2007 : Le Syndrome du polo vert (et marron rayé) sur l'album Spoke Orkestra n'existe pas
2009 : J'ai rien compris mais je suis d'accord de Nonstop

 

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