There's been a lot of news about you recently, but above all there's this new album, Escape from Shadows, due for release on May 30.

Can you tell us a bit about it and define it in one word?

Oh dear, that's difficult. To define it in one word, I think it's me. I think it represents me. It's a big part of my life with the injuries, the difficulties and the release of this album. So that's where the title comes from, it's about coming out of a period that was extremely difficult and complicated, and despite all that, at the end of the day, managing to finalize it and release something that's personal.

So music is an outlet for you after all?

Yeah, well, as I was saying, it's not necessarily... Clear. Because sometimes people say “you're sad, you do sad songs; you're happy, you do happy songs...” It doesn't work like that. But on the other hand, the fact of creating, the fact of making music, of feeling supported, of feeling an expectation too, you know. Just imagine; I haven't made an album in 20 years, and I'm amazed that people even remember me. And that they're interested. I find it incredible. Especially since we started releasing both the cover and the first track, I've had a lot of positive feedback. That doesn't mean we're going to sell millions of them, but it does mean that they've pleased people. I feel a lot of positive feedback. Well, you always know a little bit, but still, you always have doubts too. You see, everyone says “yeah, but he's going to be expected”. And you just say yes. But I think it's true.

You're talking about the first track to be released. It's different from the opening track and different from the album's eponymous title. So why choose this one?

Well, I would have gone for the first track, but at the same time, I wanted to keep things surprising. I didn't want to blow my best shot yet. I still wanted people to be able to discover things and say to themselves “The first track, no, I haven't listened to it yet, neither the intro, nor the second”.... So let them have some good surprises, not just discover everything. In addition, we had a problem: if you look at the first track, there's an intro and then there's the song, and in fact we put two indexes, there's the opening and there's the song, but in fact it's the same song, so I simply put two indexes so that people who are tired of listening to synths can attack directly. And then we couldn't shorten it, because then we'd either cut one or the other. And I didn't want to put the song without the intro, obviously not the intro without the song. So that one went out the window. The next one, there's a clean sound intro that's a bit different. And so there you have it, people, it's not going to confuse them, I didn't want to put it in front of them. And I thought, for the first one, maybe it's good to be on a track that's as close as possible to what I've already done, so that they're not too confused, you know. And it's a bit concise, so it's not too long. The second one we're going to release is Escape from Shadows. Here, we're going to get down to the nitty-gritty. Here, they'll start to follow the thing a bit.

And why did you choose this track, which is the sixth on the album, as the eponymous title?

Well, it almost worked the other way round: I had the album title and I chose the track that could represent it afterwards. So it could have been another one, it's instrumental, so I've got quite a few tracks with intros, soaring parts, themes that are a bit... But there's a rather sad, rather lyrical solo towards the end, which corresponds well to what I wanted to express, so for that reason alone I chose it. As for the title, I wanted to evoke the difficult parts of my life and, at the same time, this release without making it too leaden. I didn't want anything too dark either.

When we research you, your music and your career, we find metal, jazz and classical music cited as your influences. So, for you, are metal and jazz two very different sounds that go hand in hand, or do they have something in common?

So it's really opposed to jazz and classical. In fact, jazz gets thrown in, but for me, it's jazz rock that's influenced me more than pure jazz. I've worked with it, but I'm not a good jazz guitarist. And it's not a music that... You know, when I played it, when I'd worked on it, the only pleasure I could get out of it was that I could do it. But it wasn't something that touched me emotionally when I played it. You have to go for what moves you when you do it. You have to try, of course, because you're doing a musical style, you try it for a minute, you'll realize that it's nothing. But when you've worked in a style for a while, you need to know where you belong. In other words, when you're playing, you say to yourself, “This is me, I'm right here”. Whether it's metal or black metal or jazz or whatever, you say to yourself, “This is me, this fits me, this fits my personality”. And jazz rock suited me more than jazz. So there are connections, but in the end I come from hard rock - because back then it wasn't metal, it was hard rock - and what was it back then? It was Van Halen, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, all that stuff, and then Metallica came along, and then all the rest. For me, it's all part of my musical culture, my universe. When I was younger, if you like, I was part of the metal crowd because you went to high school or college and it was a sort of little community. And in fact, we needed to be with each other. There was a family and community aspect to it. Now, at my age, I don't need that as much. I just want to make music I like. So I've obviously got my roots in metal, I can't do that again. But it's not... Well, that's not a problem anymore. I make music the way I feel it. If tomorrow, I want to make music... I could make an album where there's no guitar, exaggerating. It's the music that interests me.

And how would you define your style and what you like to do?

It's complicated because there are so many things in it. There's a cinematic side, there's a hard rock side, there's a blues side, there's a classical side, there's a progressive side to the compositions. It's a mixture of all that. I can't really put a name to it. I think it's instrumental progressive hard rock. [laughs] No, I don't know. I'll leave you to it, it's your job after all.

[laughs]

You mentioned earlier that you'd made this album as a result of your own experience and all that. Did you have any influences other than your own personal experience?

Yes. In fact, music is everything you listen to. When you're an adult like yourself, what you are today is also everything you've lived through since you were a kid. You know what I mean? It's just like me. What I am today is what I've listened to. It starts with my roots, but I've also listened to stuff 2 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago... and I've worked on other things, and in fact it's a mix between your feelings, your sensitivity, but also your musical experience, what you've played, what you've worked on, what you've listened to sometimes, even casually. Sometimes you don't even listen to it again, you don't even remember who it was, but you've got something that's stuck in your head, in your ear, and at some point, maybe in your composition, you'll come up with something that doesn't necessarily sound like it, but it'll inspire you to do something in your head, and you're not necessarily aware of it. So for me, if you like, my experience hasn't influenced me that much musically. It's just that it took a long time to come out and that it was complicated.

Are you feeling better today?

Yes, I'm feeling better.

That's all that matters and I'm very happy to hear it.

In fact, I don't know whether you'll want to put it on or not, but in any case, I lost my wife to cancer after 30 years together. I had to deal with the illness, then the end, the death of the person, then getting back to the everyday life with my kids, and then bouncing back, surviving, meeting someone, finding something positive again. That's what it's all about. What's more, it was someone I'd been with since I was young, who'd known all my musical evolution, who had a great ear, who also pushed me to do what I did. It was a page that was being turned. It was a bit difficult to make an album without her, because in fact, for all my albums, she'd been there. So it was a bit complicated.

Okay, I'm sorry to hear that. And I wish you all the best for the future and all the best for this album, because I've had the chance to listen to it and I can tell you that, frankly, it's second to none.

Did it speak to you?

Yes, totally!

Thanks, that's cool, that makes me happy.

Getting back to your influences, we were talking about classical music, and I'd like to turn to the last track on the album. First of all, do you see it more as a bonus track or as the album's outro?

More like an outro, but it's true that since I'd already done a lot of classical pieces, that was a bit of a problem for me, you know. There was the Vivaldi presto that I did, I'd done an album with a classical piece... I thought it was a bit redundant, a bit heavy-handed. At the same time, I'd already played it with a pianist, but I wasn't too happy with my version. I said to myself, “Well, listen, you work on it and see what it sounds like”. And I was happy with the sound, the interpretation, I thought it sounded good. I find that the guitar works well, and in fact that's what's difficult; in other words, at first, you might think that it's difficult to play - well, it's not easy to play - but beyond that, it's making it sound that's difficult, because it's an instrument that's different from the violin. So getting it to sound guitar-like was complicated. So it took a lot of work, and I was pretty happy with the result, you know. So I put it in. I see it more as the album's outro, ending in a slightly more intimate way, with two people, with the last note at the end. I think it was a beautiful ending.

And is it more a tribute to the composer or to one of his works?

A bit of both, because in fact, if you like, he's not a very well-known composer. He's from the beginning of the previous century, and he's someone who did the pieces a bit like someone else. He's not Mozart or Beethoven. But he was a violinist who was best known for his transcriptions of certain works. And I think it was a bit of a piece in the style of Pugnani, who's an Italian composer, but also a kind of exam piece for a violinist, because you've got lots of passages, you've got lyrical stuff, you've got almost baroque stuff, you've got things that are very modern. In fact, it almost sounds like bluesy stuff at one point, and it was way ahead of its time harmonically. I think there's a lot of stuff like that that I found really interesting. It wasn't too pompous, it wasn't too presumptuous, but at the same time it's a nice piece, it's got great harmonies. It's a beautiful piece, I think.

Metal and classical have a common basis in terms of composition, but were there any difficulties in adapting?

Well, if you want metal and classical, it started with people like Ritchie Blackmore, in Deep Purple, where we started to have guitarists who integrated classical arpeggios into hard rock. Then after Rainbow, then after all the bands like Malmsteen, and then after all the other guitarists and bands who did this kind of mixing. But it all started with a bit of him, a bit of Ritchie Blackmore, and that's where it started for me too, listening to classical music. I don't know if there are common roots, but in any case there's a common history which, by their grouping together at a given moment, works. At the same time, there are a lot of talented neoclassical musicians out there, and I don't want to go there because I think they've already got everything they need, they don't need me. So in the end, when I started playing guitar, my first albums, I was pretty much in the neo-classical wave, I was kind of put in there, but there's Malmsteen who I love, who does it really well. I'm not going to put myself in with the others, I'm going to try to go a bit elsewhere. So I've gone for really classical pieces or neoclassical touches in what I do, without falling into the neoclassical guitarist trip. So I tried to make a sort of personal mix of that.

On this album, there are lots of tracks that are quite unique, like Invisible Walls, which is very groovy, with slap and all that. Other tracks have very Kansas influences, I think. There's the last track, which is a tribute, and finally, there's the track Now We're Home, which has lyrics, and it's the only track on the album that's sung. Is there a particular reason for this?

Kansas speaks to me, they're a band I love, and I actually like instrumental music, long pieces with lots of different moods. And when I did this piece, I thought it was almost song-format, with a solo that really suited me in the middle, a bit progressive, soaring. And then at the beginning, I started making melodies on the guitar and thinking I might do it. But at a certain point, I said to myself "no, that's not what I want to do. I don't want to make instrumental music that's songs without vocals". There are people who do that very well, but that's not what I want to do. So, at a certain point, I said to myself, “Well, either I'm going to change it or I'm going to put vocals on it”. Then I thought of Gaëlle, who's a friend of mine I've known for 15 years. I love her blues voice. She's a talented girl who also has the advantage of being nice, which isn't easy for a singer (or a performer, for that matter). She's cool, we get on well and she's a beautiful person. So I asked her, I said “can't you sing me something about that?”. She did something to me on her phone and I thought, “Well, this could work”. So I kept it in the back of my mind. And when we went to finalize the album, I called her back. I said, “So, are you ready?”. She said yes, we talked about the text and that was that. And it's also a friendly story because she's someone I like. I also wanted people I like. I don't just want someone to come and sing and then say, “Hi, thanks, that's great”. I wanted there to be a real story. I knew her when she hadn't yet made her first albums, when she was at the start of her career. She's someone who's passionate, who fights for her thing, she's got an identity, she's cool. She's got a great voice, she's a beautiful person. It's cool, we need people like that.

Still on the subject of this track, you're pretty good, even very good, at conveying emotions via guitar riffs in general, via really just the sound, and that's what also offers a more subjective side for the listener, whereas the lyrics are more straightforward. What do you prefer between the two? Do you prefer the more subjective side, or the more straightforward way of conveying a message, an emotion?
I can't really tell you, I'm not thinking of doing a sung album at the moment. I don't have a singing album in mind right now. But that's why I like the instrumental, it's the aspect of suggesting something through a title, because titles are sometimes subjective. I could even reverse them. I want to express something, so I give it a title, and people, with the title, the cover and the music, can make up their own story. And that interests me. I like that concept. That's why I'm doing a guitar album. Even though I'm a guitarist, I didn't want it to be an all-guitar album where people would just go... “How well he plays, how fast he plays”. I didn't want it to be that. I didn't want people to feel that. I wanted them to be able to follow my thing and travel a bit with me, that was the idea.

That's exactly what I was getting at, because the tracks on this album are rather introspective. Was there a message you wanted to get across through the album, or is it more of an experience for you?
It's more an experience and it's also a journey. It's both an experience of the difficulties I've had, but it's also my life. In other words, it was difficult at first to make a name for myself, to make an album. There were trials and tribulations, but I never gave up and I'm still here. I would have made my whole life with my music, which isn't easy in France, after all. It's not the land of rock, I think you've noticed. So if you like, I haven't made any compromises, I've managed to get to the end of my thing. That's why there's Hold On To Your Dreams, there's the positive side where "hang on, do something, defend your thing, be passionate. There's no reason for it, it's going to happen." I also want to push people to do things. We're in a period where people are filming themselves a lot, showing themselves a lot, filming their pizza, showing us how fast they play scales. OK, that's cool guys, well done. You’re drinking cola ? Great... But at a certain point, I think it's cool when people suggest something. So go ahead and compose. We have strange formats. It used to be Instagram, now it's TikTok, it's getting shorter and shorter. Soon we'll have two-and-a-half-second formats. I say to myself, I'm coming up with eight-minute tracks. But I don't really care. There's no law against it. They say you're free, but at the same time, you know that if you do a 10-minute track, you'll never get on the radio, on the major stations. If you do instrumentals, you'll never get on the radio. But if tomorrow we put a law on the statute books in France saying that unsung songs longer than 5 minutes are forbidden on the radio, people would be outraged. They'd say “no, that's disgusting”. But that's what happens.

Yes, it's just because it's not said that people accept it.
In fact, there are a lot of constraints on our freedom. Already on a day-to-day basis, but also for the artists, you see, with increasingly limited formats. We also have the problem of using the back catalog with tribute bands. I've got lots of mates who do it, and I think it's cool, but that's where we're at. We're into hip-hop, which has also made a lot of use of existing stuff, and AI is going to make use of everything we've done. So it's not just ecology that's recycling, really. We're in a period of recycling everything. And at some point, that's a pain in the ass. People also have to come up with new ideas. Even if I'm not crazy about what they come up with. There are bands like Polyphia, like others, bands with a bit of metal, djent... I'm not necessarily crazy about that, but I tell myself that at least the guys are proposing something, you know. They propose something different, they compose, they defend, they tour. Bravo, go for it guys, even if it doesn't touch me sometimes, it doesn't matter. It touches people and at least they're proposing, they're doing things.

Yes, it's taking the plunge, going for it and believing in it.
And believing, yes. There are always many more reasons not to do things than to do them. “No, I'm not going to do it”, “it doesn't sell”, “there aren't any more records, we don't sell any more records”, so you don't do it. Yes, but... As far as I'm concerned, you have to try.

Otherwise, you run the risk of missing out on a lot of things.
Just because it's the way it is now doesn't mean it'll be the same in six months' time. How do you know that tomorrow, not necessarily me, certainly not me, but an instrumental album won't be a hit? We don't know. You can't promise me that. You can't tell me “no, it'll never work”. We just don't know. There could be a band like Polyphia who tomorrow does something that's a worldwide hit, and there could be lots of bands coming out. We just don't know. So if you want to, if you don't try it, if you censor yourself for reasons of “you mustn't”, well, you don't do it. You see, people tell me that the album concept is a bit over, that making albums is a bit over, that record companies have no interest. I want to do the opposite, I don't care, you've got to go for it, while you can, you've got to go for it.

You've only got one life, you've got to make the most of it.
Exactly.

So, to get back to what we were talking about in terms of collaborations. In 2024, for example, we find you collaborating with Damien Capolongo, and that's far from being the only one. What do you like best about collaborating?
I don't know if we can really call it a collaboration. Damien is someone who loves what I do, and he asked me if I'd like to come and play on his album. I think he's a nice guy, and his compositions are interesting. He's a guy who fights to defend his thing. I said to myself “I could give him a little help, if it would help him, and he deserves it”. He's a guy who's moving forward, who's proposing something. So there you have it, I did it out of friendship, I did it just like that. It's not about money. I don't do it all the time, I try to keep my feet on the ground because otherwise, everyone would want me to play on every record. Now that I have a record label, I can't do just anything with anyone. But I find it interesting sometimes to give people a helping hand. For me, I see it more as giving someone a helping hand, and then it's cool, it's an interesting experience, but it's originally done to give them a helping hand, at least in my mind.

And when you collaborate with other artists, or as you did with Gaëlle on this album, what do you like best about it, is it sharing worlds, sharing opinions...?
Yeah, both. It's both human and... I don't take the human out of it. Gaëlle came to stay with me, she slept at our place, at my partner's place, at home. We went to the studio to do the thing, we ate together. We had a great time together, we recorded the thing, we got our names on a track together. I think it's cool. We've known each other for 15 years, she's got her own life, her own family. Our paths are different, but we follow each other and give each other a hand. So I figure it's a way of fixing things. We had fun doing it. It was cool. I'm happy because it's very different from what she usually does. So it also shows her voice in a different way. For me, it's also something different from what I've done before. So it's good for both of us. The exchange was cool. We talked a bit about the text together, and she really took on board what I had in mind too.

Now, we're talking about studio collaborations, but there are also live collaborations, quite recent in fact, and still ongoing, with the Guitar Night Project. So, how did this come about? Because the three of you have sometimes collaborated with each other, but never as a trio until now.
No, if you like, it's something Pat and I had. We've known each other for quite a while, and he invited me to a gig where we played together, and we had a lot of fun. It was cool musically, he's a great guy. At the time, Pat McManus was also touring, and we decided to get the 3 Pat's together. We started out with that idea, but then Covid came along, and things came to a screeching halt. McManus couldn't come after that. But we'd really liked the little we'd done, so we started looking for a third guy, and Fred soon came along because we were looking for someone different from us, more bluesy, less rocky, someone with the musical openness to be able to play with us. And then it's the same thing, he's also someone who's good on a human level, who's caring, who's a great musician and we've collaborated on a few dates. In fact, we're going to do a live album, due out in September. And then we've still got festivals this summer, and dates in the autumn. But on this project, I won't be integrating tracks from my new album. I'll be doing a dedicated tour with my band.

That's exactly the question I was going to ask you.
So, normally, there are dates, either at the end of 2025, or rather at the beginning of 2026 with my band, the band that's on the album.

Well, great!
And in relation to the Guitar Night Project, because although there may be similarities, each guitarist has his own style. How did you reconcile your different musical worlds and influences?
You know, the good thing is that we have a lot of genres in common. Pat and I are into the same thing, so we listen to the same people, so there's nothing to worry about. But Fred Chapellier, who's more of a blues guitarist, when we were talking, we found out that he loves Van Halen, he loves Malmsteen, he loves Gary Moore, he loves... Well, he knows Michael Schenker very well, and so on. So he's got a real hard rock culture, he really knows his stuff. So he likes it, he's worked on it too. So if you like, even if he's a blues guitarist, he's still got the concepts. He's not thinking, "What is this?”. He's not discovering the genre. The only thing is that we invite each other to play on each other's songs. The hardest thing, in fact, is playing with three guitars. It's the volume of the guitars and the frequencies so that everyone can be heard. That's the real difficulty of playing with three guitars: it gets messy very quickly. But on the whole, we manage. It takes a bit of getting used to, but we've managed.

I'd like to end this interview by asking you, who is very committed to education and teaching, do you have a message for your fans and all the future musicians who already follow you and for whom you are an inspiration?
I'd like them to make music, compose and play. Because, if you like, it's true that we're in difficult economic times, and that tends to push people towards security. And when I go to music schools, I find myself in front of someone who is young, 20 years old, and if you ask him what he wants to do, the guy tells me that he wants to be an intermittent performer and go on tour. And so, if you want, you get into a super-organized thing, almost a career plan. When I was 20, I was completely out of my depth. I just wanted to play the guitar, play as well as I could and do concerts. But I wasn't into career planning at all. And I say to myself, on the one hand, that's good, but on the other hand, an artist has to be a bit on the side. You have to be lucid, but sometimes you have to dream a little. I don't think you should give up on your dreams. Even if it seems impossible, you still have to try. Being a guitarist isn't like doing anything else. So I'm not saying it's superior, it doesn't make you superior to a baker or anything, but it's not the same thing. You have to get things out of you, it's not enough to work hard, to work on your instrument 8 hours a day. It's not just that, it's also about getting things out of yourself, trying to be different, trying to touch people, and you have to do it. I think that's what music is all about. You owe it to yourself, you've only got one life. You have to try to bring out things that haven't been done to the fullest, try to be as personal as possible, try to convey emotions to people. So you can't give up on your dreams, you have to keep dreaming when you're a musician. You have to be lucid, but not just lucid.

Thank you very much for your time and for answering my questions.
It's me who thanks you. That's what I'm here for.