After twenty years of success in English with Girls in Hawaii, the Belgian Antoine Wielemans offered himself a solo escape, inspired by Normandy and the need to confront his native language, French. Meeting in Brussels before a French tour.
His album is called Vattetot, named following the small Norman village where he was born, in the heart of winter 2020, in an isolated house facing the sea. The Belgian musician Antoine Wielemans had taken refuge there for a few weeks, the commitment made in his for inside to come out with songs, in French, that he would have written and composed alone. A challenge for the one who for twenty years has been writing in English with his sidekick Lionel Vancauwenberge in the Girls in Hawaii, quintet with which he experienced success, brutal mourning (the accidental death of Denis, his brother and drummer of the group), luminous rebirth.
The songs of Vattetot appeared on a corner of the table, following a few laborious attempts, stripped of all the illuminations with which he had always surrounded his voice until then. A desire for purity, simplicity that goes well with this first solo album filled with doubts regarding the world around us, the passing age, the life that we clumsily try to grasp. We meet Antoine Wielemans in Brussels, one evening in November, still a little feverish at the idea of going on stage in a few moments, for the second time only. “I hadn’t anticipated the live at all, oddly enough. I wanted this disk to exist, but to put it on a table. Defending him physically was a completely different approach, with this feeling of finding myself a little more naked. » And we want to know more, on the eve of a French tour which will pass in Paris on March 23, regarding this solo escape as much as this renewed link with his mother tongue.
When did the desire to make a solo record come regarding?
Two or three years ago around a discussion with Pierre, my manager, and Lionel, my sidekick in Girls in Hawaii, who, unlike me, doesn’t really like filming. He had children earlier, he is also endowed with a more homely character. In short, without arguing, we had two different visions lately and I felt a little frustrated. One day he said to me: “Listen, you should do a solo project, so you’ll have your quota of dates and trips, you can put all your energy into it. Me, I’ll be a little cooler and you won’t blame me. » For twenty years, we dug the same furrow with Girls in Hawaii. Like any collective history, ours is made up of compromises, with its riches and sometimes also its limits. I wanted to be in my corner and do things my way.
Did French come naturally?
No, I started writing in English, but I quickly realized that the result sounded too much like Girls in Hawaii. Unless I managed to be very different, which didn’t make much sense. In recent years, I listened to more and more stuff in French and I fantasized regarding being able to express myself in my language in music. This moment of break with the group gave me the opportunity to experiment, to fail, to launch myself into the unknown, quite simply. I gave myself a year to do it.
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Vattetot
Antoine Wielemans
Was it important to take this time?
Yes, because it requires some adaptation. For twenty years, melodies and words came to me in English, I had to learn French. I had tried to do it before, for two or three days, but it didn’t work. The click came while changing instruments. I sat down at the piano and worked in a very simple way with a dictaphone, my voice and a notebook. I created skeletons of pieces live, whereas with Girls we are more in musical research, we work on the structures, the production, the arrangements before the text. Conversely, I wanted to put the voice forward. It all started with a few chords and the text, the arrangements would come around.
Writing in French has allowed you to address themes that you did not dare to address in English?
Yes, just as much as writing solo. In a group where we write in pairs, we discuss the themes, we are not neutral in relation to the others. It’s more difficult to be very intimate, very personal perhaps.
Antoine Wielemans
Photo: Manou Milon
How do you go from an Anglophone musical culture to a love of Francophone music?
Thanks to a couple of friends, keen on the whole French scene – Mathieu Boogaerts, Bertrand Belin, Albin de la Simone, Serge Gainsbourg – with whom I spent a lot of time learning violin making. When Mathieu Boogaerts released his album Michel (2005), as a big fan my friend listened to it eight times a day. I told myself that it was going to be hard, I tried to concentrate on something else, and on the fourth day it was I who said: “Shall we put Mathieu’s record back? “I was infected. At that time, we were touring at an intensive pace with the Girls and I had lost the pleasure of the music, I was always in the comparison, the analysis. Listening to a repertoire that was unknown to me, where the codes are not the same, completely freed me from that. I started to become a fan once more, looking for records all day, it was a big air bubble.
What did you like regarding these artists?
It’s quite common to Mathieu Boogaerts, Albin de la Simone and Bertrand Belin: the extreme stripping of the music, a relative simplicity and relatively few elements. A voice laid down very comfortably, quite intimate, forward, which tells stuff in the ear, which one cannot leave, which hypnotizes a little. The arrangements or the little things that happen behind are subtle and very important, but always in the background. I discovered listening to music at the same time as listening to a story, like a culmination.
The text before the music, the debate is constant in French song…
I rather see different degrees, because the music behind is exciting, well arranged. Flavien Berger, for example, almost does electronic pop with absurd, surreal texts. Albin de la Simone is more classic, but his arrangements are incredible, very simple, each song has its place. And then I listen thoroughly to Gainsbourg too. Cabbage-Headed Man, Melody Nelson’s Story are great concept albums where he really tells a story, with great music.
Your lyrics deal a lot with the issue of excess, whether it’s drugs, consumption, energy…
It’s an album of questioning, of a moment of crisis too, for me like others. It’s also quarantine. I also became a dad a few years ago. My whole life has changed quite a bit, actually. If I have to deal in English with topics like the consumer society, the world we live in, the fact of aging, it’s complicated because I’m not nuanced or subtle enough. French allows me to talk regarding it without talking regarding it. I can slip two hints into two sentences and pretend the song is regarding something else.
Did you miss the presence of others?
No, but I discovered a difference that I didn’t expect at all: how constantly in doubt you are when you work alone. There is no longer the driving force of the group, the other that motivates those who lose the thread, the general agreement on a song that gives confidence and allows others to do so. When you are alone, you constantly question everything. For two days, we think the songs are great, and then for three days, we think it sucks. It’s a tough rollercoaster ride.
And how did you manage to move forward in spite of everything?
My manager ended up listening to them and reassuring me. I was both happy and terrified, because it was becoming concrete. Initially, I wanted to release a small disc, discreetly, on Soundcloud. No doubt I would have been disappointed if things had happened like that. It was mostly related to fears, I think.
How did the group react to listening to the disc?
There is a certain modesty, so we don’t talk regarding it every day. We are also in a period of activity with Girls because we did regarding fifteen dates in the fall. So we’re very close to each other and that’s a good thing. I believe that Lio [Lionel Vancauwenberghe] is happy for me. He told me that he envied me for one thing: being able to do a project where you don’t have to think regarding the role of each musician in a group. Today however, I see the glass half full once more regarding the group, whereas following twenty years, as in a couple, we ask ourselves questions. I’m very excited to start writing for Girls once more.
Could having written in French change the way you write in Girls in Hawaii?
That’s the big question. Will I be able to write in English once more? I don’t have the answer, I haven’t gotten to it yet…
Antoine Wielemans on tour from January 27 and March 23 in Paris (La Maroquinerie).
