RFI: Le Festin de Juliette represents something of a landmark in your career, I believe. Apart from writing almost the entire album yourself, you've just signed to Polydor, an offshoot of the international record industry giant Universal…
Juliette: I must admit I'd been wanting to write my own music and lyrics again for a while. But the problem is it takes for ever. You have this dream that you'll be out on tour and you'll get back from a concert, snuggle up in your hotel room and knock out a few songs before the next gig. But, frankly, there's a fat chance of that! What happens in between gigs is you have to rest up – and the absolute last thing you feel like doing is speaking about music or writing songs. The problem is I have to go out on the road because if I don't do concerts, there isn't any money coming in. The only way I was able to stop and take time off to work on my songwriting was because Polydor offered me a deal where I had money coming in for a year. But don't get me wrong, I didn't sign a deal with them for money reasons. It's not like I've suddenly got a Hollywood-style budget or anything! I haven't changed the way I work or the team I've been working with for all these years. The only difference this time round is that I've moved up a notch in terms of distribution and media clout!

I wasn't required to make any changes in my working methods though. I turned up at Polydor with all my personal baggage and they gave me complete carte blanche. Better than that even! I didn't want to have some artistic director imposed on me, you know, someone who'd come along and stick his oar in, saying he saw me with a nice pink album cover and an electric-blue décolleté on stage! So what happened was I did all the artistic direction stuff myself. I ended up recording the album with my usual team of musicians in the studio where I've recorded all my albums to date. The only luxury this time round was that I had a bit more time to work on things – which basically meant a month in the studio rather than the usual fortnight!
The person responsible for signing me to Polydor was Jean-Philippe Allard. I think it's wonderful to have someone who's head of a record label and into jazz. It means something to be into jazz these days, believe me. It means you actually like musicians and you're capable of having a different kind of relationship with them. I'd already worked with Polydor before, in fact. The first thing I did with them was the compilation Les Oiseaux de passage (an album of Georges Brassens covers). And what was great about that was when I said I wanted to do a cover of La Complainte des filles de joie, Allard put me in the hands of Laurent Cugny. Well, you couldn't ask for better than that, could you?

RFI: Did the fact that you were responsible for writing lyrics, music and arrangements on Le Festin de Juliette change the way you worked?
Juliette: Well up until now, the way I've always worked is to sit down and write at the piano once I've already got the words for a song. Then what happens is I make changes in the lyrics – or I get the songwriter to make changes in the lyrics – so that it fits with the melody. After that I write the basic outline of the arrangements on the piano. But this time round I learnt to make better use of my computer and all the software you can get these days. That meant I was able to write part of the arrangements at the same time as working on the melody and the lyrics. I worked 'vertically' this time round! From the moment I sat down and started writing I was able to focus on the way I'd perform things and go into all the fiddly arrangement parts – and those are things which generally come right at the end of the songwriting process for me.

Take Garçon manqué, for instance, before I even knew what that song was going to be about, I knew it was going to start with a little intro on marimba and vibraphone. And the strangely irregular form of the verse – three metrical feet, then two, seven and three – came from the music itself. It was having that passage where all you hear is this mad Indiana Jones-style percussion that got me thinking in terms of action film scenes. I'd had this idea for a song about the Devil being a woman buzzing round at the back of my head for a while. And while I was writing the lyrics for L’Eternel féminin I came up with this arrangement which sounds like a blacksmith's forge pounding on and on without end. I imagined this steamy boiler room on a ship with flames licking up like in hell and at the same time I imagined this very smooth chorus line insinuating its way into your brain, which ties up with the idea of woman as snake.

RFI: I know you worked on a lot of your lyrics with Bernard Joyet this time round too…
Juliette: Yes, we had a whale of a time writing Un ragga abscons. I really enjoyed myself with that song. What happened was Bernard and I sat down with a stack of dictionaries and looked up all these words which had to do with language. My original idea with the song was to write something in French that no-one would be able to understand! People have often told me I use words in my songs which are completely incomprehensible to ordinary people – and this time, I must say, I pulled out all the stops!

It would have been too easy to write something completely incomprehensible like a medical treatise or a technical text on sail boats. So we decided to use a lot of old-fashioned words which have fallen out of current usage instead. Bernard came up with some real gems for me as far as the lyrics are concerned. The lyrics he gave me had a real sing-song feel to them before I even added the music – the song was full of clever linguistic twists and assonance and things. I honestly thought I'd have trouble remembering the lyrics when I recorded it, but funnily enough it was the first song to stay fixed in my brain. Bernard actually gave me a translation of the song so I'd understand all the weird old-fashioned words, but I have to admit I'm not really sure what I'm singing about at times!

RFI: Over the past few weeks fans who've come to see you on the first leg of your tour have discovered a new blonde Juliette. What's the reason behind your radical new look?
Juliette: Well, it's quite simple really. I got my hair dyed for a role I played in Carnages, the first full-length feature film made by Delphine Gleize, a director who's already made a name for herself for her shorts. I'm only on the screen for a few minutes actually, but I think people will notice me. I play this completely nutty woman, who's sort of half guru, half psychotherapist and I organise this rebirthing session in a pool. All my patients are floating around in this swimming pool and I'm standing by the edge of the pool in this long evening dress making them do primal screams. At one point I have to wade into the pool in this long trailing dress and hold Chiara Mastroianni in my arms. I think it's a pretty memorable role!

Interview: Bertrand Dicale
Translation: Julie Street