A young girl on the cover of Voulzy's new album, Avril, stands cradling a guitar in her arms. The girl is the daughter of photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino and the guitar in question belongs to Voulzy himself. But this is no ordinary guitar – this is Voulzy's very first instrument, the one his mother gave him back in '65, the one that kicked off his whole career. And fans will find a photo of Voulzy on the back cover of Avril, laughing as he holds the same guitar in his hands. (In fact, photos of Voulzy holding various guitars are scattered throughout the CD booklet, picturing the singer with his eyes screwed shut as if trying to capture the secret sounds within).

Avril gets off to a familiar start, guitar riffs echoing out across the ocean waves as Voulzy's nostalgia-charged vocals reminisce about "taming wild girls on the beach". However, all is not sweetness and light on this new album, as first appearances might lead you to believe. Beneath the saccharine surface of his pop songs, Voulzy toys with existential doubts (which are sensitively expressed in Alain Souchon's lyrics). But on the whole, Avril is an album that leaves you dreamy and upbeat rather than tormented and depressed. Indeed, this is an album to be savoured at leisure and - while it might not include an obvious smash hit like the legendary Belle Ile en mer – Avril features plenty of catchy melodies and superb string arrangements.

We caught up with Monsieur Voulzy the day after Avril hit French record stores. Tucked away in a private salon of a luxury Parisian hotel, the singer, looking calm and relaxed in head-to-toe black, radiated affable Zen charm - and prefaced our interview by reminding us that he gave his very first interview to RFI presenter Gilles Sala back in 1977.

Laurent, your new album's been a long time in coming – we've had to wait nine years, in fact! How long did things take when you actually got down to work?
Well, you could say I went into labour for quite a while before I actually gave birth! It took between one and two years to write the songs for Avril and the recording sessions lasted around forty months. I co-wrote La Fille d'avril, the last track on the album, with Alain Souchon in July, in fact. But I've been extremely busy over the last nine years. I've been touring pretty much non-stop and I also built my own recording studio. So it's not like I've spent nine whole years making Avril. I'd say I've been working on the album since '96, in fact.

And what does it feel like to be suddenly surrounded by all this media hype after spending so much time alone in the studio?
Well, I must admit I quite like it really after spending the last three and a half years shut up on my own. It's a dramatic change to have this totally different lifestyle all of a sudden where I come out of my monastic seclusion and meet people!

Hang on a minute, are you saying you didn't see anyone at all until you'd finished your album?
No, that's not strictly true, but when I'm working I'm generally in the studio from 10 in the morning to ten or eleven o'clock at night! And a schedule like that means you only really get to see the people you're working with. You don't have much time to go out and meet anyone else! Having said that, however, I did manage to take a couple of days off every now and then while I was working on the album. I even managed to take an entire five-day break once! … It's true that it's a bit weird being surrounded by so many people all of a sudden but I'm actually enjoying it quite a lot.

There are quite a few themes which come up time and time again on your albums, like women, for example, who in Laurent Voulzy songs are always referred to as "girls" …
Well, maybe that's because I like the word "girl" better. I think "girl" sounds nicer than "woman". And when you come to think about it, all women have a bit of a little girl hidden away inside them somewhere, no matter how old they are. Anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "girl". I'm the kind of person who tends to say "boy" instead of "man" …

There's even a song on your new album, Jaguar, where you sing about a car as if it were a "girl" …
That's true, but what I end up saying in that song is that a Jaguar might brighten up my evening, but it won't help me get through the night! It's a bit like Cinderella really. No matter how amazing the car is, I know I'm going to be on my own at midnight! Maybe the way I talk about girls is actually a way of getting at something else, a way of evoking a quest for something distant and inaccessible.

There's another subject that comes up time and time again in your songs and that's a sort of nostalgia for lost youth or a bygone era …
Yes, I'd agree with that. And I think that's particularly strong this time round on Mary Quant, a song dedicated to the woman who invented the mini-skirt. Because, let's face it, you can't deny that mini-skirts made a real impact on the world! I remember in my own lifetime the invention of the mini-skirt coincided with me discovering American and English music on the radio. Mini-skirts appeared around the time I got my first guitar, when I started out making music and they'll forever be associated in my mind with my first teenage loves. That whole era turned out to be hugely influential in my life. The past acts as a real driving force for me, it's the fuel I need to run on! The music I listened to when I was growing up is like a battery powering me on today.

Apart from eternal references to "girls" and the joys of yesteryear, there are also constant references to water in your songs. You always seem to mention the sea, a river or an ocean …
Yes, absolutely. I don't know why it is, but I can't help it. I've always been attracted to water, particularly to shorelines and the sea. In fact, I'd say the seashore's probably one of the places I feel best in life. I love being on the water or standing looking out to sea. (It's no coincidence that Laurent Voulzy's home studio is called "Au bord de l'eau" – At the Water's Edge).

Do you sail at all?
Yes, a little bit. But I tend to stick pretty close to the coast. I'm not one for venturing off into the wide blue yonder … You won't catch me sailing to the French West Indies solo! But I love sailing along the coast or cruising out to a little island – with someone who knows what they're doing, of course!

You touch on some very personal things on your new album, evoking your Antillais roots, for instance, on Amélie Colbert, a song you recorded in Creole with a superstar cast …
Yes, it was great. I got to record Amélie Colbert with Mario Canonge, the Fanfant Brothers and Camille Sopran'n. I'd had the idea of doing something about the Antilles (the French West Indies) for a long time. I'd thought about doing something based on the biguine, the traditional dance music which was all the rage in the 20s and 30s in Guadeloupe, which is where I come from. At the same time I knew I wanted to evoke the atmosphere of the place through the lyrics, not just the music. I discovered Guadeloupe pretty late in life, when I was 35, but I remember all the wonderful stories my mother used to tell when I was growing up.
Basically, what I wanted to convey in the song was a mix of all that and I came up with the story of this old woman who's grown increasingly wise over the years. I called her Amélie Colbert, which is a typical sort of Antillais name. Amélie Colbert's the kind of person you go to when you've got a work problem or a broken heart. You tell her your story and she listens, then makes some wise, insightful comment and sets you back on your feet again. I came across a lot of Amélie Colberts over in Guadeloupe, but Amélies exist everywhere I think. I also wanted the song to evoke the Antilles of the past – and what the islands still are, in fact. Amélie Colbert was an attempt to capture the soul of the Antilles.

There's another song on your new album, Jésus, which is altogether less upbeat and sanguine, where you seem to express a lot of existential doubts …
Jésus is about the sort of existential questions I ask myself all the time, you know. Things like why are people born into one life and not another? Why do some people have so much when others have so little? These are the sort of things you just can't fathom out yourself, so you end up asking God, or whatever the being is that you believe in …

So do you personally believe in God?
Well, I certainly believe in something – or I try to, in any case. More and more these days I find myself coming to the conclusion that there's a lot more out there than what we see. But I'd like to be able to feel more certain about my beliefs. Right now I feel like I'm still chasing after things. I mean, if there is a God, how come there's so much injustice and inequality in the world? When I come up against dilemmas like that, I find myself putting the question to Jesus. There are plenty of other ways of addressing the problem, of course. But I think, whatever your way of dealing with it, it's a question a lot of people end up asking themselves at some point in life.

The song Jésus is also about the idea of waging war on poverty …
Well, in actual fact, the song was 'commissioned' by Father Joseph Wresinski, a priest who set up the "ATD Quart Monde" movement. One day Father Wresinski got in touch with me and asked me to write a song for people living in poverty. I turned round and said there was no way I could write a song like that and he'd be better off asking someone else. I wasn't at all keen on the idea of becoming some sort of spokesperson. Anyway, Father Wresinski sent me another letter three weeks later, insisting he'd like me to write a song. I never replied to him and he ended up dying in 1988. But I did eventually get in contact with "ATD Quart Monde". I started going to their meetings and ended up getting involved with the cause – and now, a dozen years after Father Wresinski's original request, I've got round to delivering my commission! Jésus was the first song we wrote for the new album, in fact.
There's one thing that particularly strikes me about Avril and that is that the album doesn't seem to be fixed in any particular moment in time …
So much the better! I'm happy to hear you say that! The thing is, I realise I'm influenced by what's going on around me in terms of music and stuff. I'm aware that I pick up on the general zeitgeist. But at the same time I feel I cook up my own musical mix in my personal melting-pot. I think the new album is very much a snapshot of me taken in the past few years. Although, having said that, it's not meant to be an intimate diary or anything! … The good thing is, if Avril can't be tied down to any particular era now, it will still be timeless in five years!

How come you've never worked with any other songwriter but Alain Souchon?
That's not a question I've ever sat down and asked myself really! I mean, Souchon has such an incredible songwriting style. And we get on really well. Somehow we always manage to set aside time in our lives where we leave Paris and go somewhere far away and spend days and days just talking. After that, we sit down to work together, write a few songs and go to sleep. Why would I want to abandon that and miss out on Souchon's extraordinary songwriting? And that, in a nutshell, is why Souchon ended up writing eight out of the eleven songs on my new album!

But haven't you ever heard other lyrics you think are wonderful? Aren't there any other songwriters out there who grab your attention?
Of course there are! And it would be awfully vain of me to pretend otherwise! But I feel they're out there writing their songs and we're writing ours. Maybe one day we'll branch out and try something different, but our songwriting partnership's been going strong for 27 years, you know! … No, seriously, there've been lots of other songs I liked …

Like what, for instance?
(Laurent pauses to think for a long while). I think the thing that's always made the biggest impression on me is the emergence of major musical movements like techno, hip hop and electronica. I spend a lot of my time listening to things like that and there are good and bad things in all of it. I tend to find that there are outstanding tracks every now and then, rather than entire albums I think are good … Björk's someone I think's amazing. It's also good to see 'world' sounds making a big impact on the music scene right now. That shows things are really opening up. I think over the past few years there's been an incredible amount of different music around. But I don't think there's been a real revolution like there was back in 1955 with the invention of rock'n'roll. Having said that, however, a lot of music has moved me in some way, including classical music which I actually listen to quite a lot. I'm an all-round music fan – my tastes spin round 360 degrees!

For someone who spends such a lot of time in the studio, you don't seem to use a lot of machines and hi-tech gadgets in your music …
I think there have been some truly amazing innovations in music thanks to the new technology available these days. And I'm happy to make full use of it all – but only when I feel it's really necessary! I still like using acoustic or electric guitar whenever I can. But if I feel something like a rhythm box would work with the overall sound, then I'm happy to use one. There are some musicians who wouldn't dream of working with anything but electronic machines and samplers. Well, that's OK by me, that's what they're into. But what I'm into is keeping all doors open and never ruling out anything!

That's not necessarily something that comes across listening to your new album …
Well, that's because I used a lot of acoustic instruments on it. What you hear are real drums, real violins, real bass and backing vocals. I even ended up using a number of old antique instruments that date back to the Renaissance, like the "cromorne", for instance. I'm a big fan of Renaissance music. But I included a synthesiser on a couple of tracks because I felt it added something no other instrument could. My philosophy is to make the most out of everything I have at hand. I go with the flow!

And what about live music? Do you have any plans to tour again in the near future?
Yes, I'm considering hitting the road again in the future but no definite dates have been fixed yet. If I do do something, it'll probably be in the autumn of 2002. I really enjoyed myself on my last tour (1993/1994) and I like the idea of getting back up on stage again. And, what's more, I know I'll like it a lot more when I'm actually up there. Like they say, it's only when you start eating that you realise you're hungry!

There was one last question I wanted to ask you before we wrap things up. I had a quick look at your new website and there's an awful lot of different material on it - including references to alien life-forms! Is this something we should take at face value or are you being ironic?
No, it's something you should take at face value. But there's a lot more to the site than aliens, you know. There's all kinds of stuff about fairies, myths and legends, forests, dreams, stars and the cosmos and the quest for a treasure. You can also watch extracts from our recording sessions which we've filmed in the studio over the past few years. Now that I've finished Avril I plan to devote a lot more time and energy to my website. I think the Internet's magic!