RFI/Musique: The group Indochine are currently riding high in the charts with J’ai Demandé à la Lune, a track you wrote for them. There used to be a time when if a group wanted a hit they called up Jean-Jacques Goldman. Looks like you're the hit-making machine now then?
Mickey: Yeah, it looks like it, doesn't it? Actually it's great (laughs), but Goldman has written stacks of hits and this is the first time I've come up with one! Nicolas (from Indochine) wanted to collaborate with different people on the group's new album and he ended up asking Jean-Louis Murat and me rather than Goldman. Anyway, I sent Nicolas two songs, just simple versions with guitar and vocals and he really liked La Lune so he recorded it and that's how it ended up where it is today! (1 million copies sold to date).

It's pretty handy Indochine scoring a hit with J’ai Demandé à la Lune just before the release of your new album. That should help promotion!
Well, it's fair to say that most people now know we wrote the song. And, yes, people do seem to have been taking more of an interest in our music since.

With your previous albums you used to hone your songs live on stage before going into the studio. But this time round you took a year off to work exclusively on your songwriting. How did you handle the idea of such a long lapse of time stretching out in front of you?
First of all, let me say we really needed it! It was absolutely vital. We'd got to the point where either we stopped making music altogether or we took a proper 'year off' to chill out. We'd been on the road for three whole years, playing concert after concert after concert. And we'd been just about everywhere too, because we did a major tour with Louise Attaque and then hit the road again on our own. We knocked out our two albums one after the other without taking a break from touring. In fact, our second album was actually recorded during the tours. So that's why we'd reached the point where we decided to take an entire year off and enjoy the luxury of sitting back and thinking about things for a while. We were able to concentrate all our thoughts and energy on the album and just play the songs in the studio.

Pascal Colombier supervised the recording of your new album. Do you think his previous work with Carla Bruni rubbed off on your album in any way?
We didn't contact Pascal because he'd worked with the likes of Carla Bruni, Les Innocents or Etienne Daho. Pascal's actually an old friend of mine from my schooldays. I started doing music with him, in fact; we're the same age. Anyway Pascal ended up moving to Paris and made his way in the music world, working in the studios and stuff. Anyway, one day we turned round to him and said, 'OK Pascal, how do you feel about going home to your Mum's for a bit and enjoying a nice hot summer down in the country? We could organise a few barbecues and games of 'pétanque' and you could help us record our new album!'

So was it a deliberate decision to move away from the sort of 'amateur thrown-together feel' of your last albums?
Well, to be honest, there's still a bit of an 'I've just thrown this together' feel because a lot of the tracks were recorded in our house down in the country. But as far as the technical side of things went, we knew we didn't want to end up with a super-smooth, super-polished sound, you know, one of those mega-American-sounding productions! But I suppose it's fair to say we're somewhere between the two these days.

 

Your album's got a great title -Tu vas pas mourir de rire (You're Not About to Die Laughing!) Where does it come from?
It's basically to warn people who buy the album that they're not going to die laughing listening to it! Even if people are pretty aware of the dangers of modern life with everything going on around us these days, no-one's sure what we'll actually die of – whether it will be through something we breathe or something we eat!… One thing's for sure, though, and that's that we're not going to die from laughing! I think the title track pretty much sums up the spirit of the album really.

Was opening your album with a song called Amen a way of playing up the provocative album title even further?
No. I don't think Amen should necessarily be seen as a negative song, in fact. Amen is an ode to the beauty of nature. Whatever happens to us, whatever goes on in the world, the fact remains that we're surrounded by a wondrous thing that we're actively engaged in destroying!

You tackle subjects like pollution and the Harkis on your new album, but fans might actually have expected you to deal with more contemporary issues such as globalisation, terrorism and war…
We do tackle the theme of globalisation in a couple of songs actually, in the song Respire (Breathe) about pollution, for instance. What I'm talking about in that song are the powerful multi-national structures whose sole purpose is to make money – and against which, sadly, we're helpless. These big multi-national structures are currently eating up everything in their path, they control everything, and we've become total slaves to them. And the worst thing is we've been implicit in their creation in a way. And here we are suffering the consequences, as our grandchildren and the generation after them will have to do in the future!

Is the idea of making hard-hitting political and social statements in your songs still important to you?
These days I'd say I'm more disillusioned than militant. I've become a bit defeatist, in fact. I'm pretty pessimistic when I look at what's going on around me on a daily basis. But if, in the future, there are still a few optimists left in this world I'd love them to turn round and explain to me what should be done to make things better.

Do you put your social and political ideas into action in everyday life?
Well, I don't belong to any movement, political or otherwise. I'm just an ordinary citizen standing up and opening my big mouth! We are involved in the voluntary sector though. We've got this rock association which organises concerts and stuff. We've organised fund-raising gigs for humanitarian causes such as Burkina Faso… just stuff on our own level really. It's thanks to the voluntary sector that culture makes any headway in France – and not just culture either! It's thanks to all the hard work put in by voluntary organisations such as Emmaüs and Les Restos du Cœur. None of that was created by the State, was it! It's all down to volunteers and ordinary citizens deciding to take matters in hand and do something to change things! It's just the opposite of what goes on in politics, in fact. Besides, politicians are more than happy for ordinary folk to step into the breach and help out. They can wipe their hands of social problems that way! It's great, isn't it? People starving to death in the streets without a roof over their heads are taken care of by ordinary citizens! Politicians rub their hands and think 'So much the better!'

Is that where your attachment to the world of childhood comes from in your songs? Do you feel you're looking back on a world of lost innocence and regretting the difficulties of adulthood?
I think in a way it's to do with going back to something pure and innocent and naïve. Maybe children are our only hope. Maybe it's got something to do with a feeling of nostalgia for a world where you don't have to worry about things. Maybe childhood is simply the best time of your life, unless you've had an unhappy childhood, of course. But the subject's never treated in exactly the same way in the songs. Sometimes a song can come from more of an autobiographical angle, but the next minute we'll be doing a song about kids who were forced to work during the war…

Who's the strange toothless wonder Angus Young who's pictured on your album cover?
We don't know how old Angus is or where he comes from for that matter. One of our mates has got this huge collection of old photos he's bought at flea markets over the years. He's got all these old negatives still mounted on their little glass plaques which date back to before 1930. He's got over 3,000 photos in his collection and one afternoon we were going through them and we came across Angus and something clicked! I think the image fits perfectly well with the rather wobbly, rickety spirit of the album.

There's a much more marked mix of styles on your new album which features everything from rap and world sounds to 80s influences. Do you think this musical curiosity is a sign of maturity?
I wouldn't say it's necessarily a sign of maturity. But this time round we definitely felt this album is properly finished, unlike our previous albums where we still have a few regrets about the way they turned out. The 80’s touch is me, simply because that's what I was listening to at the time. But we've all got very different musical tastes actually. Najah's responsible for the Middle Eastern touches, Jojo's more into the electronic stuff and I like putting a folk spin on things. We enjoy mixing our individual influences up together. We don't want to get stuck in any one style.
I'd like our next album to be a bit lighter actually. We'd planned to lighten things up on this album, in fact, but then I got worked up about certain events in the news!

Do you feel close to a group like Tue-Loupwho have insisted on staying in the countryside and have very publicly turned their back on Parisianism?
Well, we love the country and that's a fact. The thing is, if you're born in the country you get bored livin