RFI Musique: Is La semilla escondida an attempt to build an even more solid bridge between Cuba and Jamaica?
Bruno Garcia: Yes, it is. But the album also gave us a chance to go back to the roots of the sound we're interested in - and what better way of doing that than going back to the source itself? I learnt a lot from the recording of this album actually, it's been a really important step in my work. It's funny, but I've always felt once the work of recording an album is over that I've been really enriched by the work. And I had a really great time with this album. Can you imagine working with the Fire House Crew, who are THE big sound in Jamaica right now, and with Cuban musicians in Santiago. It was absolutely brilliant!

The new album's got a much more openly reggae feel to it…
Un poquito quemao had a bit of a reggae feel to it, but Sin fronteras was much more Latino. I'd say this album's a fusion of the two really. There are some tracks on the album which are pure reggae, like Mi ultima voluntad, a track based on the Marley "riddim" Forever Loving Jah. It's practically the same as the original version, in fact. But a song like Que corra la voz is very different – it's basically a ska track which goes off into this tropical rhythm in the middle then comes back to ska, before shooting off on a reggae tangent… I love creating this kind of fusion and breaking fixed styles up a bit… What I really wanted on the new album was to get back to a more raw, direct sound and take people by surprise a bit. I'm not interested in repeating what I've done before. I really want to branch out in other directions and that's where the idea of working with local musicians came from. I knew that would alter the sound and allow me to take my musical experimentation and research one step further.

The logical conclusion of that was La semilla escondida being recorded in the Caribbean. Travel has played a big role in your music. Do you ever see your albums as travel diaries or musical photo albums?
Well, yes and no. When I first started out with Un poquito quemao the only travelling I was doing was in my head! Since then, it's true, I've spent a lot of time travelling and I've visited a lot of different countries. And, yes, the impressions I pick up in the course of my travels have inspired songs. But having said that, the songs I wrote when I started out were the fruit of my reflections on the world. I guess I'm seeing the world for real now, but I can't say it's radically different from how I'd imagined…

Did you ever imagine that a bunch of Cuban fans would set up a Sergent Garcia fan club in Guantanamo?
It's pretty unbelievable, isn't it? And all the more so as it's the first official fan club! I was really happy when I found out about that. The thing is, as I sing the majority of my songs in Spanish, people in France don't understand the meaning of the lyrics. That's why we have to post translations on the website! (Laughs) So the French really just see the festive, upbeat side of the music and that's that. But in South America and Cuba the songs take on a whole other dimension. That's something I've come to see for myself in the course of my travels. It was really brought home to me when I went out to Cuba and realised there was this fan club and everything. We heard people saying 'We love Sergent Garcia because what he's singing in his songs reflects our philosophy. That's exactly what we want to hear!' You can't help but be touched when you hear something like that – it's amazing!

So in a way it's true to say that your music assumes its most meaningful dimension outside France?

Well, I guess in a way, yes. But most of our fans are here in France. That's where the real fanbase is. And let's not forget that it's specifically here in Paris that the Sergent Garcia project got off the ground in the first place. Paris is a city that inspires things like this. It's an ultra-cosmopolitan city, a real centre for music and fusion of all kinds. There are a huge number of musicians who live here, you know. So I'd say Sergent Garcia could only have been born here and nowhere else. But one thing's very clear and that is that our message is a universal one… What message are we trying to put across in our work? Well, basically, that we’re not around on this earth for long so we'd better make the most of our lives and live them to the best of our abilities. That's our message in a nutshell!

Besides your recording activity you recently set up your own radio station on the Internet. What gave you the idea for Radio Timbo?
I've always been fascinated by the idea of radio. When French independent radio stations first started up I did this punk programme on a little station in the suburbs. It was great! I've always been into that kind of thing, you know, the idea of playing records people have never heard of, and introducing them to something they wouldn't have come across otherwise, that they in turn will pass on to someone else… As a musician, working on the other side of things, I really understand the importance of that. I love the way music can travel like that. It's the same thing on the DJ circuit. DJs get all these records from different countries, slap them on the turntables at a club night and all of a sudden they take on a whole new dimension!
The problem is on mainstream radio these days you just hear the same twenty of thirty tracks played over and over again. The playlists are practically the same on all the main stations, too. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression there are a lot less "alternative" programmes on the airwaves. There aren't that many presenters putting together their own programmes and trying to get their hands on records no-one's ever heard. I think you've got to turn to the Internet to find radio made in the same spirit we did in the early days. So that's why I decided to set up a radio on the Net. It's a scream actually, we broadcast from my living-room, which happens to serve as my studio as well… Sometimes we're sitting round in my flat and we suddenly get up, push the instruments to one side, set up a table with the mikes and it’s like 'OK, let's do a radio programme!'
The idea behind Radio Timbo is to promote sounds that aren't necessarily uncommercial, but that no-one here's ever heard of before. We play stuff from Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, Africa and so on. The interesting thing about it is we can also do special theme programmes every now and then, inviting a reggae expert to talk about Jamaican music or a DJ friend who knows about Nigerian music to talk about Afro beat. People generally have a very superficial understanding of subjects like that and I think it's interesting to use Radio Timbo to dig a bit deeper and try and explain where different musical styles come from, why, for instance, you have son in Colombia and you find the Chinese trumpet in Cuba…And we can also use Radio Timbo as a means of putting people in touch with one another, too. If I find people are interested in this kind of initiative we can hook up with people in Mexico or get a guy from Colombia to send us a programme on MP3 about groups that are taking off on the local scene there. It's a very exciting thing to be involved in because it's live and things go fast… Too fast, in fact – I haven't even had time