RFI Musique: It’s not that your new album sounds radically happier than your previous releases, but it does have a much more serene feel to it…
Etienne Daho: Yes, this album is much quieter and calmer than my usual work. I think you can only write songs like this once you’ve passed through the eye of the storm. These are the kind of songs you write when you’re able to stand back and get a bit of distance on things.

Was developing the material for this album a long drawn-out process?
I wrote L’Invitation in several different stages actually. It took me a year and a half to write this many songs. The production work was also carried out in different phases. We started out with just drums and the vocal melodies. That’s a bit of an unusual way of going about things, but I’d read that when Jerry Wexler was producing soul records on Atlantic that was exactly the way he worked. Apparently when they were working on Dusty in Memphis - which is an absolutely superb album - Dusty Springfield said she really suffered because Wexler made her go into the studio and sing with nothing but the drums as accompaniment. Working that way means you don’t get carried away on a bed of harmony. You’re reduced to two fundamental things: the emotion of the melody and the drumbeat, the pulse of life.

The first song I wrote for the album was Cet air étrange. That was a real joy because generally what happens when I’m in between two albums is I get into this very negative state of mind where I feel like slitting my wrists because I get blocked and feel I’ll never come up with another line again. But this time what happened was that this tune, this really quite special melody, just came into my head one day and suddenly I found the lyrics to go with it. There was already this sort of atmosphere there... The second track I wrote was Boulevard des Capucines which, I have to say, on an emotional level set the standard very high for the rest of the album. Anyway, after that I headed off to Barcelona to finish working on my material. I spent the next two months locked away on my own in this tiny apartment with no contact with the outside world whatsoever. I didn’t have anything, no phone, no e-mail, nothing. I worked in total isolation!

The lyrics on L’Invitation are a lot more direct than usual. On previous albums you’ve tended to hint at things rather than explain them. This album seems to be a lot more in keeping with French ‘chanson’ tradition in a way…
I can’t say I’ve ever deliberately tried to make my songs cryptic or coded in any way. But maybe in some songs I have used metaphors or titles where people are not quite sure what I mean like Heures hindoues, for instance. The last song on the new album, Cap Falcon, has a bit of a mysterious ‘cosmic’ side to it, I guess.

Another thing that adds to the overall impression of clarity and lucidity on L’Invitation is the way your vocals have been mixed. Your voice sounds really close this time…
Yes and that’s something that was very much intentional. That’s precisely why we started out working with just drums and vocals. What usually happens is we do the arrangements, stick in a lot of loud guitars and then I come along and lay my vocals over that. But that way you get instrumental frequencies interfering with my voice - it’s like there’s no room left for the vocals. One thing’s been very important for me in the making of my last few albums and that is to make sure that my vocals come across properly. In the early days of my career I was heavily influenced by the Anglo-Saxon style of production where vocals are sort of embedded deep down in the music. I was working in England at that point and I heard stuff like that all the time so it was natural. And that’s the sound that made me popular, the style I carved out my place on the French music scene with. But in the course of making my last few albums I’ve really fought to get more space for my vocals. I don’t want listeners to have to sit there and really strain to hear them.

When you’re writing your songs do you deliberately draw on your own personal experience for inspiration?
Yes, always. And that’s primarily because I don’t have much imagination. When I write my songs it’s like I’m dipping my pen into what I see as a long, long book made up of lots of different chapters. Each album is like another chapter in the story! People may like some of my albums more than they do others, but you can’t take any of them away from the others because that would be like skipping a chapter in the story.
The thing is, when you’re busy running around you never have time to look back over your shoulder. But I’ve started to now. Now I see the coherence of my story - and I have a better understanding of the reasons why I made certain choices when I did.

The release of your new album coincides with the release of a five-track EP, Be My Guest Tonight, featuring cover versions of songs in English. These include Pink Floyd’s Cirrus Minor and songs by Smokey Robinson, Rodgers & Hart, Hank Williams and Fred Neil. Where did the idea for the EP come from?
Well, I felt like I had so much to say that I spent a lot of time messing around with other stuff before getting down to work on the new album. I threw myself into all sorts of projects, working with David Roback from Mazzy Star in London, then getting together material for an album of cover versions… I ended up recording around forty covers, in fact, everything from Billie Holiday to The Libertines. But when I felt that I was ready to start my new album, I dropped everything else to get on with that. But at the same time I liked the idea of continuing with my covers. It’s something I’ve always done. Covering a song I like is like sending a big bunch of flowers to people whose music I like and who, in some way, have helped shape me. This is a way of sharing things that give you pleasure - like when you’re a teenager and you make a cassette compilation for your mates!