RFI Musique: L’homme de Mars is obviously what’s known as a concept album. Musicians generally avoid the term ‘concept’ like the plague, but you seem to have embraced it…
Kent: Yes, and in today’s over-simplified world that seems to pose a bit of a problem! Actually, I’d say this is just an idea that has been followed through to its logical conclusion - or maybe not quite yet, because L’homme de Mars might end up as an animation one day. The album started out with a couple of songs that all seemed to revolve around the same theme and that gave me the idea of writing other songs along the same lines. At the end of the day, I decided what I wanted was a general thread tying the whole album together. Once I’d come up with the initial story, I had great fun orchestrating the album and drawing characters to go with it. I think when you have twelve songs that more or less spring into your mind fully formed, you can’t ignore them. You know you’re onto something!

And what exactly is the overall theme on L’Homme de Mars?
Basically, this album’s about me feeling that I don’t belong in the world we live in. I always feel a bit of an outsider - and I don’t think I’m the only one, either ! The thing is, whenever I look at the latest survey or opinion poll I realise that I’m never in the majority. Whenever I have to fill in a questionnaire, there’s never a box that fits! Recently, I had to fill in a form for the census and I managed to answer the first two questions: name and address. But after that, it was just a complete blank! Anyway, I waited for someone to come round and collect the form and then when this woman did, I said "Look, I have a big problem here. I don’t fit into this anywhere!" And she just laughed and said, "Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. I had a bit of trouble filling in the form myself!" Well, that reassured me no end! I knew then that the truth was out. The Martians are already amongst us!

And what does your Man from Mars come down to do on Earth?
The Martian is a very reasonable kind of being who’s not prone to great outbursts or excesses of emotion. He’s a sort of sage - but, as so often happens with sages, he gets a bit bored from time to time. Anyway, one day observing the Earth from afar, he sees that us Earthlings seem to be having a good time and he thinks he’d like to join in the fun. It becomes a sort of parable, if you like, a bit like Voltaire’s Zadig. Writing from the Martian’s perspective allowed me to get a bit of distance and recount the same things but from an outsider’s point of view.

Musically speaking, the songs that deal with the Martian’s trip to Earth are very orchestrated, very spacey in a way. There are lots of strings and brass instruments. It’s like all systems go! But once the Martian sets foot on Earth, the violins disappear. He starts interacting with Earthlings and meeting people and stuff and the orchestrations gradually become more down-to-earth and sound a lot more rock. Anyway, life on Earth eventually ends up doing the poor old Martian’s head in and all he can think about is getting back in his spaceship and getting the hell out of here! He comes to realise that life on Earth isn’t his thing at all, that everyone down here has got it wrong and he doesn’t want to be involved in our mistakes.

And what about the cartoon strip you drew to go with the album. Does it follow the same plotline?
Each song is like a new issue of an imaginary magazine I dreamt up called Mars Magazine. Each song is illustrated in five black-and-white plates. They’re more black than white, in fact, because the whole thing’s got a very Expressionist feel. I drew a lot of inspiration from Franz Masereel’s work and from wood engravings. But I didn’t follow the songs word for word. I sort of split myself in two, took inspiration from what I’d written and then set off in another direction altogether. This is ultimately a story of escapism, where things are pushed further and further beyond their limits, encouraging listeners and readers to do the same.
This is a personal tribute I’ve always wanted to pay to Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film finishes in this most amazingly open-ended way and you feel like you get this moment of revelation every time you see it. The thing is, when you see 2001 three years later, you understand something completely different than you did the first time round, because you’ve moved on and experienced new things in your life. I love that ! For me, that’s what artistic work is all about. I’d never dare talk about that being the ‘role of art’ because that sounds a bit pretentious. But all the same, it’s amazing, when you watch that ending you feel something deep down inside that you didn’t know how to express.

In terms of music as well as the images, L’Homme de Mars has a totally retro-futurist feel...
That’s the only way I can imagine it. After all, there’s a very Utopian side to the album. This is an idea of the future that only existed back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Back then, people believed Martians were possible, plausible even. People looked up through telescopes and saw that Mars was covered in canals and got caught up in all sorts of wild ideas, imagining that creatures from outer space had actually built these canals. It was brilliant! But then the closer we got to Mars, the more we came to realise that the canals didn’t actually exist and we came to accept that there was nothing on the red planet after all. All our fantasies were shattered! That’s the kind of innocence I wanted to tap into with my Martian. He’s basically a complete innocent with stars in his eyes. And that’s not something that really exists in the modern world!

The title track on the album sounds like a sort of anthem against giving up and giving in…
L’Homme de Mars was the first track I wrote for the album. To be honest, the song’s primarily addressed to myself as a bit of a morale-booster. It’s like a message in a bottle thrown into the sea. I hope a lot of people will identify with the song. It’s actually very autobiographical. The funny thing is, the more distance I created for myself speaking through the Martian character, with all the orchestration and the cartoon images, the more I revealed myself. I don’t think I would have done it all quite so openly if I’d just used simple vocals and guitar.

What’s left of the Kent we knew from the Starshooter days, the angry young man that wanted to blast everything away?
That’s a question I often ask myself! I know I’ve still got the same face when I look in the mirror in the morning and I don’t have the impression that I’ve betrayed anything along the way. It’s just that I’ve lived through a lot since then, like everyone else has. And maybe I’ve given up certain ideals and abandoned certain ways of seeing the world. I sometimes re-listen to the first songs I did with Starshooter and some of them make me laugh. But occasionally I come across a song and I don’t remember why or how I wrote it, but I know it’s me. At the end of the day, I think the kid I used to be would be pretty happy to meet the adult I’ve become. I think the pair of them would have a pretty good time together!