RFI Musique: With Tryo's new status as a big-selling act on the French mainstream, let's begin by asking you how you manage to deal with all the pressure these days?
Manu: Well, we've been 'self-produced' from the word go really and that means that nothing happens over at our record label without us agreeing to it first. We've fought to defend our artistic freedom since we started out. Basically, we believe that what we do musically is our own business and that's that. So the only kind of pressure being put on us is pressure from ourselves. We're pretty good at fending off any kind of pressure from the outside anyway. From the moment we started playing together, the emphasis was on hands-on management and musical craftsmanship. We're more modern-day troubadours, 'chansonniers', musical militants - not just a group that sells records!

How did you go about working on your new album, Ce que l’on sème?
Manu: The way we've always done - which means everyone basically turns up with a handful of songs and, if the others like them, they pick up their guitars and start working on arrangements. It's like a big cooking-pot where everything gets thrown in more or less spontaneously. I have to admit, we did try out a few new working methods this time round, though. For the first time in our career, Guizmo and Christophe Mali co-wrote the lyrics for Marcher droit. And Mali asked me to write the music for one of his songs, Quand les hommes s’ennuient. We ended up with a bit of a samba on that. We recorded the new album in several stages, first in Saint-Rémy de Provence, in the south of France, in this place with the most amazing natural reverberations. After that, we recorded the vocal harmonies and worked with our guest stars  at the Studio Garage, in Paris.

Guizmo: Three months before the actual recording sessions, we organised a 'demo' period where we got together and spent a day working on each song, jotting down all our ideas. We moved around a lot during the 'demo' period, working in Barcelona, Paris, Brittany and Le Mans. Afterwards - and this was something totally new for us - we presented our rough outlines of songs to a producer, Dominique Ledudal. We'd already started working with him on the final mix of Grain de sable (Ed.: the group's third album). But this time round we decided that we wanted him to be involved from the start. We regularly asked Dominique for advice - and often ended up listening to what he said!

Listening to Ce que l’on sème, it feels as if you've deliberately set out to alternate "classic" Tryo tracks with a series of more adventurous songs…
Guizmo: It wasn't deliberate, more a matter of chance really. There were some tracks which just started out in our heads over a reggae beat, reggae having been our favourite stomping-ground over the years. But that wasn't the only thing that counted. We've always attached a lot of importance to the lyrical content of our songs. And this time round, on a song like Mrs Roy, for instance - a song about a woman in India - it seemed more or less obvious the track should feature tablas and vocals by Florence Comment, who's an Indian music specialist. Latin music is present at the very heart of Tryo, too. Daniel (Ed.: the group's percussionist) is Chilean and he actually got the chance to go back and visit his homeland again recently after getting his work papers here… The song El dulce de leche is basically his story. So all these different musical 'colours' were working away in a sort of latent manner. Manu's been travelling back and forth to India for years now and my whole thing with Africa is getting stronger by the day.

So how did L’air du plastique, one of the more surprising tracks on the new Tryo album, come about?
Manu: It's a song by Mali that we started playing live on stage last year when we did the festival circuit. We started out with this sort of Latin ska version which was very upbeat and a lot of fun, but musically we knew we could take things a lot further. We ended up turning it into a 'merengue samba' with the chorus in a more Cuban vein. We wanted a very danceable rhythm as a contrast to the ironic lyrics: "Here we are fucking up the planet, polluting it to death, so let's go right ahead and run it into the ground!"

Guizmo: We really set ourselves a challenge with that. We were freaking out a bit, I can tell you. I mean, it's one thing listening to salsa and enjoying it, but actually playing it is a whole different ball game! We really had to stretch ourselves on our instruments. 

Tryo are renowned for being a bunch of musical militants. But how do you go from denouncing things in your songs to taking direct action?
Guizmo: Well, we're promoting Greenpeace (Ed.: a global environmental organisation) for one thing. We've included a membership form for Greenpeace with the new album so people can sign up. And all the paper and cardboard used in the making of the album was ecologically responsible. As for our merchandising - the T-shirts and stuff - that's all in organic cotton. We've been quietly campaigning away on issues we feel are important and today the most urgent issue for us is the environment. Greenpeace are absolute pros when it comes to eco-campaigning and what we feel we can do is act as a sort of spokesperson on their behalf. Basically, we're there if they need us! And that's our way of taking action, not just talking about things!

One final question here - after more than thirteen years in the music business, what exactly do you feel you have sown?
Guizmo: A bit of optimism and joy, I hope. And maybe we've also put across a few ideas and a certain outlook on life. One thing's for sure and that is that within the group we've definitely created a lasting friendship. We've become comfortable with taking our time over things and accepting that there'll be times when the guys don't all necessarily want to see each other. A brief period of separation always means that when we come together again it's better than before!