Hailing from a small town in the north of France and working as a radio host in a suburb of Paris, this artist has since put out three award-winning albums and perform in over 65 countries.
Wax Tailor, known to his friends as Jean-Christophe Le Saoût, is a multifaceted musician with several album releases in France.
His first EP, Lost the Way was released in 2004.
Known officially as a trip-hop music producer, his music is a fusion of sound bites of old movies with smooth jazzy hip-hop stylistically fused in.
Wax Tailor uses turntables and, at times, a live band to create his music.
Wax Tailor will be performing with Emancipator and Yppah at Higher Ground Oct. 14. Doors open at 8 p.m.
Vermont Cynic: How are you doing?
Wax Tailor: I have been very well. I feel I am living two lives right now: I am touring and moving from place to place when the people are sleeping; it’s a routine. But I am also working on a documentary.
VC: What’s your favorite part of this “routine”?
WT: There’s two moments that I really love. The first is when I am working in the studio, and I can find the light. Like, there is the light and that is it. It’s when I am in the moment of the truth. The second is when I am on stage performing and I feel there is nothing between myself and the people who are listening to my music.
VC: How did you get the idea to mix in samples of old movies into your music?
WT: It was a very long time ago, maybe the late ‘80s, when I was very involved in the hip-hop scene. I loved the dialogue in the hip-hop.
And then in the early ‘90s, I was a teenager and making my early demos, I started to use dialogue because there is truly a melody within the voice. I like how you can hear a clip from a movie and bend it in a way that changes the meaning of the words.
Like in one of my songs, “The Tune”, I was watching an old movie and this actress, she said, “I just can’t get that tune out of my head,” and I loved the way her voice sounded. It had a Bossa Nova sound behind it.
VC: Why old movies specifically, though?
WT: When I was growing up, TV was new, so big and so important. The movies that played then were often very poetic or political about global things like the Cold War. I liked the political messages behind them.
VC: What’s your music making process?
WT: It comes in a natural way. I know when the music sounds right. People often ask me if I am afraid of the blank sheet, but the answer is no. I know myself so I know my music.
VC: How does knowing yourself help with the music?
WT: When you’re growing up in a certain kind of music it brings the generation together and you kind of feel like soldiers of that genre. But, for me, when I make music I assume a different culture [American culture]. You’re so afraid to love the music that your parents love. But in the mornings now, I wake up, and I make my coffee, and I don’t know, there it is – I’m listening to jazz.
VC: What is the message behind your album’s art?
WT: When I was young I spent so much time in record stores. And when you don’t know an artist the first contact you have with them is the artwork on the cover. I want people to pick up my album and have it play on their imagination like, say, what can it be? A mystery.