The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

French musician to mix it up in Burly

 

Wax Tailor performs at a concert in France Flickr
Wax Tailor performs at a concert in France Flickr

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.

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French musician to mix it up in Burly