WINEFOODMUSIC LIVE - MICHEL FUGAIN

Gérard Bertrand : Hello everyone, it's 7 p.m. on Friday, and we're here with Chef Laurent Chabert for the Live Wine Food Music series. Welcome Chef

Chef Laurent Chabert : Hello everyone!

Gérard Bertrand : And tonight we have the privilege of welcoming our friend Michel Fugain.

Michel Fugain : Et Hop Là

Gérard Bertrand : Good evening Michel.

Michel Fugain : Hi friends, how are you?

Gérard Bertrand : How are you?

Michel Fugain : Magnificently well! With you, it can only go well Gérard.

Gérard Bertrand : I 'm jealous because I know you're even closer to the sea than I am. We're not far away, but you're right next door, I think you're in Corsica.

Michel Fugain : I' ve been living here for quite a few years now. I'm in Corsica, I've been confined to Corsica, I've spent two months, two and a half months even, on this island which is itself a kind of confinement, so it's all gone well, I'm not risking much here because I've got a bit of land, so everything's fine.

Gérard Bertrand : You look good! Our friend, Chef Laurent Chabert. Where have you been, Laurent?

Chef Laurent Chabert : I've been to Cap Corse

Michel Fugain : Yes, it's the beginning of Cap Corse, just after Bastia.

Chef Laurent Chabert : And then I spent 9 months in Porto Vecchio, in the bay of Santa Julia.

Michel Fugain : It 's beautiful here, the bay of Porto Vecchio is really beautiful.

Chef Laurent Chabert : Tonight we'll be revisiting Corsican products, lobster and denti.

Gérard Bertrand : What are you going to cook for us tonight?

Chef Laurent Chabert : For the first dish, for the first wine, it'll be the lobster. I've already cooked it just beforehand, to make it easier during the live show, and of course the denti.

Gérard Bertrand : I didn't know it was a Corsican fish.

Michel Fugain : It's called like that because it's got two teeth in the front like that which makes it very recognizable, Laurent don't blame me but the best denti I've ever eaten in my life I ate it because the fishermen from Ile Rousse invited us onto the rocks on which there's a red lighthouse and it's very recognizable that's why it's called Ile Rousse, and they simply boiled a denti in seawater in a poissonnière and it was a pure marvel, there was nothing but fish and seawater.

Gérard Bertrand : It 's fabulous, but at the same time it's 7 p.m. and everyone watching is starting to salivate. And then what are we going to have?

Chef Laurent Chabert : And then a can, I worked it whole just now, it comes from a local producer near Carcassonne, the leg we're going to confire as well and then pan-fried served with a little garlic flower pesto salad.

Gérard Bertrand : So Michel, he's working, I'm like you, I'm going to drink a little, so what I propose Michel is to have a quiet drink, we're going to drink Clos du Temple rosé. I've got some great news for you: the new vintage has just been voted best wine in the world by Drinks Business, the world's leading rose magazine, based in London. A panel of experts ranked it number 1 in the world, so we're very happy, because it's really a fantastic rosé, in a bottle shaped like a temple, we're lucky because we're going to be able to toast it even if it's virtual Michel, we're both going to taste it, and for all those who are watching us, here's to you if you drink a glass, we're glad you're here to deconfine.

Michel Fugain : It 's a wine for men.

Gérard Bertrand : In fact, it's multidimensional, because it's powerful and at the same time vibrant, meaning that it has horizontality, verticality and depth, which isn't easy for a rosé, and because it's a rosé vinified in barrels, and therefore vinified under the same conditions as a great white, it's a great terroir with small yields at Cabrières, it's a magnificent terroir of both schist and limestone, a collusion that gives this unique taste that salivates in the mouth. It's exciting because we've put rosés in the world of great wines, and that was a challenge for us.

Michel Fugain : It's splendid to the taste, it's splendid!

Gérard Bertrand : I saw that there was a bit of news for you because you've done, we'll look at it soon but, you've done something special called "Les Chevaux Sauvages", can you tell us a bit about it?

Michel Fugain : Listen , it's something we did as soon as we were confined, with my whole team and my mates who miss me in a way you can't even imagine, we said to each other, well then, fuck it, we're going to do something, we're going to do something, and then we saw all our friends, all our colleagues, saying thank you, bravo to the carers, and I said, well, we're going to...

Musical moment

Michel Fugain : We've been doing a lot of songs and we've realized that they're about life from beginning to end, and for me that's great.

Gérard Bertrand : So Michel, we're going to watch it, and for all those who are watching us, enjoy these few minutes that you're going to see as a preview, we're watching!

Musical moment

Gérard Bertrand : So were you carried away like Michel because there who was confined but with the energy that you sent it's really wild horses!

Michel Fugain : I have this image, it's obviously an artist's vision, but for me, wild horses had become a bunch of young people with long hair like that, running around with their hair floating behind them, and I say to myself, fuck, this is the next generation, this is what's coming, and they're going to change the world, damn it.

Gérard Bertrand : You know that an idea can change the world, and you in the world of creativity can sweep people off their feet, and it's true that with the emotions you deliver, it's pretty special because there aren't many professions like that. We do it, but we do it through interaction, i.e. we can make a wine and we can move people from a distance, but we're not necessarily always connected, and neither are you, but the fact of being on stage like that in front of several thousand people, you transmit an energy that's pretty incredible. I suppose you're looking forward to getting back on stage?

Michel Fugain : It 's terrible, I miss it incredibly, but our jobs aren't very different Gérard, they're human jobs, we work for human beings. As we were saying off the air, I'm not a guy who goes from gastro restaurant to gastro restaurant, certainly not, especially as I live with a vegan, so it's not in the bag. But what I like is the finality of food, a good table, a good meal, there's a staging, we do very related work.

Gérard Bertrand : And you know, I remember when you came to play at Château L'Hospitalet, so I often ask artists, have you ever sung among the vines? There are very few artists who have played among the vines. I didn't know how much music gives good vibes, because in fact it's really good for the grapes, these positive vibes that you transmit, the wines get better every year, I think at the time of the jazz festival at the end of July when the grapes start to change color, it's very inspiring because, you know, we often play music during the vinification process and there are often a lot of winemakers who play classical music and it's true that it's great because the fact that this music and jazz festival is in the middle of the vines I was saying earlier that in the next world, we'll have to respect nature a little more, because we've been beating on it a bit, so we have to ask ourselves how we're going to be kind to nature.

Michel Fugain : It seems obvious to me, and the fight is going to be just as difficult with, I'd say, planetary money, i.e. the financiers who always want to do the things that will cost them the least, but we realize, and I'm devastated by this, that there's also work to be done with citizens who lack a bit of civic-mindedness. I think there's a job to be done there, an awareness that depends on education, maybe a few slaps in the face along the way... who is it?

Gérard Bertrand : The Chef is ready!

Chef Laurent Chabert : Here's the lobster.

Michel Fugain : So, Laurent, what do I drink this lobster with, the Clos du Temple ?

Chef Laurent Chabert : Clos du Temple is the perfect match.

Michel Fugain : Clos du Temple was an obvious choice.

Chef Laurent Chabert : So, we made a carcass juice that we slightly gelled, which is served cold. The lobster I cooked this morning and then we added a shiso sorbet to give it a peppery taste, and the last little thing is the black garlic, marinated in seawater.

Michel Fugain : Are you proposing anything involving lobster, because lobster isn't very tasty?

Chef Laurent Chabert : We've reduced the carcass juice as much as possible for maximum flavor.

Gérard Bertrand : Michel , I'm ready!

Michel Fugain : Gérard , are you testing?

Tasting moment

Gérard Bertrand : Delicious !

Michel Fugain : You test and I drink.

Gérard Bertrand : Voilà ! So, these are the dishes that will be on the menu at Château L'Hospitalet , since the restaurant will be reopening this evening, and we've got Dominique Rieux and his band doing a jazz dinner concert on site, Michel, and I've got some good news: we're going to be holding the jazz festival from July 22 to 26, It's going to be one of the rare festivals to be held in the south of France, so we've taken precautions, since we've reduced the capacity by 30%, but we're still going to hold a festival, because I think it's important for life to get going again, and for people to be able to listen to music in complete safety.

Michel Fugain : And it's really good that you're doing this, because I'm telling you, I'm telling you again, you've got to set an example, because as far as we're concerned, we can't go back on stage before the start of the new school year in 2021 (that was September-October 2021), that's the official date for producers, so if things go well, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they do, we might be able to start up again around January, that would be really good. A lot of things are changing, even in people's souls, so we want to catch up with them, we want to be with them, first to give them this kind of emotional support and then to feel them, to feel what's coming.

Gérard Bertrand : And then simply to live, because in the end you can't stop living, and above all you can't stop doing what you love most, because in fact what we love most is being together, because if we're alone on a desert island we're bored to death, and the music and the food and wine pairings and living together, as you said. We have dinner a little beforehand, then there's the show and afterwards there's the After Jazz, so we start at 7 in the evening and finish at 3 in the morning, and we're happy and we like to share.

Gérard Bertrand : I don't know how you do it, but I wanted to ask you a question because I'm intrigued. I think you're swimming in the wellspring of youth because you have an energy that's always renewed and always there.

Michel Fugain : There's no secret Gérard, I've inevitably analyzed what you've said about how I'm going to be 80 in two years' time.

Gérard Bertrand : It's incredible!

Michel Fugain : I think it's our profession that does that. In other words, as long as you have an eye that's full of energy, you don't have an age, you have the age of your gaze. As soon as you have a blazer look or a look that's no longer hungry or greedy and has no desire

Gérard Bertrand : So you're saying there's no secret?

Michel Fugain : No , there's no secret, no, but in fact I've lived the life I wanted to live - I live in a band, I live with a band, that's why I tell you we miss each other. We create and we do as a group. The world can come crashing down around us, but you know that in a business like yours - the restaurant, the hotel, etc. - if you're not a steamroller, you're dead!

Gérard Bertrand : At the same time, you carry the team, but the team carries you!

Michel Fugain : But of course, energy plus energy plus energy makes for absolutely unstoppable energy.

Gérard Bertrand : So, Chef, what energy do we have for the second course?

Chef Laurent Chabert : The denti!

Gérard Bertrand : The fish that bites, the denti!

Chef Laurent Chabert : I barbecued the denti, because I like the taste of barbecue with fish, and especially with red wine.

Gérard Bertrand : Here's the Or & Azur wine, made in the Languedoc region of France. It's organic and Bee Friendly, which means we respect bees, we're even more than organic. It's a superb red wine from the Languedoc, and I'd like to join you in a toast Michel, and I think it will go well with denti. I like to drink light reds with fish.

Michel Fugain : Yes, I agree with that. The fish that absolutely wants white on the side doesn't have to be.

Gérard Bertrand : There are two grape varieties that work well with fish: Pinot Noir, of course, and Grenache, because these are grape varieties that make fairly light wines. You don't need to have the flesh of the meat for the red wine to be absorbed by the fat of the meat, so it works well.

Tasting moment

Gérard Bertrand : You have the privilege of eating denti often, and you've told me it's one of the best fish you've ever eaten.

Michel Fugain : No , the capon here in Corsica is very good. I wonder if I don't prefer capon to denti.

Gérard Bertrand : Do you have time to go fishing or not?

Michel Fugain : No. I'd have time, but it's not my thing. I'm not a fisherman, I'm not a hunter, I'm a dreamer.

Gérard Bertrand : As you mentioned your age, I'd just like to ask you a question. How do you manage when you're lucky enough to have lived through six decades and the 7th is just beginning?

Michel Fugain : I' m going to answer you something that might seem obvious, because it was a huge success, it was the seventies, because they were years of freedom. In other words, the years of freedom that today's youth will never be able to experience, when we talk to them about it they don't know what it means, they can't imagine it. I'm the son of a doctor, a very humanistic and politically committed doctor. I've never done a thing in my life without thinking of my father's judgment, even now that my father is no longer with us. I've seen this society evolve, and it's evolved in the opposite direction to everything we could have dreamed of in the 70s, which were years of freedom, so from the 80s and 90s onwards, which I call the gift-wrapped years because there was nothing inside and everything was in pretty 90s paper, not much, nothing interesting, and from 2000 onwards it became a total mess, with problems that intersected with terrorism. So what I'm left with is this sort of gap from the 70s, which were incredible years for creation, because musically, what was done at that time was incredible.

Gérard Bertrand : Today, with the contribution of technology, as I see it in my profession, there have been balances, if you like, and oenology has contributed a lot, then there was standardization and now we're going back to the origin. In music, has technology had a pendulum effect? Are you now seeing a creative impetus that is bringing a little more purity to what people are doing? 

Michel Fugain : Apparently, technology has brought a lot of things, like in your profession, it has brought standardization, i.e. there's cooking music, if you like, that comes out of the factory.

Gérard Bertrand : It 's formatted!

Michel Fugain : What should normally give more value to craftsmanship, which is at the same time creative, doesn't always do so, because the public has also changed - it's a consumer - it doesn't know what it's being given, but it takes it.

Gérard Bertrand And today, if you had to name three artists who inspire you?

Michel Fugain : Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder for melodic creation, there are incredible ways that I've always loved, Michael McDonald people like that are things that are a little bit on the edge, when you listen to Michael McDonald's voice it's not a beautiful voice, it's a voice that takes your heart because there's an energy and a power, so Paul McCartney is a genius, he's the one who opened doors and windows for us.

Gérard Bertrand : It' s fantastic, when we look at your career you've always been avant-garde, because you compose, you play, you sing, and you were one of the first to put on shows, you did musicals, you had your own band and so on. So what does it mean to be avant-garde today?

Michel Fugain : Being avant-garde today means either you're not heard, or you've been bombarded by the avant-garde, or the beautiful people have bombarded you with the avant-garde label, and then you forget, that's just the way it is.

Gérard Bertrand : Michel, when I say that, I mean that you've always been a few seconds ahead of what was going to happen, and so you've created movements, because you're one of the people who've inspired generations, and there are artists, young artists, who've covered your songs recently. How do you feel when the whole younger generation covers your songs, how do you feel when you see that?

Michel Fugain : My first reaction was: "Shit, they're not getting their foot in the door! But a melody has no age, it just depends on how you interpret it, I don't think it's a question of age or period, because if you listen to songs right now that could be from 50 or 60 years ago, and they're old, and all I listen to around me, I'm waiting for the one that's going to make me say we're going to stay a long time.

Gérard Bertrand : Do you ever sing polyphony?

Michel Fugain : No, it's really cultural, it's a question of identity. If you analyze it, it's not complicated, but it's a way of using your voice that only the Corsicans, the Neapolitans and the Sicilians use, in other words, very high-pitched voices. You know, polyphonic songs are actually songs that were sung in churches, by shepherds because there was no barley in the churches, and they were the ones who sang the liturgical songs.

Gérard Bertrand : I'm a big fan of polyphony, and when I look at how he sings, I was recently in Corsica, and when I see my friends singing Gregorian chant it reminds me, it makes a link because it comes from the guts, it comes from the belly, it opens up the chakras. It's music that lifts you up and makes your hair grow. Do you feel the same way?

Michel Fugain : With time, my hair doesn't grow at all!

Gérard Bertrand : So Chef, what do we have now, because we're going to drink Michel le Château L'Hospitalet 2018.

Michel Fugain : I' ve eaten with this before.

Gérard Bertrand : I'm told you had a good lunch this afternoon.

Chef Laurent Chabert : Here's the filet of duckling that was cooked rosé with just the green beans from the garden, the first ones we cooked just crunchy with an apicius sauce, with a few spices.

Michel Fugain : What's an apicius sauce?

Chef Laurent Chabert : With a few spices from our honey and a little soy sauce and cumin.

Gérard Bertrand : Because at Château L'Hospitalet we make wine, but we also produce a little honey and olive oil, all biodynamically. And we can't wait to see you again to share all that. We've got something else to share with a little song that's going to be a revolve that takes us back a few years.

Musical moment.

Gérard Bertrand : Life is a good time and it was a good novel? It's a beautiful story and it's true that when we see your enthusiasm because in enthusiasm there's Teos, there's God, and that's important because people don't remember that word, you really embody enthusiasm and everyone has had a journey and when I see you on stage and when I see you here because it's been a little while since we last spoke I'm blown away and at the same time it's great to share this with our friends who are here tonight and I hope we'll be keeping in touch for years to come because you're only at the beginning of your career.

Michel Fugain : I promised myself I wouldn't come with a walker.

Gérard Bertrand : I mean, you came in 2011, so we're not going to wait another twenty years. Do you still jump around on stage or not?

Michel Fugain : It can happen to me, but a bit less than usual!

Gérard Bertrand : There's one thing I look for in artists, and that's support, because I'm a former sportsman, as you know, I'm a former rugby player, so you had sneakers on when you were on stage, and last year there was Greg David, and I looked at his thighs, he had the thighs of a top-level sportsman. You see, when you dance or sing, there was also the singer Texas who ran from one end of the stage to the other for the whole evening, and that's a great performance, so you're athletes after all, because you've got to have energy when you do this every night, do you do a little sheathing or nothing?

Michel Fugain : I' ve got a garden, it's true that all that exists when you're physically fit, but the fact remains that you can't escape the rule from the age of 50 when you get up in the morning and there's no pain anywhere, you're dead.

Gérard Bertrand : But you know there was a guy here called Antoine Verda who was a well-known figure in the region, a winegrower who defended the cause of winegrowers and who said, "I want to die, but standing up. The most beautiful death is to die standing up, isn't it? I'd like to give a little nod to our friends at Sodibo, because they delivered the wines to you today, and they represent us in Corsica. Michel, if you're in the area this summer, you're welcome! How do you like it? Michel, I hope you have a great weekend and a wonderful summer, and let me know if you're in the area, and as soon as you have a new show, let me know.

Michel Fugain : OK Gérard! Greetings to everyone, Laurent, Pierre!

Gérard Bertrand : And thank you to all those who have followed us this evening, and see you next Friday for another great evening, see you soon Michel!

Michel Fugain : Thank you and see you soon!

Gérard Bertrand : Chao !