Anne Pigalle, the Last Chanteuse!
Harry Pye: How are you coping with being told to stay in and keep your distance?
Anne Pigalle: Well I decided to use this time to enter yet again reclusive mode, I haven't been out for a week, I'm reflecting on the world (i.e. new projects in site). My home is my studio too, so there's never enough time to do anything anyway. As long as we don’t enter a totalitarian regime ... then we might see riots. I don't keep at a distance emotionally and spiritually, if anything there is a reinforcing bond between people.
Which of your albums are you most proud of and happy to be judged by?
My two last albums, 'Madame Sex' (yes the inspiration for you know who) and 'Ecstase' the follow up. They are completely different but complementary. Both self-produced. One took a week to record and is very spontaneous like an orgasm, the other one 33 years (in the making) — the orgasm that lasts ...
You've been photographed by Nick Knight and many other people celebrated in that field. Which photographers have you most enjoyed working with? Which of them says the right thing?
Every period is a different chapter in my life. Testino, I was a teenager fresh in London, Derek Ridgers and Kevin Cummins are two top photographers and care about their subjects. Soho photographers Alex Gerry and Etienne Gilfillan are excellent. I did lots of photos with someone I sometimes work with Tommaso Del Signore. And of course I make my infamous self-portrait polaroids who in the end satisfy me the most. All in art is about care and love, and this is what shows through, and this is what will remain.
Do you have a favourite French person or big French hero/inspiration?
I'm afraid that would be a massive list! Rodolph de Salis, Alfred Jarry, Andre Breton, Les frères Lumière, Marianne, Anais Nin, Edith Piaf, Damia, Voltaire, Nana, Queneau's Zazie, Jeanne D'Arc, Ravel, Lautréamont, Toulouse Lautrec, Cézanne, Debussy, Satie, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Matisse, the painters of the Lascaux caves, Asterix & Obelix ... Professor Raoult, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
What would be a perfect day in Paris? Where would you go to eat, drink and be merry?
Pigalle and Montmartre of course, still my favourite places. Like Soho, it has lost a lot of its buildings and clubs but not all its soul. Any cafe, but preferably north of Place Pigalle, as they have now transformed all the hostess bars in the south of Pigalle and call it SoPi, it nearly gave me a heart attack when I heard that! Les bateaux mouches are also lovely for those who don't know Paris that well, I should start a tourist bureau advisory as again there are so many places ...
Did you love the 1980s or are you happier now in the roaring 2020s?
It was the fun of a younger person in the 80s discovering many things including recording and releasing records, travelling around, playing live, getting some recognition, so a whirlwind of emotions, but I didn't like much of the music or the art in the 80s (remember I cut my teeth in the punk days, I had a girl punk band in Paris — now THAT was fun). Today is mature fun. I have reinvented myself as a multi media artist so I feel more complete. More than ever, the need and the importance and the seriousness of the artist is needed. Don’t put down the fight. Art has been a little frivolous for some time. Now it needs to dramatically feel its role in a political context. Art is consciousness first, pleasure second.
Who would you rather be trapped in a lift with out of Paul Morley or Trevor Horn? On the whole did the people at the ZTT label treat you well?
Come on! NONE OF THE TWO! Well, the ZTT story has been well documented. I was lucky to make a record, as at the time it was quite hard for a French singer like me to be accepted here. Without gloating but marking my words, I'm the first and only French solo singer who has ever been signed to a British label. It feels a bit like being Joan of Arc, but someone had to do it. I paid the price for it. And then only to witness gross French music to follow and be exported abroad. ZTT = big producer, small contract. No proper support for the artist. Oh well, that's show business, it was part of my course. Next!
You paint as well as sing. What do you get out of painting? Does it relax you/excite you/educate you?
I absolutely love painting! As it is something that came to me quite late in life and quite unexpectedly, I am very thankful.
It has helped to refresh my creative juices and in a way expand my look at music. I get the same feeling if I create a work of music or a visual work, definitely uplifting and addictive, best drug in the world. I highly recommend. I did photography first and had a very successful show at the Michael Hoppen Gallery that influenced many American popsicles and more. Recently I started filming and was awarded a prize at the Portobello Film Festival last year. I like all aspects of creativity, it just has to make creative sense to me, then I'm a 100%.
Are you at your happiest when you're singing on stage?
I am happiest with any creative process that involves communication and expresses my own views in an artistic way. I get as much satisfaction from every media I use. The musical ecstasy is strengthened when shared with other musicians and the audience, creating more of a communal spiritual delicacy, therefore more revolutionary in my eyes but I will say sound and vision really benefit and serve each other.
What 6 records would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?
Tough. I doubled the dose I should have tripled it ... 1. Transformer Lou Reed. 2. Gymnopedies & Gnossiennes Erik Satie, 3. Sketches of Spain Miles Davies, 4. Les Marquises Jacques Brel, 5. John Lee Hooker Greatest Hits, 6. Dr John Gris Gris/The Night Tripper, 7. Peggy Lee Mirrors, 8. Greatest Hits Edith Piaf, 9. The Third Man Anton Karas, 9. Ecstase Anne Pigalle, 10. Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, 11. Funhouse The Stooges and 12. Greatest Hits Ennio Morriconne
Anne Pigalle is a singer, writer, musician, art performer, poet, photographer and painter. For more info visit her website here.
Text © Harry Pye, 2020
