A hint: search through your albums or playlists; If on the cover there is a mirror ball or some girls with little clothes have, surely, some subject of theirs. Another: Climax, the last film by Gaspar Noé. What sounds during the masterful ten minutes of the initial sequence plane is Supernature, cut produced in 1977 by this curious French drummer, soloist in his artistic performance and talkative in conversation. “Gaspar came to see me,” says Marc Cerrone, “and asked me for the song without a voice. I went to the studio and remastered it. And as I listened he was telling me: 'Hum, not bad'. This inspired me to create a new album. ” It is called DNA and, indeed, it seems projected from that gummy and futuristic instrumental of the film. “Recovering that theme fueled memories of the beginning of my career, more electronic and not yet so funk. It was a good gift. ”
I am a lucky guy. In the last 15 years I have entered more than 100 foreign hits through samples
Cerrone is presented as a lucky guy. He was born in Paris in 1952, so he had time to see Jimi Hendrix at Olympia in '67, and there he discovered his passion for drums. His family bought him the first one and he learned so fast that at 16 he was already playing in the bars of Saint Tropez. Eddie Barclay - who had discovered Brel and Aznavour, and signed Fela Kuti or Stéphane Grapelli - saw him and hired his group, Kongas, whose afrofunk mix with Santana would materialize into two albums.
But Cerrone had more ideas, and he began recording only longer songs. With the first, Love in C minor (1976), more than 16 minutes, things went surprisingly and accidentally well. “I self-published thinking of selling a hundred copies, but I was lucky that someone in a record store in France mistakenly sent a box to New York and that the wholesaler who received the package would love it. This, also dj, was the one who began to puncture the subject ”. Then, the thing got bigger and bigger. “Suddenly I am playing in the US, I sell three million copies, I win a Grammy and I say: 'ok, this is going to last a little longer.' And I make another album, Paradise [1977], and the same success ... And the next year Supernature and eight million records! ”
Hired in Atlantic by Ahmet Ertegün, the guy who had signed Led Zeppelin, Cerrone placed his singles all over the country, always wrapped in erotickitsch covers that are hard to imagine now. “It was the time. The birth control pill had arrived and sex was in the air. But well, in those days we had Gainsbourg with Je t'aime moi non plus, which was stronger than mine. ” His was dance music, and the moment was at the end of the new wave: punk rock languished in the face of disco hedonism. Studio 54 was the place, and Cerrone always had a table set and a bottle of champagne waiting for him. “I can't even tell you; Today you go to jail for things like that. ” In the eighties, all that disco phenomenon came to Europe. “In Paris the place was the Palace. A copy of the Studio: instead of Warhol, Jean Paul Gaultier. But it was the same. ” That was the sound school of the next generation. "Daft Punk were the first band groove, funk, disco, dance or whatever you want to call it with a really fresh perspective." Interestingly, the duo of the metallic helmets gave more visibility to an Italian star of that same era. “What if they gave credit to Giorgio Moroder instead of me? It does not matter; The boys and I respect each other. In addition, they came to see me two years later [Random access memories, 2013] with a sample of mine that they wanted to use on their new album, ”he resolves elegantly.
In Paris the site was the Palace. A copy of Studio 54: instead of Warhol, Jean Paul Gaultier. But it was the same
Are the discos still the place? “More so than in the seventies. Saturday night remains the same. People of 20 still want to dance. In addition, before only the radio hits sounded and today, whatever. ” Every 20 years the revival brings a music of the past, but with disco music the period is shorter. Why? "I do not know. I am a lucky guy. In the last 15 years I have entered more than 100 other hits through samples, ”he says, referring to Beastie Boys, Bob Sinclar, LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Nas or Sébastien Tellier. “That helps me place my sound not in the past but in the present. I always have an audience between 18 and 35: from the seventies until now. Don't ask me why: I accept it. ”
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