Camille Jansen, the promise of a great rock and sensitive voice

Elle sort son premier EP sans tapage, presque sur la pointe des pieds. Pourtant, Louise (1), le premier disque de Camille Jansen, détonne dans le paysage musical actuel. À 22 ans, la Française a davantage été inspirée par des sons hérités des grandes heures du rock et de la folk anglo-saxonnes que par les synthés, ou les beats urbains si chers à sa génération. On décèle même un peu de Portishead dans sa voix puissante, dont les nuances épousent les tourments les plus intimes, chaque blessure, chaque interrogation.

Also a model, Camille Jansen lived a year in California where she recorded her album.An enchanted parenthesis which, for her, has changed everything, and makes her and her disc what they are today.For us, she returns to what has forged her.Meet.

Tops and road trips

Madame Figaro.- Who has transmitted the love of music to you? Camille Jansen.- She has been there since I was very small.However, no one in my family does, apart from my father who was part of Gospel choirs.But at 6, I was doing small concerts in my room, making costumes with what I found.At 12, I started taking lessons with an opera singer who taught me many breathing techniques.It's a bit there that it all started: I participated in many "talent" evenings from my school, in Maison-Laffite, alone then with my brother, who had a small group: we took up titles of Drake,Foster the People or Amy Winehouse, which remains a great inspiration.But I started more seriously when I was 17, 18 years old.I learned to play the piano by watching tutorials on YouTube: I was trying to make pieces of songs that I loved, and then I used their chords, I mixed them to create my own songs.

Your father is British: how did this contribute to your musical culture?I have vacation memories, with my brother and him, during which we went on a road trip while listening to the Santana, the Arctic Monkeys, things like that...It stayed.I also grew up in an international school: I have always rubbed shoulders with people from all over the world.

Who were your flagship artists at the time?Amy Winehouse, always, and Alicia Keys, whom I really liked.Beyoncé was my idol when I was 14 years old.Then I moved to Los Angeles at 19, where I lived a year: I learned a lot, with friends who make music.It was there that I immersed myself in classics like Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, and even in country: Waylon Jennings or Johnny Cash...All influenced me a lot.

Why do these country singers inspire you so much?They wrote stories in a simple and sincere way, everyone can find themselves in their songs.My texts, that's a bit like that I try to write them: tell stories from things that happened to me, from people who surrounded me.I write like therapy, to get out of myself.

California

Why have left for Los Angeles?Since I was 12 years old, I dream of living the "Californian Dream".The first time I went there alone, I was 17 years old, I don't know how my mother let me do it!There, I signed with a model contract with the Next agency, which allowed me to have a visa.I was ready: I am very independent, I never have the country's pain.And I like to be alone, go on an adventure.American culture, I believe, has always been very present in my life, if only by television series, music or on YouTube.This "West Coast" culture with the beach, where the weather is nice and where everything is very chill....I don't know why, it attracted me so much that I had to go.

What did you listen when you composed your EP?At the time, I was looking at a lot of documentaries: I saw great people on Quincy Jones or on the Rolling Stones tour in South America.I also read a lot of biographies on musicians like the Beatles, Keith Richards, Janis Joplin.Or Wonderful Teday, Patty Boyd's book, who was the wife of George Harrison and therefore lived with the Beatles.It inspired me a lot: everything they did was more spontaneously.I like this time because it could happen that musicians I want to be friends, according to the desires, rather than planning everything, which stresses me more than anything else.Today music is a business, you have to go through compulsory stages, to please.Now for me to feel proud of my music, I have to be focused on the sound I want to do, and not ask myself if people will love him.

Has the sound of the 60s, 70 also inspired you?Yes, I didn't want something too pop.What comes out today does not speak to me a lot.What I had in mind was a more rough, a little vintage sound.

Independence

Who is Louise, the character who gives his title to your first single, and to your EP?Louise is my second first name.This song is a bit against myself: on the one hand, a better version of myself, that I wanted to be at the time.And on the other, me, Camille.Louise, he is someone who does not let things escape him, who knows what to do, is not afraid of the conflict...Someone who "Comes and Goes, As She Pleasses" ("Who comes and goes, as she feels", editor's note)...Today, I rather try to live my life like that, not to be parasitized by things that are useless, by negative energy, which would make me stagnate.To have finished this EP, to have overcome my stress of entering the studio allowed me to exteriorize my vulnerability.And accept it.

Today who are the artists you listen to?Fiona Apple and Sade.For their voice, their intensity.And their texts which also tell stories.I also discovered Alice Phoebe Lou, a South African musician who saved my life, for the joy that her songs give off.I also like Willow Smith, for its independence.This is how I want to lead my career.

(1) Louise, by Camille Jansen, self -produced.

Discover more content on Studio 21.22