Frank of 2Be3: "At the time, we were disturbing!"

Twenty years already! Tonight, in the first part of the evening on C8, "The madness of boy bands" focuses on the tidal wave that fell on France in the second half of the 90s. Alliage, G-Squad and above all 2Be3, three groups have invaded the market, radios, teen magazines and TV sets for successful but very short-lived careers. Twenty years later, Filip Nikolic and Quentin Elias left us. On the occasion of the broadcast of the documentary, produced by Matthieu Delormeau, puremedias.com met Frank Delay of 2Be3.

Interview by Charles Decant.

"We were in competition between groups"

Why did you agree to answer questions for this documentary? It's 20 years, it's a big year. Behind, there is my group which intends to make scenes. I'm enjoying it all!

In general, do you feel the need to tell about this period, which obviously marked your life enormously? No, but people need us to remember it. Maybe people have a nostalgia. To know what happened, perhaps also behind the scenes, to know how we experienced it. There are testimonials that are touching, I learned things about the other groups, because we didn't pay too much attention to them. It's a bit of curiosity.

You probably bumped into each other from time to time on the sets, but apart from that, even if the public associates you a lot with each other, you had a priori quite parallel existences... Absolutely! We were even in competition somewhere. In any case, at the level of the record labels.

Did you really feel it? No, not really. We were at the top of the pyramid! (Laughs)

The starting point of the documentary is quite dark, it's the death of Filip...It's touching at the same time, because he was the icon of boy bands. As he left, it's good to put it forward! And then it was his birthday, he would have been 42 on September 1st.

We heard a lot at the time about the causes of his death. Was there somewhere a desire to rectify certain rumours? Not really. "50mn Inside" has already done a nice subject on Filip, in which I testified, his wife testified... I think they had already traced a little what had happened. Here we are talking about it for 20 years!

"The relationship to notoriety is special today"

For some boy bands, part of the job was to play comedy, to be an ideal son-in-law. We discover in particular that Filip was quite provocative, which we did not necessarily see. As one manages that at 20 years? It was not too much the case for us. We were super natural! We even got yelled at because Filip was being stupid all the time. We weren't chosen by casting, we weren't directed, we didn't change our first names, we weren't looked at... And people accepted us as we were! People knew very well that Filip took off all the time, that he was on display, that he did somersaults all the time... He was show off all the time!

However, from afar, we had the impression that the three of you were very good... We were 20 years old, we didn't smoke, we didn't drink, we played sports... We were like That !

Today, there's Twitter, Snapchat, everyone is a potential paparazzi with their smartphone. You probably thought you were going through hell at the time at this level, but it's even worse today, isn't it? there is no limit. Everyone takes pictures, you can have your face in any press. There is no more privacy. It is particular today the relationship to notoriety. Everyone can be someone...

You are still famous today: do you feel this evolution? Have you been photographed a lot without your knowledge? Are you asked for a lot of selfies? Sometimes it happens to me, but a lot less. But it's still relatively cool. I am not Kenji! (Laughs) I'm not being followed. People are nice, they take a picture and they live their life.

"We were disturbing"

Is there a lot of benevolence today? Yes, more than before because I am no longer a success. I'm not at the top of the charts anymore, I'm not in the news anymore, and I'm not in the tabloids anymore.

Why aren't you in the tabloids anymore? I don't know! Because I'm not in the news. I don't sell anything, I don't exist. As an actor, I do things but it's theater so it's not selling enough, it doesn't allow me to access this press.

Which might be a good thing? Yes, but I liked it!

Was there any animosity at the time? Yes, we were a little disturbing. It must be said that we had to digest ourselves, we were everywhere. We got a little drunk! And then it was fashionable to criticize. Finally, it was easy! We were giving cards: three guys from the suburbs with abs, we were cliché! I can understand ! At first, we didn't really understand but afterwards, we said to ourselves that it was the game.

In the report, it is said that when you understood that your bodies were assets, you played this card thoroughly... Of course! Everything we could put forward, we put it. We weren't great singers, so we had to find other assets. So there was the visual: our acrobatics, our physique, and our chocolate bars!

It was hyper conscious, this objectification of your bodies, in fact! Absolutely! Filip was on display, so...! (Laughs)

"Coming back to do small venues didn't suit Filip"

Why do you think it ended so quickly? There were only three albums... It's explained with the World Cup, it seems...

Really? Yes! I read that a phenomenon had driven out another phenomenon. But there may have been a weariness, maybe we didn't renew ourselves well enough, that the songs were less popular, that people were fed up with us. After 1998, we went to the United States for a year, we came back in 2000, and the American album didn't work. So in 2001, we decided to stop. At the same time, we went from one million albums for the first to 300,000 for the second and 200,000 for the compilation. The American album didn't come out, but we could have sold 100,000, which isn't bad! But Filip, it did not suit him. He wanted to do big dates, big tours, come back like before... He didn't like it.

Was he the one who decided to quit?Yes, he said "I'm not interested in doing little things", and then he had "Navarro", he preferred to be an actor than to spend his time doing the 2Be3. And if Filip was no longer part of the group, I couldn't see myself singing together with Adel.

Since you were friends, how do you deal with having different desires and ambitions and abandoning a common project? not the game, that it's difficult to go on the radio, even by re-recording the titles in English to add French to them and that the structure with which we are does not move too much - it was Edel, a small label. It wasn't working. We also had other desires, Filip was drawn by "Navarro", it took him a lot more time and it was more exciting. I understood it because I would have done the same!

"There was a mess"

The basic objective when you formed 2Be3, since you weren't really singers, was notoriety? No, it was to entertain people. Take pleasure in giving pleasure. We wanted to exist, but we didn't know how. We knew we meant something to people when we performed, when we fought, something was going on.

The notoriety that arrived was addictive, so, since it was no longer enough to give pleasure, it had to be done in front of 10,000 people...Yes. Afterwards, it's Filip, he was special! He fed on that, he, on the public. He was on show all the time. As soon as he didn't have attention on him, he wasn't well! When we came back, there was less attention on him, we were less in demand...

This American album, was it going in this direction? To be even better known, all over the world? Definitely! In the report, producer Desmond Child says it, "We're going to take over the world!" (Laughs) It was crazy! But nothing happened. I don't know why either. Especially in Asian countries, we were starting to have significant notoriety, we had two clips that were shown on MTV Asia... I don't know... There were some confusion. The label was not strong enough I think... There was a mess in all that!

"The entrance to the Grévin Museum, we thought it was a hoax!"

A few years after the boy bands, another door opened to gain more or less easy access to notoriety: reality TV. Could you have gone through that? Honestly... No, we wanted to exist artistically, we had things to defend. (He thinks) I don't think so, because the three of us absolutely wanted to be together. Or they would have taken all three of us in "Secret Story"! (Laughs)

You didn't do "Secret Story" but we still saw you on TF1 in your own series, "To be free". How did you end up in there? It started from discussions with the CEO of EMI at the time, who wanted to do more than other boy bands. Jean-Luc Azoulay, the director of AB Productions was testing for a new series, but we decided to do our own tests and send them to him. And that's how it took. We had things to tell, 2Be3 is a story, it's friends... We had meetings for each episode to say what we wanted to talk about, and then it was romanticized.

Were you offered anything else that you turned down? Or did you say yes to everything? Entrance to the Grevin Museum was space... We thought it was a hoax! There was "Surprise Surprise" at the time, we thought it was bullshit, we didn't believe it until the end!

With you, at the time, there were fans, bodyguards, a manager, the record company... But what is striking in the report is that it seems like no one don't tell you "Be careful, it could stop overnight"... In the intimacy, there were some. But you don't think about that when you're in the thick of things. You tell yourself that maybe there will be less glorious days, but not that it's going to stop. An artist's life is up and down, as we know. We did not ask the question.

Hence the expenses, the star life, the cars, etc... You live according to your income. I'm not particularly crazy, I don't have a sports car, I haven't bought myself any jewelry... But everyone lives their life in their own way, some were over the top. Filip burned well, Adel burned well...

"I'm still struggling!"

Was there a click, a moment when you said to yourself "It's going to stop"? Already, when we go to the United States United, we see that there are no more boy bands in France. We ask ourselves questions, we wonder how we will be seen when we come back. But we are encouraged, we work with a great producer, we make a great clip, so we are confident. But in the end, when we come back, it's hot!

At that time, the three of you are talking about it? No, not really. We tell ourselves that we will bounce back, we will still have an audience, even if we sell less. But Filip didn't want...

Once it stops, it's done, what do you say to yourself? Then you say to yourself "Wow, what's going on?"...

How old were you at that time? It's 2001, so 28 years old. But I had my children, my first son comes in 2001, the second in 2002, so I took care of them. It took me a long time, I filled the gap with something else. Afterwards, you ask yourself and you say to yourself "What can I do?"

The abs were still there? (Laughs) Yes, because I've been in sports since I was six years old and I never stopped. So I take acting classes and besides that I do food stuff. I get into comedy, I meet people, and afterwards, I set up a project, I go and get the financial backers... It was a success, I did a second one... But I'm still struggling! You just have to trigger things, fight all the time...

"It's not easy to sell records"

And right now, you're fighting for a new group, Génération Boys Band, with Chris from the G-Squad and Allan Théo! You didn't know each other at the time...No, but I've always said that Chris was the best singer, he has a great voice. I came across the New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys who had merged for a tour, and I thought we could do the same. I called Chris, he said "Banco", I called a third, a fourth, who were not interested, and we came across Allan Theo. The project was to sing our songs together on stage, live on what we did and have fun.

Isn't there a risk of living too much in nostalgia? No, we're 40, it's just fun now. We don't know how long it will last. We are planning a tour that will start in Belgium next March, if the public wants to see us in France, we will come. And if it stops, it stops! It's just a bonus! I will continue what I do.

And after that, do you plan new songs? We would like to be called GBB afterwards and slowly forget Generation Boys Band and exist as a group. That would be great ! Now we'll see where people take us. It's not easy to sell records. For now, we just want to perform.