Citations

I really didn't know my father well, because my parents separated when I was still very young. But my mother was a very important influence on me. She was an important figure in the French Resistance. I think she gave me a sense of tolerance and a sense of loyalty to your beliefs. When I was a child and even through my teens and as a young adult there was a profound anti-German feeling in France. My mother taught me the difference between Nazis and Germans, she taught me to never confuse a people with an idea.

Often what was described as avant-garde is 30, 40 years later considered to be classic. Stravinsky (Igor Stravinsky) was avant-garde, now he is classic. But Stockhausen (Karlheinz Stockhausen) seems somehow stuck. I believe that this is due to their highly intellectual approach to music. The painting of Picasso (Pablo Picasso) was not purely an intellectual exercise, it was also immensely organic. But here's the important thing. The work of Stockhausen has never become classic in the way Picasso's work has. But his techniques, the innovations he and others of his generation introduced, became classic ways to work. The generations afterwards took those theories and turned them into something more obviously musical. I would never compare myself to these guys, but I have been influenced by their theory. Like The Beatles, like Pink Floyd, like The Chemical Brothers, like Daft Punk. We all owe so much to that heritage.

Is it too easy for the young to do what used to be so hard for me? My own view is that it's not so much difficulty that is important but rather a framework - rules and boundaries which must be respected, but within which we are free. The thing is that these tools offer almost too much choice, they offer everything but with no boundaries. The tools are also the same the world over, they are easier to use in a practical sense, but harder because everyone uses them in oddly similar ways. Globalisation affects ideas too.

A man standing in front of a laptop is not very sexy. I think people expect a little more from a live show.

I made it to accompany the avant-garde art exhibition Supermarche. But I also wanted it to be an exhibit in its own right. It was made because of the advent of CDs and the terrible influence I correctly believed they would have on music. First, they were audibly inferior to vinyl. Second, the CD jewel case conspired to devalue the artefact by devaluing album artwork. Finally, CDs became marketed in supermarkets. Something you bought with your toothpaste and potatoes. I printed only one vinyl copy and then I auctioned it for charity. It fetched more than 70,000 Francs, making it the most collectable record of all time. I made my point. But we still have music in supermarkets and now we have MP3s, which are of an even worse quality than CDs. (On his 1983 album "Music For Supermarkets")

Coldplay is a definite sound, a definite world, whatever the sound is. They have almost a kind of scientific approach of emotions.

I think that it's a mistake when people think that an artist can renew himself. I think an artist has one thing to say.

David [David Bowie] is really somebody who has major influence in so many fields as a multimedia artist, as a composer and also the work he did with Brian Eno was for obvious reasons quite close to my own field.

"Heroes" is a good mixture of what Bowie is: decadent, avant-garde, glam, popular, mysterious, obvious, all that.