“Going to Manchester had always been a fantasy of mine,” she tells me. “I would imagine Morrissey walking the streets in the rain, and I would dream about going there myself someday. When I decided to take some time by myself to write a new album, I knew I wanted to get out of Paris, and I knew a friend in Manchester who could provide a bedroom, so I just went for a few months to write my stuff.” Pain quickly found that there is a duality inherent in Manchester – it’s the kind of city that you love, but also want to escape.
So did the real-life Manchester live up to Pain’s teenage fantasies? “Not really,” she laughs. “When I went there, I ended up doing exactly the same things I do in Paris – waking up, having a coffee in the bar next door, going to the market to buy some food, and then working on my songs all day. It wasn’t as exceptional as I’d hoped for, but it still gave me the opportunity to write the songs I wanted to.” Pain’s new album is called Bye Bye Manchester, and it is inspired by the love-hate qualities of the rainy northern city, and by the need to escape and go somewhere new. “The album is about the places where you dream of being, but when you’re there, you dream about escaping and going to another place,” she says. “It’s about forever having this desire to be free.”
Someone once said that Mélanie Pain’s music takes heartache and sadness and makes it sound sexy, and she herself finds this flattering, if a little baffling. “That’s always the thing people say about me,” she says, “that I can sing sad thing and give them this erotic feeling. I can’t control that, but I like it, because all my inspirations, all the musicians I love have the same kind of effect on their songs.”
Pain’s first musical outing was as a singer for quirky covers outfit Nouvelle Vague, and though she also performs solo now, the band is still a vital part of her live. “Nouvelle Vague was always something wonderful and unreal,” she says. “I’ve been touring with them for ten years now and I still can’t believe it. We’ve been everywhere in the world, and it’s always been something really fun to do – covering great songs.” Pain feels privileged and spoiled to be able to tour with Nouvelle Vague. “For me, it’s always been about balancing this one part of my life with the other part, where I write my own songs. I struggle with my own songs, I have doubts about what I want to do, but then I go on stage with Nouvelle Vague and it’s just fun and easy. I’m really addicted now to going on tour, so Nouvelle Vague is great for that.”
The lessons Pain has learned over the years with Nouvelle Vague have translated to her own alluring live show. “You can rehearse as much as you want in dark rooms, but it’s never going to replace even one gig,” she says. “With Nouvelle Vague, we did hundreds of gigs, and I really learned a lot about going on stage, and enjoying the fact that you never know what’s going to happen. Nouvelle Vague gave the confidence to take pleasure on stage even if there are accidents happening around me. I really learned that it’s important not to get too stressed, and to just go out there and have fun. That was a great lesson, because it’s important to go on stage and be confident – that’s the first step to really enjoying yourself.”
This January sees Pain returning to Australia as part of So Frenchy So Chic, and she seems to genuinely overflow with excitement, as some of her most memorable live shows have been in this part of the world. “I think one of my favourite solo shows was in Sydney at the Metro, when I did the tour with Émilie Simon,” she says. “There was something very special about that night. I came on stage with my band and we were straight at the top from the very first song. The audience was just crazy. I really remember that as being my favourite concert ever, because everyone was just there in the moment. Some days, you come on stage and everyone is smiling, but you’ve just got to spot the one who’s bored, and try and play to them. At this show, nobody was bored, there was no stress around me, I sang all the songs perfectly … it was just a really good show.”
BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN
