“My partner, Daria, doesn’t want children, but I do…” | EUROtoday
Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.
MWith his hat expertly turned up by a frank smile, beret on his head and flamboyant scarf within the colours of the Gryffindor home (the Harry Potter staff), Mathias Malzieu is ready for us in entrance of his giant barge moored within the Paris area. As we step over the pontoon which ends up in a discreet terrace with a view of the Seine, the artist, cheerful and energetic, proudly presents his cocoon to us.
Recently in his fifties, the prolific singer and author, star of the French group Dionysos, doesn’t appear prey to the passage of time, as evidenced by the decor of the boat he shares along with his associate, the photographer and visible artist Daria Nelson. Figurines from sagas and cartoons rub shoulders with colourful devices and posters and souvenirs with cinematic references for all ages. “The month of December allowed us to blow out the last candles on Dionysus’ 30th birthday cake! » rejoices the author of the best-seller The Mechanics of Hearts (inspired by his love story with singer Olivia Ruiz), while he is simultaneously recording the soundtrack album for the show adapted from his next book.
ALSO READ Meeting with Simon Abkarian: “What I have in common with de Gaulle…” “The book and the show – which comes out in March – will be called The Man Who Listened to Cats’ Heartbeats », Announces the singer of Dionysus as he watches his two felines wander around the kitchen of the barge. Created in 1993 by the Montpellier native and three of his comrades met in a high school in Valentin, the rock group has had several successes in just a few years, including the famous song “Song for Jedi”, taken from the album Western underneath the Snowwhich received a gold report and a nomination for the Victoires de la Musique. In parallel with the stage, Mathias Malzieu’s writing profession will permit him to adapt two of his books for the cinema, Jack and the Mechanics of the Heart (2014) and A mermaid in Paris (2020), which received the Babelio Prize for the Imagination.
From mourning to creation
As we observe the artist, energetic and cheerful, serving us a cup of tea, it’s tough to think about that he’s a type of we name miraculous. Mathias Malzieu got here near demise in 2013 following a really uncommon illness that impacts the bone marrow. Weakened by an absence of oxygen brought on by a disappearance of platelets and purple and white blood cells, he benefited from a bone marrow donation, a transplant which saved his life.
The singer of Dionysus was subsequently in a position to meet his donor due to the writing of his e-book Diaries of a Vampire in Pajamas (Albin Michel), during which he had merely talked about his medical file quantity, the one info he had. Translated into German, the work landed within the fingers of its donor due to the director of the Düsseldorf hospital, the place Mathias Malzieu acquired his transplant. Very moved, she wished to satisfy him, the chance for the singer, who dreamed of being a tennis participant, to journey the 570 kilometers that separate him from Düsseldorf on… an electrical bike. Bike that he’ll public sale to donate to analysis.
HIS IDEAL SUNDAY: “For my ideal Sunday, it would snow on the river where my barge is and I would go paddle boarding with a flask of tea. Then I would come home and warm up in my wife’s arms, with our cats. A good book in the hammock, possibly the cinema, and why not a football match, and falling asleep in front of the debrief. Waking up in the middle of the night and extending “Sunday” till early Monday morning whereas doing virtually nothing in my workshop. »
Less than ten years later, in 2021, his associate, Daria Nelson, virtually misplaced her life following a miscarriage. A horrible second for the 2 artists, which they handle to transcribe by singing in unison in a present entitled The Symphony of Time Passing. But the tour doesn’t go as deliberate: as Mathias Malzieu laments, Daria Nelson is “completely invisible” from the challenge, usually introduced as “the wife of” and it turns into tough for the couple to sing about their widespread mourning each night. “Since then, Daria no longer wants children, but I do… So we decided to take cats, who have become our consolatory arbiters,” confides Mathias Malzieu, having a look at June, the Scottish shorthair to the fiery fur that curls up close to the window.
Then, it was the flip of his cat Tornado to fall ailing. The feline contracts infectious peritonitis, a severe sickness for which therapy doesn’t but exist in France in 2023. Veterinarians, determined, advise their house owners to prick the animal, crippled with ache. Young Tornado narrowly escaped demise, due to very costly American therapy that the couple managed to acquire. “I found myself in grotesque scenes going to collect medication for my cat from people who had excess, like a cat dealer,” smiles Mathias Malzieu regardless of all the things, watching kayaks go by means of one portholes of the barge.
If he had already began to jot down a e-book concerning the life that he and Daria may have lived if their little one had been born, the singer decides to decide on one other narrator… Tornado, in any case additionally a miracle. The Man Who Listened to Cats’ Heartbeats (Albin Michel) is born. “I really came up with the music for the book when the cat got sick and we were trying to save him. I was in the same dynamic as when writing about my illness, without knowing if I was going to get through it,” remembers Mathias Malzieu, describing this new challenge as “a surrealist autofiction which borrows the tools of storytelling”. There is not any query of him falling into pathos.
Puppet, cat masks and barge
His companion, who discovers her lover’s future e-book, strolls with velvet steps into the lounge. “The times when I most want to have a child are when I have surges of love for Daria…” he stated, taking a look at his different half with tenderness. Busy finalizing the voices and the staging of the present taken from his forthcoming e-book, Mathias Malzieu urged to his associate that she lend her voice to the opposite “cat character”. “Daria recorded her voice prematurely for the songs, however it’s the good Christophe Albertini who creates the cat puppet which can be current on stage. »
Puppet, cat masks, barge-shaped decor, his present, accompanied on guitar by Mike Ponton, additionally a member of Dionysos, guarantees to be astonishing!
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
The hypersensitive Mathias Malzieu is conscious of this: the chance of individuals related, like him, to the creativeness is “not to be happy in reality”. “It’s a daily task to achieve balance,” he muses. Current occasions have an effect on me, after all, typically I wish to converse, however I wish to keep away from paraphrasing specialists, who specific themselves higher than me. »
After a busy month of December, with a number of dates within the provinces, the singer will then take off, heading to Iceland, to jot down alone in an artists’ residence. The alternative to regain power for the month of March, the place books and reveals could occupy the prolific artist for some time.
https://www.lepoint.fr/culture/rendez-vous-avec-mathias-malzieu-de-dionysos-ma-compagne-daria-ne-veut-pas-d-enfant-mais-moi-si-15-12-2024-2577987_3.php