Damien Saez
Encyclopedia
Early life
Damien Saez was born in Saint-Jean-de-MaurienneSaint-Jean-de-Maurienne
Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne is a commune in the Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department....
, Savoie, on 1 August 1977, where he lived until the age of 3–4 years before his family moved to Marseille. Saez spent most of his childhood in Marseille until he moved to Dijon when he was about 8 years old, where he was raised by his Algerian mother, after she divorced her Andalusian husband.
Later, she met a director of documentaries who worked for the French channel 'France 3' and gave birth to Damien's two younger brothers.
At the age of 8, Saez started taking piano lessons with Boris Nedeltchev at the Conservatoire National de Région de Dijon and graduated 9 years later. He then took an interest in playing the guitar. His career as a singer began in 1995 when he let his interest in writing come out. He stopped playing in bands that sang covers of more famous bands like Pink Floyd. He wanted to work on his own songs that he had written and try to attract a new audience.
Jours Etranges, God Blesse, Debbie (1999-2005)
In 1999, a record company became interested in his compositions, and he signed a record contract with Island and began to record his first album Jours étranges ("Strange Days", a tribute to the album of the same nameStrange Days (album)
Strange Days is the second album released by American rock band The Doors. The album was a commercial success, earning a gold record and reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Despite this, the album's producer, Paul Rothchild, considered it a commercial failure, even if it was an...
by The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
) which went double platinum. His first single Jeune et con was broadcast on many radio stations and reached the general public, which earned him a nomination for award The Newcomer of the Year' at the Victoires de la Musique in 2001.
In December 2001 his first poetry collection was published entitled À ton nom.
In March 2002, he released his second album God Blesse/Katagena. In the meantime he released a piece of instrumental work called Katagena. It was available online via non-official web-sites and downloadable free of charge.
Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
contacted him and asked him to contribute to the original soundtrack of the movie Femme Fatale
Femme Fatale (2002 film)
Femme Fatale is a 2002 French mystery film directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars Rebecca Romijn as the femme fatale and Antonio Banderas...
that was released in April 2003. The song that was chosen Sexe caused a lot of commotion due to its vulgar lyrics. Many radio stations refused to broadcast it, and the music video was banned from the television.
On 22 April 2002, the day after the first round of presidential elections, he wrote a song called Fils de France online, which was meant to be against French right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
who qualified for the second ballot. The song was written and recorded in about 10 hours, then made available for free on the Universal Music's website.
His third album, Debbie, was released in 2004 with a more rock style than the previous albums.
Post-Universal period
In 2005 Saez quit Universal Music and went on the Damien Saez: Piano and Voice Tour. His musical style underwent a profound transformation from alternative rock to acoustic ballads, as his singing was accompanied only by three guitars and a piano.At the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, Saez released four new songs in English (Killing the Lambs, Numb, Jessie and Yellow Tricycle) for free on his MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page. He performed all of them, except for Jessie, at five acoustic concerts in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Lyon, in June and July 2007, respectively.
Varsovie, Alhambra, Paris (2008)
On 8 December 2007, Saez released Jeunesse, leve-toi, a song that was written in March during the presidential elections. The song became the first track and also the first single from his next album, Varsovie, Alhambra, Paris. Edited by the independent quality-label Cinq7, it was released on 21 April 2008 as a triple album (Paris was also sold separately), consisting of 29 acoustic songs. The album mainly deals with Saez's breakup with his Polish girlfriend, Katarzyna. The first two discs, Warsaw and Alhambra, bear a similar sound and were meant to pay homage to Jacques BrelJacques Brel
Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following in France initially, and later throughout the world. He was widely considered a master of the modern chanson...
, Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré was a Franco-Monegasque poet, composer, singer and musician.Born in Monaco, Ferré mixed love and melancholy with moral anarchy, lyricism with slang, rhyming verse with prose monologues...
, Barbara
Barbara
-People:* Barbara , people with the given name Barbara* Etienne Barbara , Maltese soccer player* Barbara , stage name of French singer Monique Andrée Serf-Places:* Barbara , ancient region in the Horn of Africa...
, Georges Brassens
Georges Brassens
Georges Brassens , 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981), was a French singer-songwriter and poet.Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier...
and other classic French songwriters. The third disc, Paris, has a richer and more diverse sound and, despite little advertising, was certified gold.
In June and July 2008, accompanied for the first time by a string trio (violin, viola and violoncello), Saez launched, as part of various festivals, a new acoustic tour which was very short-lived: emotionally exhausted by the intimate nature of his songs, Saez decided to cancel his big summer tour and dedicated himself to writing new material.
Yellow Tricycle - A Lover's Prayer (2009)
On 23 January 2009 Saez launched a new website, dedicated entirely to his new project, consisting of songs written entirely in English. The songs available for free download were Killing the Lambs, Numb and Yellow Tricycle, which had been released on his MySpace page two years earlier, with the addition of a new song called White Noise. Their dark rock sound was very different from his previous acoustic album, and marked Saez's return to rock music.In February 2009 Saez was nominated in the category "Pop-rock Album of the Year" at Victoires de la Musique, where he performed an unpublished song called Embrassons-nous, which he performed without any rehearsals.
His fifth album, A Lovers Prayer, was released on 16 March 2009 under the pseudonym Yellow Tricycle. The 12 tracks on the album were written entirely in English and Saez's name did not appear anywhere on the cover. It received little advertising and was not backed up by a live tour.
J'accuse (2010)
At the end of 2009 Saez released a new track, Police, followed in February 2010 by J'accuse as a preview of his next rock album, bearing the same name. When the album was released, it ranked 3rd in the charts, with 21 229 copies sold in the first week. J'accuse also sparked a controversy and a media debate when the posters with the cover of the album (depicting a nude woman in a shopping cart) were banned from the Paris subway.Albums
- 25 October 1999: Jours étrangesJours étrangesJours étranges is a Damien Saez album, released on October 25, 1999.-Track listing:# Jeune et con - 3:52# Sauver cette étoile - 5:02# Jours étranges - 5:19# J'veux m'en aller - 6:24# Hallelujah - 4:09# Crépuscule - 5:09# Soleil 2000 - 5:12...
- 26 March 2002: God Blesse (double album: God Blesse & Katagena)
- 31 August 2004: DebbieDebbieDebbie is a fairly common given name, usually feminine, short for Deborah and is popular in most English-speaking countries...
- 21 April 2008: Varsovie - L'Alhambra - Paris (triple album)
- 16 March 2009: A Lovers Prayer
- 29 March 2010: J'accuse
Singles
- 2000: "Jeune et con" (3 April)
- 2000: "Sauver cette étoile" (limited edition, 24 October)
- 2002: "Fils de France"
- 2002: "Sexe", film original band Femme fatale, 26 April
- 2002: "Sexe / Solutions" (28 May)
- 2004: "Debbie" (May 2004)
- 2005: "Marie ou Marylin"
- 2006: "Killing The Lambs" (MySpace release)
- 2007: "Jessie" (MySpace release)
- 2007: "Yellow Tricycle" (MySpace release)
- 2007: "Numb" (MySpace release)
- 2007: "Jeunesse lève-toi" (free download on 8 December)
- 2010: "Police" (free download in 2010)
- 2010: "J'accuse" (free download on March 2010)