Being an artist is not just about singing in front of a microphone. Many responsibilities arise from what is actually a real job, difficult but exciting. The image that an artist sends back to the outside world is often that of a fulfilled person living a waking dream. The reality is sometimes a little darker.
When you are attached to your artistic project like I am, the desire to control everything is quite irresistible. I have to make major artistic decisions which will define the final project: the production of the sound, the choice of partners for the image of the project, the costume design, the choreographies of the live performances, the scenography of the concerts… We must therefore be able to manage everything and take responsibility for each decision I make with my teams to my audience. These are obviously decisions that are the result of intense reflections that take all my time and energy. It takes a lot of patience.
This is the heart of what I call the artist's first schizophrenia. Deep in the soul, I always throw myself body and soul in the defense of my projects but in reality, everything takes a long time. You have to be ready to fight for months, years, and never give up hope! When I started out, I was naive about the young artist who didn't really know the reality of the music world. Seeing all the Anglo-Saxon artists who seemed to come out of nowhere overnight and who became international stars, I wanted to be able to realize this dream and I wanted my songs to travel fast, to be able to touch people . But places are so expensive for "developing" artists, so I had to learn to be patient.
Then comes what I call the artist's second schizophrenia: seduction.
This may be naive on my part, but I always thought that the vocation of an artist was to convey his emotions, raw, unfiltered, to an audience. But the music industry is a difficult environment, in which marketing tends to take precedence over the artistic. It is not at all my vision of this profession, which is a passion above all. We must constantly reinvent ourselves in the face of evolving trends. Music consumption changes all the time, and it seems to me more and more difficult to reach people. I fight, on a daily basis, this tendency to create to please others, even if it is tempting and difficult to avoid sometimes. The anguish that haunts me is to end up losing myself, and to no longer remember the reason why I started writing, composing, singing and dancing. You should never lose sight of where you come from and where you want to go.
Finally comes the artist's third schizophrenia, the public animal. It’s probably the hardest part to live in these digital times. In a society where everything is filmed and where everything leaves traces, I must constantly pay attention to my appearance, to what I say or do. Everything is etched in indelible ink on social networks. Living with this constant gaze is complicated because it leaves me with the impression that I have no room for error. Being a public person is like being on stage, permanently, in everyday life.
Everyone will agree that human beings are in fact imperfect beings. We all make mistakes, which we try to repair and not to reproduce. Artists are no different, and yet they are far less spared and often little forgiven. We must learn to tame this fear of error, this fear of failure, and learn, above all!
Despite everything, obviously and fortunately, being an artist is also living wonderful moments which alone overshadow everything else and make this job for me the most beautiful in the world. I wish you all to be able to live from your passion. Because even if the path is difficult and it is tempting to give up, nothing beats the happiness of sharing what we love with an audience that always makes you countless.
Sillygomania, Loïc Nottet's new album was released on May 25.