This Saturday, February 24, during the third evening of the blind auditions, Lillian presented herself to the coaches of The Voice. A young man from another time who did not leave the jury indifferent. For Télé Star, he looks back on this beginning of his journey.
Télé Star: What motivated you to do The Voice ?
Lillian: I’ve been interested in this for a long time The Voice. When I was a child, I tried The Voice Kids but unfortunately, I had molted exactly at that time. Production preferred not to take any risks and told me to come back later. But it was during a competition where I was in the final that Bruno Berberes [le directeur artistique et de casting de The Voice, ndlr] said to me “We want you in Paris on Thursday”. The castings of The Voice were closed. They only saw the favorites and picked out four or five. Two weeks later, I was on set, in front of the blind audition chairs. I couldn’t prepare myself. It was very quick.
Was it more stressful?
Yes of course. I hadn’t gone through all the stages. But looking back, I prefer it to have happened that way. I would have stressed too much otherwise and I would have chickened out. It’s been a dream since I was little. I’ve been watching the show forever and wanted to have that experience. It’s so powerful that I wanted it as much as I was afraid.
You sang My legionary by Edith Piaf. Why this song in particular?
Because I really started to sing with Edith Piaf. I fell in love with No, I do not regret anything when I was six years old. I sang it all the time. I listened to his songs over and over. And My legionary was the first 78 rpm I had. It was an antique dealer who gave it to me when I was eight. I told him that I collected 45 rpm records and he showed me his collection of 78 rpm records, before giving me that of My legionary. It was a way of coming full circle. These antique dealers, Marie-Thérèse and Roland, are people to whom I am still very close. I go see them once a week. They are like my grandparents.
These touching words that Lillian’s grandfather had after his performance on The Voice
You own more than 10,000 records. Which one has the most value in your eyes?
It’s very sentimental but I hesitate between the 33 rpm of my grandmother’s choir at Notre-Dame de Paris or the 45 rpm of her choir in Montrouge where Jean-Jacques Goldman also appears. He came to sing at my grandparents’ wedding.
Your passion comes from your grandfather. What did he tell you after your blind audition?
He shed his tears and said to me: “You represented your grandmother well, she must be proud of you”. She loved to sing. She died when I was six, so she couldn’t necessarily have taught me much. Without my grandmother, my grandfather is lost. He finds it in me. I have the same character, I like the same things as her. We’re together all the time, him and I. You look for Lillian, you find Papou, and vice versa.
You really don’t listen to anything current?
Except in the evening because I have to (laughs). The little current music that I listen to is Angèle and Clara Luciani because I was offered 33 rpm records. But I’m not going to buy them myself. Unless I really want a title, which has never happened yet. I do not know why. Perhaps because of the tempos which don’t represent me less. I need texts, stories, that tell something. It comes back in today’s songs but there are so many beautiful things in the old that for the moment, I don’t have the desire…
So, what pushed you towards Mika rather than Zazie, knowing that I imagine that you listen to neither?
No way. I wanted to be with Zazie because I had seen videos of her alongside Georges Moustaki and Charles Aznavour. But when Mika turned around, he was looking at me with a look… it’s almost inexplicable. I had the impression that he was absorbed in what I was saying. Zazie didn’t have that look. And after my performance, I had the impression that Mika had understood me, that he would know how to channel me and guide me. Ultimately, his name came out quite naturally.
In the rest of the adventure, will you continue with this repertoire or will you open up to more recent titles?
I am not closed to a more modern universe. We must not remain closed to our world, we must discover and adapt to all situations because we sing to share. All I can say is that in the battles, it will be a title from the 1980s… whereas for me, I stop at 1970 at most (laughs).
Lillian: “I was harassed, I withdrew into myself”
In a somewhat similar genre, this season, there is also Alphonse who sang Jacques Brel. Are you close?
I spoke with him, yes. We also really like English music from the 50s and 60s, everything Fred Astaire, Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald… We mutually discovered artists and songs. It was very nice and enriching.
Vianney deceived you on the way you express yourself. How did you experience it?
I told myself I didn’t talk like that. I didn’t really understand but it doesn’t matter. It was funny the way he said it, it wasn’t mean.
How do your friends view your world?
They don’t care, it’s not a problem for them. But there was a time when it wasn’t like that. In primary school, I was totally accepted, I acted stupid, I did my Castafiore and everyone loved it, laughed and it went very well. I had been used to being myself, to being comfortable with my voice and my world. When I got to 6th grade, I was bullied. I closed in on myself. My mother did the right thing. We went to see the management who felt that my mother was covering me too much, so I changed establishments. At that time, I hid all of that. It wasn’t great. But from the 4th grade onwards, things went really well. A friend saw videos of me singing and everyone urged me to do it. The Voice Kids. They didn’t judge me and little by little, I began to reveal myself, to explain to them that I went to flea markets and that I loved old things.
Your mother says you are “nostalgic for a period you never knew“. How do you explain it?
I think I was reincarnated and didn’t have a reset (laughs). My soul remained in this era. Even when I was five or six years old, when my grandmother was still there, I went to flea markets with her. Since I was little, I have always been attracted to these ancient things. These are objects that tell something, that have been through wars… But I don’t know because my sister is not like that at all even though we were immersed in the same world.