Special - The Fatal Interview by Les Fatals Picards | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2009 Moscow, Russia 

Les Fatals Picards, this year's Eurovision song Contest entrants for France, spoke to esctoday about their music, the purpose of their song, their dark secrets and much more. Ivan, the lead singer and creator of the band answered our questions boldly and he would have a message for our esteemed readers....if he could only remember what it was!

What is it that makes you so … Fatal?

I guess just our name. We're lucky with ESC because abroad our name doesn't mean anything. Our name "Fatals Picards" is not that nice in french, it has sort of a "rural" connotation, it's definitely not that glamorous. But this connotation vanishes with Eurovision and the fact that people that don't speak French don't understand our name and we're very happy with that.


Many say that you have a song that can brighten up a gloomy day. What is the secret recipe behind that?

We take that as a huge compliment because it's the purpose of our songs : make the people smile and laugh. And even if the song we've done for Eurovision is quite different from what we're doing usually, say a bit less humorous. But we've wanted a dynamic song able to gather the more people we could.

How did the idea of a song in Franglish come about? Weren’t you worried that a country that has never sent a song in another language but French (apart from a few words in English and Corsican in a couple of entries) would not accept it?

The past victory of Lordi had an enormous impact on the french selection. The idea this year was to send an unusual song from what we used to propose at the Eurovision Song Contest. On our side, we had the idea of the French and English mix right from the start, playing with the cliches, the vision of France abroad, the french lover and so on.

How would you describe your music and your style? Are you a punk band? A rock band or what?

What we usually do is mixing music and humour, but with quite every style of music: rock, pop, disco, reggae, you name it. For the ESC our song is more “sugar pop with less fat”. We've chosen this particular style because a recent American study said you have more than 76% chance of winning ESC if you have less fat in your musical style. We always take account of American studies, that's one of our little secrets.

What sort of reactions do you get in France after winning the national final?

Very enthusiastic. We've been on many television shows and many people have discovered the band since. The direct benefit is that our shows are sold out now,
with a fresh new audience and we love that !

You used to be a Label Adone band building your own career by word of mouth and a lot of concerts. Now suddenly you have fans all over Europe and that is before the contest. How does that make you feel?

It's very strange for us because we never thought we could have an audience apart from French speakers.


With you, France seems to have a chance to do really well in the contest after too long a time. You stated in an interview before your selection that France has been humiliated for too long and that it’s time it raised its flag and showed Europe the colours of love, ie the blue, the white and the red. Now that you are the ones attempting to do that how do you feel? Are you ready for it?

It's a heavy load on our shoulders, but we'll try to give our best. The national reference to the flag was a sort of joke, because it was so unlikely for us to represent France. But now that we're the representantives for France we feel very implicated and we don't want to deceive the people who have chosen us.

Rumor has it that you will be performing under a giant snow dome, is there any truth in that? Can you tell us something about your plans for Helsinki?

That was plan A, but unfortunately the giant snow dome has melted with the arrival of spring. So our show will be more conventional I'm afraid. The only thing we'll have to rely on will be our physical appearance... Well maybe we'll try plastic surgery during the three weeks left to increase our chances :)

Your lyrics are considered to be very funny and satirical but so far only French speakers have been able to understand your meaning. Any plans to sing in another language in your next album? English maybe, now that you got the hang of it?

Our ESC results will decide. If people find an interest in our music maybe we'll make something more international, but it'll be along what we're usually doing, in parallel. Like skiing for instance.


Do you have a message for the esctoday.com readers?

Yes, we had one very important and very precise message, but we've lost it while we were walking our dog. So if anyone finds it, please send it back so we can deliver our important message next time we have the opportunity to deliver it. It was something about stopping all wars within the next weeks but I can't remember the exact formulation. So the world might be saved ... or not.

We would like to thank Ivan and Les Fatals Picards and wish them the best of luck.