Imagine having to change your life at just 22 years old, because your head, heart, and body are no longer in the same time zone. This is what happened to Marilou who, after starting a singing career after childhood, did not sing in public for 10 years. The woman behind 3 times a day put all her heart into Traits d’union, the album of her reconciliation with music.
The word “empire” is probably an exaggeration. It remains that setting foot in the world of 3 times a day gives an idea of the scale of what Marilou has built: her company occupies, among other things, an imposing two-story building in the Longueuil industrial park, where find in particular a studio space which resembles a kitchen and a huge warehouse where boxes of recipe books and household items such as utensils, crockery and candles pass through.
These days, on a table there are also vinyls. Copies of Traits d’union, Marilou’s most recent record which – it’s a nice touch – will be marketed in four different covers. The 33-year-old singer and entrepreneur floats like a fish in water in this environment, moving most naturally from a discussion about music to reviewing a document on the computer to a photo shoot. .
“I’m so happy to have my day job! » she will say once seated for a proper interview.
The last sentence may seem banal in the mouth of a singer. However, this is a major change in Marilou’s life.
20 years ago, Marilou was introduced as a new teenage prodigy. Discovered by Guy Cloutier, who made her first record, she was taken over by none other than René Angélil who took her where he had already “placed” Céline et Garou: at Sony. A world of possibilities opened up to the young girl, who was only 12 years old when she started.
The plan, as we can easily guess, was to make a new Céline. Or something like that. Except that it wasn’t Marilou herself’s plan. “I didn’t want to make singing my profession and I was taught that music was show business,” she says. They wanted to make me a vocal singer, which I am not and which I never wanted to be. »
The young woman doesn’t blame anyone, saying that people have shown her kindness. Except that behind the facade smiles, she was suffering. Stress, of course, but not only that. “I tried to compensate until I made myself sick. Anorexia was a consequence [of all that], she says, and it was not light, my affair. »
Marilou talks about it freely because she got through it and because after having completely stopped making music – and even listening to it for five years! –, she rediscovered the pleasure of singing. To play the guitar, too. And even to write: she wrote, for the first time, all the lyrics and all the music for an album of her own. “I really feel like it’s my first album,” she says, with satisfaction.
In another mouth, this sentence would sound like the worst cliché. In Marilou’s, there is something touching. It underlines much more than a rebirth, it says how the young woman finally feels in agreement with herself on a musical level.
She discusses her difficulties of recent years (separations, challenges of reinventing herself alone as a mother, bereavement, etc.) without self-pity and from sometimes surprising angles.
In The Heart of Apples, she evokes without naming a deceased grandfather, who always ate his apple hearts. The child that she was imagined that if he did like that when she was on his knees, it was because he didn’t want to break away, that it was a way for this man to few words to tell her that he loved her without having to say it. Pale Rose discusses the difficulties of motherhood, which can begin before birth, while Rosie speaks of the laughter of children that thwarts grief.
“I expose myself a lot on this record,” admits the singer. And that’s the only thing she fears: being told that these songs into which she put all her sensitivity and even unflattering mirror reflections aren’t worth it. “I’m going to face criticism and I have some weaknesses when it comes to that,” she admits. My album is not a butter chicken recipe. »
Marilou no longer has a lump in her throat when she sings in her room, where she recorded her record. “I hope I don’t have it again one day, if I do any acting again,” she says. Getting on stage is not in his short-term plans. Nor an obligation. She no longer sings for a career. Savoring his newfound and assumed freedom is more than enough for him.
“I fell in love with myself again and from the moment I validated myself as a person, I wanted to know what I had to say musically. By being curious about what I had to offer, I became curious again about what others were doing. »
“I’m the type of person who listens to an album loudly and then moves on to something else. » At the moment, she is listening to Charlotte Cardin’s new record.
“Garou’s voice comforts me. Laurence Jalbert has one of the Quebec voices that touches me the most. She is broken and powerful. »
“What I listen to. My daughters know Taylor Swift songs by heart. They don’t understand the words, but they sing them. They also know Charlotte Cardin’s songs by heart. »
“You’re so Vain, by Carly Simon, reminds me of my happy mother. My father listened to America a lot. A Horse With No Name and Sister Golden Hair remind me of him. »
