Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Today, the singer Adam Naas. His new album, “Goldie and the kiss of Andromeda”, was released on 20 January 2023.
Singer Adam Naas came to prominence in 2016 with his track Fading Away, a subtle blend of soul, RnB and blues. His warm voice is not unlike that of (if deeply annoying) artist Prince. Because he is embodied, inhabited, engaged as if possessed at times. He seems to have lived a thousand lives. Adam Naas is back with a new album about love, death and hope. It’s called Goldie and the kiss of Andromeda.
Goldie is your alter ego. We have the impression that you have this intrinsic need to make him live and to bring him oxygen that you recover afterwards.
Adam Naas : That’s really it. In fact, Goldie is a bit of an alter ego, or at least this light that I already had in me when I was a kid, which I had really forgotten over the years. And so, this album represents this connection, this link that I’m trying to recreate with this person I was at the time and who made me laugh a lot and who made me feel good.
You started with the choir. So we can understand why there is this range of voice, this very coated side. There is a gospel side, a soul in what you interpret. At what point did you realise that it was going to change?
If I’m being completely honest, I always felt that I was destined for something special. When did I realise it was with music? I think it was when I was in choir with my music teacher who clearly told me that I had a gift. And that was the first time I really realised that there was something I enjoyed doing.
It feels like you’ve lived a thousand lives as if you were an old soul. That’s what they say about people who have lived. Do you feel it?
Yes. I don’t know how to explain it, but I would say that already in this life I have lived a lot. Childhood wasn’t always easy. I think that there are also many things that come from those years, which are a bit dark. And my objective is to use a little bit of what happened at that time, and maybe the past life, I don’t know if it exists, but I like to believe in it. Why not? Let’s go ! A human being is full of doubts and contrasts and these are also brought about by all the things experienced in life and perhaps by the past life. We don’t know, but anyway.
What do you keep from your childhood? Because it was indeed difficult. You lacked love. Absent father. What you keep from him is this name, Naas, which means “candy maker”.
Exactly. From my father, yes, but at least from my mother, I received a lot of love. What do I keep from my childhood? I have something strong and powerful that I can constantly draw on, in fact. It’s like a bottomless pit. And the last time, I remember, I go to my mother’s house and she shows me a photo of my brother and me, when we were younger, taken in a photo booth. And then I start crying, but I don’t know why I couldn’t tell her exactly. And the next day, I call him and say: “But actually, I was happy when I was a kid. We didn’t have an easy life, but I was so happy! And so I think that’s what I’m trying to find again. It’s this joy that even if everything around you is really dark and complicated. In fact, life for the moment is really pleasing me, it spoils me a bit, so I might as well enjoy it.
Goldie is your alter ego. I have the impression that this is what has allowed you to have more confidence in yourself, to protect yourself too! Is this protection necessary to keep this secret garden, to be able to limit the impact of the emotions you deliver?
Yes, I think so. And also to preserve this part of the mystery. I think that vulnerability is important.
A word about the song Between the Lilies and the Vine. This song is very special.
Well, it’s one of my favourite songs on this album, in the sense that it was kind of the first time I wrote the lyrics before writing the music. When I wrote the lyrics to this song, it was more from a poetry point of view. I thought I’d read it a bit and do illustrations and so on. I didn’t think of it as a song at all, and this song for me is about this kind of symbiosis between good and evil, masculinity and femininity, the hard and the fragile. As I grew up, I realised that all these balances are what make up a human being in general. Wisdom and happiness exist in all these contrasts. To think that we are feminine, we are masculine, we are tough, we are vulnerable, we are all these things that are in fact opposites.
To conclude, what does the stage represent for you, this relationship with the public?
I’m really looking forward to it. What I’m looking forward to more than anything else with this album is being able to defend it on stage and to tour and see what happens! And then to have fun especially because the stage is everything. I love it.
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