Where and how do you spend these days?
I’m reprogramming our shows. Now to set up the shows it will take twice the strength and time. For those who are locked in an apartment in the city and cannot go out it is hard. Instead I am in the countryside, on a farm, a real farm. There are hundreds of hectares of woods, there is no lack of space to enjoy spring. It is a good way to break the routine, take the dogs or the cat for a walk, enjoy this place.
This thing made me realize how lucky I am. I no longer want to take it for granted that I live in a beautiful house in this part of the world. Now I appreciate it. Before no, because I was constantly tossed from car to plane. It is the time to stop and reflect. It is also the right opportunity to strengthen ties with family and friends. People you usually don’t hear suddenly call you or write emails to find out how you are. I do it too.
The situation also implies improvements, in some ways. I feel there is more solidarity. And our ecological footprint has greatly improved. We are learning to do without certain means of collective transport. We are learning, I believe, that we can do without the negativities arising from the fact that we are too many people on a planet that is too small and with limited resources. This is a fundamental point.
I don’t want to blame it, but we should also recognize the dangers of eating meat. It is a ridiculous addiction to meat. I am not a strict vegetarian, let alone a vegan, but most of what I eat is of vegetable origin and I like it.
It is not my job to tell you what to eat, nor how many children to do. I just want people to think responsibly about themselves, their children, grandchildren, neighbors. To all those who share with us these finite and fragile resources which are the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. We act responsibly.
What music do you listen to in times of crisis like this?
I don’t listen to music, I do it. If I piloted a 747, on the weekend I wouldn’t fly with a Cessna. If I listen to music I do it on the plane to distract me from the nervousness that takes me. It is a kind of musical medicine, I need not to think about what is happening around me.
I stopped listening to music when I was just over 20, I thought I had heard enough. When you are always on the go, music is everywhere: in hotel lobbies, in elevators, in cars, on the bus. And when you make music yourself for four hours every night, and it’s a pretty intense experience, you have enough. If I listen to something, it’s mostly classical music. Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, occasionally interspersed with the ZZ Top.
What books are you reading, what movies are you watching?
I am a great reader, especially of politics and current affairs. Sometimes I read novels, entertainment stuff, fiction. But the days fly by with this story of the tour to be reprogrammed in 2021.
Last night I spoke to my American agent. He said, “I’m trying to reprogram 750 shows. If the artists ask me to postpone the concerts in October I try to please them, but the truth is that they won’t be able to do them before March or April 2021 “.
We need to be optimistic to schedule the concerts in the last months of this year. People get pissed if you send them back once and then you have to put them off a second time.
Do you have more to say to the fans?
There are a lot of people in the entertainment world who publish bad taste videos in which he says obvious. I consider my fans too intelligent to appreciate a video where I am sitting in a bathtub and I tell them that everything is fine and blah blah blah.
Of course I’m fine. It is obvious that I am in a position to be protected and cared for. And anyway, because of a respiratory disease, I bought the mask four years ago. I always carry it in my carry-on baggage, it is not much news for me. Wearing a mask is a matter of common sense.
We tend to be a bit hostile towards those who wear them and I understand why. I hope that once the frontline health workers and hospital staff are equipped, the masks will be made available to the public.
Until yesterday, however, in this country they told us that the masks were useless, that we should not have got one. And perhaps at least in part the reason is that the British and American governments knew that there were none for those who really needed it. They should have told us the truth. Maybe at the beginning it can cause panic, but we are not so fragile. Tell us the truth.
I am a cautious supporter of Gaia’s theory that the planet behaves like a living organism. We are all interconnected. We are all part of a global life form beyond the number of eyes or legs we have. We are all part of that great living chaos that is planet Earth. I like the idea of the self-regulating Earth.
It is time to reflect. People should invest in knowledge to learn how to handle the truth. And the truth may not be beautiful, but I am optimistic. We will overcome it and I hope this thing will teach us. And maybe in a year or two, we will look back and convince ourselves that it is time to curb this incessant consumption of resources.
