Composer, musician and artistic director, Ambroise Willaume, who signs his music as Sage, learned the craft in an unusual setting: the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, starting at six years old, with the cathedral as his rehearsal room. The rest played out on stage and in the studio. In 2006, the band Revolver, spotted on Myspace by an artistic director, two albums and five years of touring in France, Europe and the United States. Then the first records under his own name, and a role he hadn’t planned: that of the musician called in to structure other people’s music.
This role began in 2011 with Woodkid, who coined the term “song doctor” for him along the way. It took on another dimension from 2014 with Clara Luciani, a collaboration lasting over ten years, from La Grenade to Respire encore, and a fourth album in the works. At the same time, he set up Astral Bakers, a four-piece project whose records are made in his studio and which he describes as the most accomplished of his career.
In this episode of Tales, he looks back on the folk records that played at home, on his first stage at high school after six months of guitar, on the nerves he’s never lost and refuses to lose, on what happens in a room when several musicians play at the same time, and on the record he would produce if he could choose any artist.
Ambroise Sage - Composer, musician and producer
The Tales interview
Do you remember your very first musical emotions?
I think my very first memories go back to kindergarten, at school. There was a party, it’s very vague, but we had to sing something. And while singing, I realized I found it pleasant. A very simple feeling: liking to lay your voice on music, trying to harmonize the two.
My first more precise memories come from the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, where I learned music from six years old. It was a part-time training, a bit like a sports-study program, and our rehearsal room was the cathedral. It wasn’t a particularly religious training: we sang for concerts. The setting was quite incredible.
Was music already present in your family environment?
Not at all. I don’t come from a family of musicians, not even remotely. We listened to music at home, but I didn’t have any particular initiation. My sister played piano, so I heard a lot of classical music when I was a child. My mother listened a lot to classical music, and we also had some folk records from the 60s-70s: Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Léonard Cohen.
When I listen to them today, I still have this very strong feeling of returning to childhood. Especially Simon & Garfunkel. And ABBA too: we had a best-of in the car, which we listened to on repeat. Back then, when there was a CD in the car, we even knew the track order by heart.
If you had to divide your career into major chapters?
The first is Revolver. We formed the band in 2006. We had opened a Myspace because that’s what you had to do at the time, and we recorded demos to feed it. That’s how we were contacted by an artistic director. We thought it was a joke, my parents too. And yet, it was true. We signed, released two albums, toured for five or six years without stopping, in France, Europe, the United States. We were in our twenties, discovering everything all at once.
The second chapter is Sage, solo. My first records under my own name. At the same time, I started making music for others. The first important collaboration was with Woodkid, around 2011, towards the end of Revolver.
The third chapter is Clara Luciani. We met in 2014. We worked for a long time in the shadows, without it taking off immediately. Even La Grenade didn’t explode right away. And then, at some point, it became inevitable.
The fourth chapter is Astral Bakers. A band project, four of us, where we make music together. It’s probably the most accomplished thing today, and above all what most resembles me.
The band seems to be a central concept in your career.
Making music alone, at some point it’s quite sad. After experiencing the band, I had a hard time with solo tours: being alone on stage, alone before and after concerts. The exit from the stage is terrible when you have no one to share it with.
Music is something to share. What interests me today is not so much technique as listening and interaction. Searching for that fragility that makes a good take, that moment when something happens that you hadn’t anticipated.
When I produce records, I always try to have several instruments playing together, or at least several elements interacting. It makes the music more alive, more unpredictable. Even if there’s an economic reality (a band costs more to tour), with Astral Bakers, I can’t imagine playing without one of the four. It would be too strange.
When did you realize that music was going to become central in your life?
The first time I went on stage, at the high school party. I had six months of guitar under my belt. We were very shy. We played a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And then, I felt something very strong: pushing myself, becoming someone else, being beyond what you think you are.
It was a leap into the void. A total risk. And at the same time, an incredible letting go, from the very first note. I probably wasn’t very good, but that feeling stuck with me. It’s really the stage that made me want to keep going.
You often mention stage fright. What kind of relationship do you have with it?
It’s very ambivalent. Before important concerts, an hour or two before, I always wonder why I put myself through this. I tell myself it’s horrible. And it happens every time.
But the rare concerts where I didn’t have stage fright, where I was relaxed, I found them very sad. Stage fright is part of the package. There are few moments in life when you feel that. And after the concert, it’s so exhilarating.
I’ve had it forever, even when I played in bars at 18. Before going on stage, I was already telling myself: “why am I doing this?” And yet, I went back.
Your collaboration with Clara Luciani seems decisive.
With Clara, what’s always quite striking are the writing moments. Those when we’re simply in the studio, without a very defined plan.
Usually, I generate a lot of musical ideas: chord progressions, motifs, melodies. It’s sometimes quite intuitive, almost random. And at some point, I feel something catches her attention. She then starts humming over it. When there’s that alignment (between what I play and the melody she finds), something very special happens.
It’s like a choreography. We find each other, we align. I think Clara is the first person, after Revolver, with whom I’ve found that feeling of “musical dance.” With my friends from Revolver, Christophe and Jérémy, we developed that over time: an almost instinctive understanding, without needing to talk. We knew each other so well, and we were looking for pretty much the same things.
With Clara, there’s something of that order too. Today, we’re working on the fourth album, and we’ve been collaborating for over ten years. It’s quite striking to see how some ideas seem to emerge naturally, almost at the same time, in both of us.
The fact that our songs have reached such a wide audience and become so popular has, I think, really calmed me down regarding that tension.
Working with Clara also allows me to explore facets of my musical personality that I probably wouldn’t have explored alone. On the second album, for example, with that more disco turn, I started working on very present bass lines, slapping, looking for grooves. These are things I probably would never have done for my personal music.
Woodkid was also an important encounter.
He’s the first person who asked me to help work on his music outside of my band. I had never thought about that role. Woodkid is brilliant, voracious, capable of doing everything. He has a very visual and textural approach to music.
I came to structure his intuitions, put chords in the right places. It was extremely formative. And he’s the one who gave me confidence in this more discreet role, showing me it could be exciting.
How do you experience this position often described as “in the shadows”?
It’s a facet of me, but it wouldn’t be enough. I’d struggle to do only that. I need to keep searching for myself, otherwise I feel like I’m just following a recipe.
When I’m a producer, I stay at the service of someone else’s work. I also accept the artist’s choices: it’s their music, they’re the ones who will defend it on stage. I don’t have misplaced ego about that.
In Astral Bakers, how is this role organized?
We mostly try to make sure everyone has real freedom to play and propose ideas. The records are made in my studio, so I’m more often behind the computer, but we’re almost always together. It’s a pretty hybrid balance, but it works well.
You often talk about constraint in creation.
I always find it good to start from constraints, even arbitrary ones. It’s a starting point. A new instrument, for example, is always very inspiring: a little world opens up.
I also find it essential to keep composing until the last second. Often, the best songs come at the end, when you’re totally immersed. Respire encore with Clara came on the last day of the studio. We weren’t supposed to compose. And in half an hour, the song was there.
If you had a “magic” card and could produce the album of the artist of your choice, living or dead, who would you choose?
David Bowie. Because he never stopped searching. Even his last album is exciting. I also like the idea that his records were made quickly. I love the feeling of making a record almost without realizing it.
