Growing up in the Parisian suburbs, the perma-bearded musician, actor and fashion idol Sebastien Tellier has come a long way from being the 'almost too regular kid' of his youth.

Meet Sebastien Tellier.

An enigmatic figure clad in an orange tailored suit, it’s strange to think M. Tellier was ever ‘simply a regular youngster’. He’s the kind of character one can imagine being a mini version of his current self from birth - dressed in a tiny, immaculately tailored suit, silk scarf, sunglasses and the first tufts of facial hair emerging around his downy dome. He, however, is quick to point out that his youth was not unique in the slightest. “When I was a kid I was really regular, almost too regular. At the end of my teenage years I had to transform myself simply because I was so normal and so clean. At some point I realized it was simply no fun so something in my mind said  ‘you have to be different’."

And as with much youth in the suburbs, it included the use of the odd recreational drug. “I thought to myself that I had to be everything I am. This included a little LSD in my teenage years and breaking things. It’s the problem of suburbs - there was nothing else to do.”

Becoming ‘everything he is’ had much to do with his embracing music and cinema as creative parallels. This view has resulted in his emotive, heart tugging output being used in several motion pictures – most notably ‘Fantino’ in Sopia Coppola’s Lost In Translation – whilst his association with film and filmmakers have seen him in front of the camera on several occasions. It’s the sense of drama, suspense and tension that brings the two practices together. “The cinema is a kind of obsession for me. When you’re a filmmaker you have to imagine you are making a record, so a movie with energy and emotion. When you make a record you have to follow the rules of movies like suspense, surprise, tension. I think that a musician has to work like a filmmaker and a filmmaker has to work as a musician. There is a kind of crossover.”

This credo of suspense and drama goes beyond his work. His persona manages to be open, friendly and candid whilst at the same time remaining somewhat impenetrable. From his joking devil-may-care attitude twinned with his musical forays broaching the 'L'incroyable Vérité through to his flamboyant attire and his opaque, equivocal responses in semi-broken English. That he’s so aware of his multi-layered public image is interesting. If the man were a film, Sebastien Tellier would be a thriller. “I have a beard, long hair and wear sunglasses all the time so it’s almost like I’m hiding behind something. Though at the same time, for example right now, I’m wearing orange clothes. Its as if I’m hiding behind something but simultaneously completely upfront. I love this kind of paradox."

His optimism and openness to change reflects his view politically and musically, acting as an anathema to creative and cultural conservatism both in France and in general. It’s his drive to continually shift out of his comfort zone that punctuates his work as an artist. To not be ‘too ordinary, too clean’ as the child of the suburbs he once was. “There is a lot of problems to change for French people, for me too. Every change is hard. French people like tradition and the ‘spirit’ that goes with that. But me, I try to break this spirit inside me, to be different for each record. If you make a record with the same mindset as before, there is no point in making a new record.  My previous record was called ‘Politics’ and of course it was about politics. At that time, I thought it was the most important rule in the world and now I think that sex is the most important rule. Seduction is at the centre of everything.”

Coming from an artist with a back catalogue that’s mostly erred on the side of intellect, who can say fairer than that?

Jean-Robert Saintil