How long’s it been since we first heard Smoking Kills and hailed SebastiAn as the next genius European producer? It seems like forever ago. And now, finally, he’s back with his debut album Total. I got to talk to him on the phone the other week which was a bit difficult giving the language barrier and a shoddy line, but still, I do love me some reclusive French studio geeks.

SebastiAn – Organia

One thing that I felt I must ask you was what took so long with Total? You worked on it for several years and now it’s finally out.

“I think I was trained to take my time and to follow all the different little directions. You know when Justice arrived and they had of their songs in the same clubs? I just wanted to take my time and try out all the different ideas and different projects. You know Roman Gavras? The director? He asked me to make the soundtrack for his movie Notre Jour Viendra and I thought that would take maybe two months or a bit more and it ended up taking one year. So I was really on two projects at the same time.”

That wasn’t your first soundtrack either because you also did Steak with Mr. Oizo and Sebastien Tellier. Does working on projects like that allow you to do things that you can’t do on your own as a solo artist?

“Yeah, it’s totally cool to work with a lot of people and on a movie you have many people to work with. It’s very different to working alone at home or in the studio. It’s a different…how do you call it…exercise.”

Total has a couple of collaborations, firstly with Mayer Hawthorne on Hudson River and you also have M.I.A. featuring too. How did those two songs come together?

“I met Mayer in the streets in Amsterdam one year ago. I found him very intriguing and thought that we could make something together. And it worked. I sent him the song and then one week later he came to me with his finished vocals, so it was very, very simple. M.I.A. I met five years ago when I was playing the first Daft Punk shows. She became a friend so I just asked her to do it. She was in London at the time so I went there and I think we finished recording it in, like, three hours.”

I remember speaking to Busy P last year about Ed Banger and the releases coming up from everyone and he told me that he never wanted to put pressure on the artists to finish things and that they would be finished when they were finished. Was that your mentality with Total too?

“Yeah, ‘finished when it is finished’, that’s good. I’m not a calculator. I never know how long it will take or how much time I will need to work on something. Pedro was great, yes, he never put any pressure on me.”

When you’re alone working in the studio is it ever difficult to pull yourself back and think that something is finished and not continue twisting knobs and fiddling with minute details?

“No, it’s not that difficult. When I work I try not to think too much about if it’s good or if it’s working. I will know if it’s not working and then it will just go another way.”

When you think back to when you first approached Pedro about releasing your music through Ed Banger, did you go into that with any grand expectations? Or was it just hoping that he’d want to hear your music?

“No, I was not expecting anything in particular. I was just hoping for a label to put it out! I just knew that Pedro was the manager of Daft Punk. I didn’t know that Oizo or anyone else was in for it too. I just went to him with some demos and he said to me ‘I want this, this, this and this track’ and asked me to come back with them finished in a week. I came and he signed me. That’s all.”