Gonzales Defends Cheesy Music

What many people forget when they hear about Gonzales is that he's Canadian.

Born in Montreal and raised in Toronto, Gonzales (real name Jason Beck) left our glorious country in 1998 to find a place he could belong and where people would appreciate his nasty yet clever MC-ing as Chilly Gonzales or his gentler, classically trained piano-playing storyteller side.

He found that place in Paris, France and is now a respected musician, composer, performer and producer for the likes of Feist, Jamie Lidell and Jane Birkin. But don't feel completely left behind, Canucks. Gonzales still identifies with you.

"I feel fundamentally Canadian," Gonzales says. "It's essentially a place more or less without culture. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but that it's young. It's a freedom creative people from Canada have.

"In other words, I'm not a bearded indie rocker. I don't like hockey. But there are lots of things about being Canadian that I identify with. In Europe, they have a culture that is heavy on their shoulders and in a way they're bogged down by it and don't take many risks. I think Canadians are freer to take a risk. They don't have a judgment of centuries of culture looking down upon them. I suppose if you're a songwriter, you might feel like Leonard Cohen is watching over you or something. If I feel like something is watching over me, it's more something like SCTV."

Soft Power, Gonzales' latest record, is filled with risk. With its '70s soft-rock feel, humour, confessional lyrics and disco-flavoured contributions from Feist, Lidell, Howie Beck and others, Soft Power is unlike anything the musician has done before.

"Soft Power becomes a way of challenging people to equate the person they thought had good taste [referring to his 2005 effort, Solo Piano] and now applying it to something that's this idea of 'cheesy music,'" Gonzales says. "For me, [composer Maurice] Ravel is the same level of respect and accomplishment as Billy Joel.

"But for a lot of people, Ravel is classy and good taste, and Billy Joel at most is a guilty pleasure. So I'm using that capital to try and surprise people and challenge their idea of 'Can these two co-exist in one person?' I believe, yes.

"In my piano concerts, I would play 'Maniac' from Flashdance in a classical arrangement, and for the first minute people would hear a song they recognize and they would just be enjoying it. And in that moment I thought, 'What a perfect world, we're free of all their prejudices of an '80s song. They're hearing it and at that moment, Michael Sembello is the same as Erik Satie,' and I made that happen. Soft Power is taking that and saying a saxophone solo is the same as a nice flourish on the piano. It maybe takes someone like me to make that equation in people's minds."