Career
Cantat was born in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The son of a Navy officer, he spent his childhood in Le Havre. His family moved when he was an adolescent to Bordeaux and at the lycée Saint-Genès he met Denis Barthe, Serge Teyssot-Gay, and Frédéric Vidalenc, who would soon become members of his band. At the end of Cantat's first performance in March 1981, when he was still 16, he threw himself into the crowd and suffered cranial trauma. In 1991 he suffered a black out, and in 1993 he had to undergo an operation on his vocal cords and then follow a series of vocal classes. Self destructive behaviour, cigarettes and alcohol, had taken a toll.
At the height of Noir Désir's success in the 1990s, he was one of the most prominent figures of French music. His left-wing political views caused him to take a position against globalisation, fascism, desertification of urban areas in Bordeaux and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, among other topics.
Read more about this topic: Bertrand Cantat
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
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“I restore myself when I’m alone. A career is born in public—talent in privacy.”
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“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)