Olivier Dion will remember the spring of 2023 for a long time. In addition to hosting L’île de l’amour, the singer launched Sur le fil, his third album, but the first as an independent, after leaving the multinational Columbia. If he continues to make urban pop and catchy melodies his playground, the creator is now looking to show his true face.
The complexion tanned by the sun of the Dominican Republic, Olivier Dion expresses himself by videoconference on his desire for introspection and openness. “After Star Académie, Marc Dupré had written most of my album and I had written one or two personal songs. Today, each song is about me and sometimes deals with quite heavy themes. Before, record companies wouldn’t let me do that. »
He also says that he put aside a song called My true face. “She was talking about this mask that I seem to have in public and this dichotomy between what people see and what I feel. I was projecting a formatted image. I gave the answers we wanted to hear. I always seemed like a confident guy. I’m not all insecurity, but I’m not all strength either. »
Often overwhelmed by the gaze of others, Olivier Dion knows he is stuck in a duality about his body.
Every time he posts a photo in which his beauty is put in the foreground, he feels bad. “Last week I posted a video showing my clothes and taking my shirt off. It’s a fashion video like you’ve seen a thousand. However, that day, I told my girlfriend five times that I had to take it off. It caused anxiety in me. »
If they are almost all counterbalanced by catchy music, the songs of Sur le fil lift the veil on his insecurities and his impostor syndrome. “I got lost while creating my previous album, Exposed. I was working with producers from Los Angeles and London. I liked tunes, but was it really me? I didn’t feel like I had found my sound. »
So surrounded by big names, the singer questioned his artistic legitimacy. “I’ve always felt that to be a real artist, you have to spend your life writing songs, never doing a project that’s too mainstream because it pays off. Me, I like to create and perform, but I’m not the type to make music every day to express my emotions. »
Aware that he tends to hit himself on the head a lot, Olivier Dion tries to assume his nature.
He is therefore reconciled with the joy felt at the helm of Danser pour Victor in 2018. “Even if I had tripped, I had chosen not to redo animation to concentrate on the music. Years later, the tide turned and he decided to swim in the waters of The Island of Love. “I wanted to relive an animation experience. There’s something happening on TV that you can’t find anywhere else. These are big platters. A hundred people work on The Island of Love. »
If he arrived in the Republic with the intention of concentrating on work, he quickly realized that the sources of distraction would be numerous. “At L’île de l’amour, there is a day shift and an evening shift. When one is at the resort, I can easily go chill in the pool with them. It took me two weeks to find my rhythm and my little routine. That said, I didn’t put too much pressure on myself. »
Day after day, he participates in production meetings to learn about the evolution of the participants, he shoots a few interventions and he concentrates on the birth of his album, of which he is also the producer. “I had already released singles as an independent, but with a whole album, the workload is much higher. There’s a lot of thinking about how I’m going to bring people into this universe. »
Olivier Dion invested more than three years in this change of direction. “It’s a big test. I can’t wait to see what it will be like to make music that represents me. I would really like it to work and then go on tour in Quebec and France. »
