Eric Cantona: “If I don’t have the opportunity to express myself, I die”
Podcast: FACE Editor Matthew Whitehouse speaks to Eric Cantona (!): footballer, actor, and now musician, about his new EP, and finding transcendence through music.
Music
Words: Matthew Whitehouse
Photography: Sohrab Golsorkhi
A lot of interviews can feel fairly straightforward. You have your questions, the person opposite you has their answers. You work through them – you go home.
But with the most interesting people an interview can feel like a dance. A rhythm that you both slowly settle into.
That was my experience of meeting Eric Cantona; the footballer, turned actor, and now musician, at the offices of his record label in London last week.
Cantona was in typically beguiling and enigmatic form. He kind of fixes you with a stare when he talks. It’s unhurried and esoteric, but not without a sense of humour.
Which is a lot like the music itself. His new EP, I’ll Make My Own Heaven, is a sort of crooner‑y, Cohen‑y, nostalgic offering. It’s very good.
And he’s taking it on the road this month – starting in Manchester, the city in which he’s still known as “king”, tonight, 26th October.
This is Eric Cantona for THE FACE podcast.
