Interview With Dolche

Christine Herin, previously known as Naif Herin and now known professionally as Dolche, is a Rome based Italian-French singer, songwriter, composer and record producer who already boasts a 20-year music career and more than 500 concerts in Europe with and key collaborations with Grammy Award winning professionals. Her work is well- known for its distinctive musical style and blending of different genres such as folk, chanson française, world music, classical music, funk, electronic. She now releases the second single of her forthcoming album Exotic Diorama (out Oct 2020) – is the bold track Big Man.

First and foremost, hello and how are you?

Believe it or not, this is the first time someone asks me that in an interview. So thank you, sincerely for asking! I am great, excited for a bunch of new singles coming out in the next months, happily pregnant and glad because after 2 long months the parks in my city opened again their gates a few days ago. I missed nature. How are you?

Doing very well thank you, settled into lockdown now... Tell us about the record you have just released… How do you feel when releasing a record?

I released 4 tracks from the full album that will be released this October. Each time I release a single I feel a weird sensation of peace. I am never worried. Maybe because every time that i finish a song I don't feel it as mine anymore but as something that will have its own life and will be perceived in so many different ways that it will have its own life and existence far away from me. I love this sensation and I love the feedbacks of people who take the time to write to me what emotions a song brought to them.



What inspired the record?

The record was inspired by a deep desire to run wild without restraints of any kind. This is the first time I fully write, compose, produce and decide about every tiny aspect of my music. It's exhausting but I could never live without this sense of deep authenticity and truthfulness anymore. I feel so happy that each one of my songs is exactly how I wanted it that I cannot find the words to describe it. I have always been inspired and a profound admirer of artists like David Bowie or Prince who decided upon every single aspect of their artistic production. I feel that I now understand how they felt by being free to fully express their ideas and creative vision.

Tell us a little about your creative process...

My creative process is very easy to explain. I have no creative process. Songs just very very easily come to me. I am of course inspired by the events that life brings to me (might them be in my personal life or in the world this makes no difference for me). But the melodies and the music are inside me and just push to come out. What takes me a lot of time is the polishing process. I am very meticulous and a big perfectionist. While composing every single score for every single instrument in my songs I spend a lot of time to make them sound exactly how I want. The recording process, singing and playing myself most of the instruments and then having other musicians playing some others is like writing it all over again. And then the mixing and mastering process arrive and I start over again working in team with the engineers. This is why I always meticulously choose the people I will work with. I need heads thinking with my same sensitivity but in different ways. This is how the work I do finally blooms.

If the record were an animal, what animal would it be?

A very exotic bird with ravishing colours and long feathers flying from one bench to another in a flourishing green jungle.

Define your sound in five words…

Mesmerizing, eerie, romantic, powerful, irreverent.

What was the first song that caught your attention?

“Who's That Girl“ by Madonna. It was 1987 and I never heard this kind of sound before in my tiny 40 inhabitants village. My brother is 6 years older than me and brought it home.

What was the first song you bought?

Ah, I am older than I look. When I was a teenager we bought albums or at least 45LPs.

And the first album?

It was a tape. “Dangerous” by Michael Jackson

What was the best concert you have ever seen?

Prince during The Earth Tour in London in 2007 at the 02 Arena. He played the same show for 21 nights in a row and tickets got sold out so fast that I barely managed to get mine. I drove to London from Italy through the Mont Blanc tunnel and then through the English Channel...many hours and tunnels to get there!

What did the experience teach you that you have translated to your own shows?

That even if you planned a show thinking of every details there is always a big part of the show that simply creates itself while it happens. It's the result of the contact between the music and the public. This is what makes concerts magical.

What other artist are you most excited to hear from?

I had many crushes in the last years that unluckily never survived the first album. I don't know if this happens because of how much the music business changed or of lack of inspiration. But it seems to me that after reaching perfection in one album it is difficult to replicate it or to propose a different artistic path with the same intensity. Too often artists fall in the trap and just propose a bad copy of what worked in the first place. If we think about the musical careers of great musicians of the past, like David Bowie, every album was completely different from the previous ones. An unsettling research. Nothing just made to please the audience or the producer. Bowie still surprises me today.

If you could work with them, what would you hope to record?

I would love to just get locked in a room with him and many musical instruments synthesizers and just record what comes out improvising. I wouldn't want to aim to a song but to just play and play.

If you had to pick three artists to be filed next to, who would they be and why?

I have been often compared to Florence and the Machine, Bjork and Alanis Morisette. I love these three artists who succeeded in putting into music very different times of my life. I believe to belong to the same musical universe of many other female artists who try to offer an alternative contribution to the music landscape, such as Feist, Ane Brun, Ani di Franco. All strong women with crystal clear music souls.

If you could jam with one artist alive or dead, who would it be?

I sometimes dream to meet Prince. Some years ago I got very close to meeting him (I recorded an album with the NPG) but I never did. In my dreams, instead, I played with him many times. I don't remember what tracks but each time I woke up for too much adrenaline.

If you could have written one song by another artist, what would it be?

Call Me!

Someone is making a film of your life, who will play you?

Kirsten Dunst...I believe she could perfectly play the role of a child girl, born in the mountains secluded from everything with a marked predisposition for music. Music brings her faraway without the help of anyone, discovering the world bit by bit, changing homes, nations thanks to it and discovering herself.

Lastly, tell us one thing you have never revealed in an interview…

I'm a lesbian. But please don't tell my wife.