Born in Paris, having lived in London, Los Angeles, and currently Madrid, Marc Antoine is a true citizen of the world, his music reflecting the influences of his travels in his melodic guitar playing. Marc recently teamed up with fellow guitar player Paul Brown to write and record the CD, Foreign Exchange, which is being compared to the classic 1987 collaboration between George Benson and Earl Klugh. Marc recently answered our questions about the new CD from his home in Madrid.

SmoothViews (SV): You and Paul Brown have collaborated on songs together in the past, but how did it come about that you two decided to make an entire album together?
Marc Antoine (MA): Paul called me to do some gigs together as a package thing, a lot of artists are doing this these days, so we played together on stage for a while and then he invited me to play on his new record and then we realized that we had a sound together, a kind of Benson/Klug type of thing. So we decided to do an entire project together, and there it is, Foreign Exchange.

SV: You’re known for your melodic tunes, while Paul is known more for his funk sound, yet the two are fused perfectly on this CD. Would you describe yours and Paul’s co-writing process?
MA: Well, first of all, the smooth jazz world knows me for my melodic work but I actually do a lot of stuff back home in Spain, I also produce, write songs and music for a lot of different things, I work in my studio alone now and I have learned a great deal, so we both approached the project as guitar players, song writers and also producers, but the most important thing is that Paul and I were on the same page from beginning to the end of the project. It was so easy to work with Paul, I also learned a lot of stuff from him and the “hang” was a blast.

SV: I know that some international artists collaborate by emailing MP3’s back and forth to each other. Did you and Paul record in person together, or were you each in your respective countries and working together online, or a combination? How did that go?
MA: We did both, thanks to technology, but I have to say there is nothing like playing together.

SV: We’re also interviewing Paul Brown for this month’s edition of SmoothViews. Do you have any good tour stories about him that you’d like to share?
MA: Oh, yes, I have a lot of good stories about Paul but I can’t tell you, in case some kids are reading these lines.

SV: You’re French, but you live in Madrid. How do the French and Spanish cultures influence your music?

MA: I think the French culture influenced my melodic ways and the Spanish  flamenco and world music, but I am a citizen of the world and I look at music the same way, as a global thing, so a mix of a lot of cultures and styles  but in a way they are all related. I love to research the origins of things.

SV: For our readers who are just discovering you and not familiar with your background, would you tell us when and why you first started playing guitar, and why you chose smooth jazz as your genre?
MA: I saw a friend of mine play the guitar when I was about 11 years old, he let me tried and I couldn’t let go and here I am today. I was chosen by smooth jazz, I didn’t even know what it was back then and you know, it wasn’t called smooth jazz at the time. Yes it was a long time ago…

SV: What’s next on the agenda for you career-wise?
MA:  Good question. It is difficult to answer this one, things are changing so much and so fast nowadays that nobody really knows what is happening (including record companies, managers, promoters, etc.), technology has helped as much as it hurt the music business, people want music for free, organization and radios don’t want to pay any more royalties to the artists and soon composers, we have our backs against the wall, everybody is telling you what to do and how to do it but nobody has an answer. So I try to forget about this tough reality and make some music and try to become a better musician every day, so that’s my agenda for now and also explore some new avenues in music and business. I would also like to teach production in general, there are a lot of kids out there who could benefit from this.

Thanks. And long live music…I hope!