Jean Michel Jarre 50 Years of Music

Jean-Michel Jarre, musician, composer

I played in stone bands as a teenager and would utilize a record car my gramps gave me to get processed sounds out of my guitar. During the French student uprisings of 1968, this felt like a way of being rebellious. I loved it when people said: "What is this crap?" But past the mid-70s, I wanted to span the gap between experimental music and pop.

I had done production work for some stone artists, earning plenty to ready a studio in my kitchen. I didn't have much equipment, though, but a few guitar pedals and my first synthesiser, an European monetary system VCS3, which looked similar a telephone exchange. I realised that using a Revox tape machine to delay the sound that came out of one loudspeaker created a huge sense of space.

With then little to work with, I had to be creative. My erstwhile Mellotron had only a few working keys, but I still managed to write Oxygène (Office II) on it. My primitive pulsate motorcar – a Korg Mini Pops – was the sort of thing people played in pubs, but by using Sellotape I could brand it play two preset rhythms at the same fourth dimension, creating cool beats. Part IV, which became iconic, was a mixture of "slow rock" and "rock" , while Function Six combined "rumba" and "bossa nova".

'That's the album cover!' … Michel Granger's Oxygène cover. — 'That'southward the album embrace!' … Michel Granger's Oxygène cover. Photo: Alamy

Nobody knew nearly synthesisers back and then. When I first heard Kraftwerk's Autobahn, I thought they were a Californian band trying to imitate the Beach Boys. But I still saw Autobahn as a pop song with vocals – and I was into electronic music with no singing. Somehow, I wanted to link it all with nature and environmental issues. Then in an art gallery one day, I saw a painting of the Earth peeling away to reveal a skull and thought: "That'south the album comprehend!"

Oxygène was initially rejected past record company after record company. They all said: "Y'all accept no singles, no drummer, no singer, the tracks concluding ten minutes and it's French!" Fifty-fifty my mother said: "Why did y'all proper noun your album afterwards a gas and put a skull on the cover?"

Luckily, Francis Dreyfus – a sort of French Richard Branson – saw the potential and put out an initial 50,000 copies. At first, people took it back to the shops considering they thought the white racket was a mistake in the manufacturing procedure. But the biggest radio stations in French republic and Britain started playing the whole album, then the BBC used it in a documentary.

It's at present sold something like 15m copies and, no matter what I exercise, I am defined by Oxygène. It's the same for Charlotte Rampling, the mother of my kids. The Nighttime Porter is tattooed on her skin like Oxygène is on mine. But that'southward OK. It'due south funny. At first, the album was played in hi-fi shops as an example of "state-of-the-fine art sound". I didn't tell them I made it in my kitchen.

Michel Granger, sleeve artist

'It was quite a violent image' … Michel Granger. Photograph: Alamy

It was 1976 and I was having my showtime major show in Paris. On brandish was a 30x40cm watercolour called Oxygène and Jean-Michel bought it, telling me he'd love to use information technology as an album comprehend. Oxygène was part of a serial nigh the damage existence done to our planet. It was quite a violent image for a record sleeve.

The merely alter I fabricated was to the background, making it square to fit the album shape. Jean-Michel and I chose the typography and that was that. We were both 30 and he was very passionate about music and painting. We would have long conversations in the evenings, always at the same pizzeria, and then he went habitation to compose all dark.

I first heard the tape at home, after Jean-Michel sent me the finished work. So a few days later on, I was in a taxi in Morocco and Oxygène came on the radio. I knew and then that it would exist very successful. I was thrilled. I felt like an accomplice.

That pic is the all-time known of all my work. It'due south my Mona Lisa. Merely I don't feel similar information technology belongs to me any more. It belongs to anyone who loves the music of Jean-Michel Jarre.

The Planet Jarre: fifty Years of Music box set is out now on Sony. Jean-Michel Jarre's new album, Equinoxe Infinity, is released on sixteen November.