David Hallyday

French-Monegasque singer David Hallyday (David Michael Benjamin Smet in his civil status) was born in Boulogne-Billancourt on August 14, 1966, a year after the high-profile wedding of his parents, Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan. He grew up between France and the United States, where he took an early interest in music, learning drums, piano and guitar on his own. At 13, he made his stage debut alongside his father at the Pavillon de Paris. After his parents' divorce in 1980, David moved to Los Angeles with his mother. He formed a high school band, the Weekenders, and began his musical career in California, composing songs for the film Lady Beware. In 1986, he won the lead role in the comedy He's My Girl and reached the top 30 of the US charts with the film's single. The multi-instrumentalist and composer continued to make inroads into English-language and then French-language rock, building up his own following. His first album, True Cool, was a big hit in France in 1988. After the FM rock of his early days, marked by the hit single "High", which remained No. 1 in the charts for five weeks, followed by the albums Rock'n'Heart in 1990 and 2000 BBF in 1994, including the track "Natural Child", which reached No. 5 in the UK charts, Novacaïne followed in 1997 with a pop rock album. In 1999, he returned with an album in French, which proved a big hit in France, thanks in particular to the impact of the single "Tu ne m'as pas laissé le temps" . The same year, he wrote and produced the album Sang pour Sang for his father. Their duet on the title track, thanks to the emotion it exudes, takes the number-one spot in the French and Belgian charts. 2010 saw the release of his tenth album, Un Nouveau Monde, featuring the track "On se fait peur", sung as a duet with his half-sister, actress Laura Smet. 2014 sees him record as a group under the name Mission Control. The singer returned under his own name in 2016 for the album Le Temps d'Une Vie. In 2018, a year after the death of his father, he bears witness to this absence in J'ai Quelque Chose à Vous Dire. David Hallyday continues his tribute to his father's work with the album Requiem pour un Fou . It includes covers of Johnny Hallyday songs and new versions of his own hits.