JV to launch album this month

Jacques Villeneuve is delighted to announce that his debut album, ‘Private Paradise’ will be released on 19 February 2007 in Montreal. The acoustic-rock offering, the first single of which was released in Canada to coincide with the Montreal Grand Prix last year, features 13 tracks - nine in English and four in French. Six of the tracks are penned by Jacques himself, six by friends and the album also features one cover.

”The album came from loving music to start with and you can’t get into music or making an album if you don’t love music. I bought a guitar in ‘96 when I started racing in Formula One, and started writing some songs. Finally last year I decided to rent a studio and to record them properly and professionally to see how the y would sound and then of course the goal was to release it. The only way you can do something properly and get the right people involved is if it is ultimately going to be released.”

Jacques sings lead vocals throughout the album, and there are special appearances by his sisters Melanie and Jessica, as well as Canadian singers Ely and Amélie Veille. Jacques is currently working on the distribution avenues for the album, details of which will be available at the launch, however it will be available internationally.

Villeneuve goes on to say: “I am stupidly passionate about music, it has become a bit of drug. I buy tons of CD’s - and some of them are not that good, I spend days listening to each and every one of them, putting notes on every song to know which songs are good and which songs are bad so that when you do your little MP3 collection you know which songs to put on and so on. It makes my wife crazy, but you know it’s cheaper than buying watches or stuff like that! It’s not a passing interest, you either love music or you don’t, and if you do then it remains.

”My career has been racing and I don’t plan on music being a career, so the plan is to keep it as a professional hobby! If I can reimburse my investment into recording the album then that would be good enough. Of course, the more sales, the happier I will be. The more you put your soul, time and effort into a project, the more you want it to be kind of successful.”