Location: KSET / Zagreb / Croatia
Interview date: 08.05.2011
Voivod is a name that makes the ears of every true (metal) connoisseur perk up. And why wouldn’t it? Voivod are one of the most original, one-of-a-kind bands in the music world. They started out in the early eighties, when the only way to discover metal from other corners of the globe was “tape trading.” So while thrash metal was being born in San Francisco, the Canadians in Voivod, “cut off” from big “metal” cities like San Francisco and New York, developed their own brand of thrash, shaped mostly by punk and hardcore, progressive rock and Motörhead. That distance from the big music hubs gave Voivod creative freedom and kept them out of any rigid musical mold, and already on their first record, War and Pain, they proved they were a name with big promise. Over twenty years of career, Voivod have piled up an enviable number of exceptionally good releases and built their own concept of a post-apocalyptic world ruled by technology, which sits at the very core of Voivod. The heart of the band’s bold experimentation has been the brilliant guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’ Amour from day one, whose totally unique approach to playing created the unmistakable Voivod sound. Piggy left Voivod’s plains far too early in 2005 after a battle with colon cancer, but after two years of mourning the band came back to life, and Piggy’s spot was worthily filled by his student Dan “Chewy” Mongrain. Anyway, to wrap up my praise for a band that truly deserves it – take a stroll through post-apocalyptic landscapes with Voivod’s drummer and visual concept mastermind, Michel “Away” Langevin. Voivod Lives!
RockLine: Hey Away, first of all thanks for the “out of this world” show. If I’m not mistaken, this is your first European tour in a long time, after you played a few festivals last year. But this tour is pretty short, right?
Away: It’s about five weeks long, which is pretty long by Voivod standards. It’s actually kind of an experiment, because we’ve barely played Europe since 2000, and we wanted to check whether we still have an audience here, and luckily people are still with us! The crowds aren’t huge, but our fans are incredibly devoted. I think it’s absolutely worth coming back to European stages.
RockLine: So after ten years you’re kind of building your presence in Europe from scratch?
Away: Yeah, we built it up before, then we were on a break for a while, then we got back together and the wheel keeps turning. I hope this lineup sticks. We’re already working on a new album, too.
RockLine: You mentioned you’re working on a new record. It’ll be the first one without Piggy’s influence, so what can we expect? I personally look at Voivod with Chewy as Voivod Mk2. Will it be in the style of the new track Kaledios?
Away: Yeah, Kaleidos is definitely a pointer for the songs that will land on the new record. Personally, I’d actually say the current Voivod lineup is more like Mk4 (laughs). The eighties with Blacky, the nineties with Eric, the 2000s with Jason, and now from 2010 with Chewy. So for me it’s the fourth phase of Voivod. But with Voivod it goes like this: whoever was ever a member of Voivod will always be part of the Voivod family. When Eric and I meet up in France or Barcelona, for example, he always joins us on stage.
RockLine: Great, Eric recently played with E-Force here in Ljubljana. I’ve watched a good number of heavy metal documentaries, and I always found it fascinating how the industrial environment of Birmingham shaped the music of Judas Priest and Black Sabbath. In your case, it was the red lake in your town. Can you tell us more about that?
Away: Yeah, that’s true (laughs). One time Piggy, Blacky, Snake and I went on a bike trip around the biggest aluminum plant in North America, which is near the town we come from. We discovered a red lake full of chemical spills from the plant, and that experience undoubtedly left a mark on our music and our visual concept.
RockLine: You were also heavily influenced by punk and by the progressive rock of the sixties and seventies. If I’m not mistaken, you and Piggy found your sound by playing records by Rush, ELP and King Crimson backwards?
Away: Actually, Piggy was the one who showed me that. He’d buy cassettes and flip the little wheels around so he could play them backwards. We listened to King Crimson, Van Der Graf Generator, mostly krautrock and progressive rock. That’s how Piggy discovered new solos, new riffs, and on top of that we were hugely influenced by NWOBHM bands and hardcore bands like Discharge, GBH and Broken Bones. Which I still listen to today.
RockLine: I’ve always found it interesting how many experimentally daring bands come from Canada. You guys, Rush, Devin Townsend… Is the Canadian music scene just like that in general, and why do you think that is? Do you have to be Canadian to make weird music (laughs)?
Away: (laughs) No. When we started out, we weren’t influenced by Bay Area thrash or New York hardcore. It was more of a European influence, since in Quebec it was easiest to get to know obscure progressive rock. We were heavily influenced by Van Der Graf Generator, for example, who are pretty well known in Quebec, but mention them anywhere else and it’s more likely the opposite. People will know Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd, but if you bring up more obscure prog bands, they won’t have heard of them. Americans didn’t have access to European culture, and on the other hand we didn’t have access to the early Bay Area sound. By the time we finally discovered thrash metal, we’d already been hit hard by hardcore from England. All of that combined probably really did let us create something unique. And Motörhead, of course.
RockLine: Motörhead are a huge influence on Voivod.
Away: Motörhead are a huge influence on everybody! (laughs)
RockLine: Since you brought up your early influences and eighties thrash metal, we really have to say that you were at the forefront of that movement, you were pioneers. Still, you stayed in obscurity. Did that ever bother you?
Away: Ugh, yeah, absolutely! A lot of the time it was actually just Piggy and me making up the band. And quite often the band didn’t exist at all. It’s really hard work, and the only reward is the devotion of our fans. Financially it’s definitely a huge bottomless pit. We all wanted Voivod to be available to as many people as possible. But the very nature of the music is that you have to “fall” into Voivod. And once you get hooked on Voivod… (loud chanting of Voivod can be heard from the hall, ed.) See what I mean? (laughs) That’s why we keep going.
RockLine: The most turbulent period for Voivod must have come after Piggy’s death. Did you consider calling it quits back then, burying the band?
Away: Yeah, actually we did. After the release of Katorz and Piggy’s death we took a few years to breathe, we felt we shouldn’t finish the Infini album. We didn’t want to do anything connected to the name Voivod. In 2008, after several years of inactivity, we got back together, played a few festivals, went to Japan. Snake and I went into the studio to finish the tracks for Infini. Jason (Newsted, ed.) had just recovered from surgery, so he couldn’t be part of the reunion, and he told me right away that he wouldn’t be able to play live, but that he’d finish the recordings for the album. In 2009 we went into the studio, and there were actually two Voivod lineups at that point, one on the album and the other the live one. Now we have a live record and we’re working on a new one. But no doubt about it, after Piggy’s death we were really crushed, which is why we took a rest in 2006 and 2007.
RockLine: Infini is the last Voivod release where you can hear Piggy’s guitar parts. And if I’m not mistaken, before he died he almost recorded two solo albums, which you plan to release at some point in the future.
Away: Yeah… Piggy had already played everything, and he’d also prepared a draft of electronic drums, so for me it would be simple to transfer that onto real drums. He also prepared drafts of lyrics and vocals, and recorded guitars and bass too. It would be easy for Snake and me to lock ourselves in the studio and finish the thing, and Blacky could produce the recordings, since he’s an excellent producer. We’re definitely thinking about releasing it at some point in the future, but right now we’re totally focused on recording the new album.
RockLine: You’ve been creating Voivod’s unique visual concept since the very beginning, and you’ve just put out a book.
Away: That’s right. The book is available at voivodbook.com. We made 3,000 copies and we’ve already sold half of them. It’s a proper hardcover book with around 1,000 drawings that were created over many, many years.
RockLine: I’ve always seen your graphic art as a kind of tribute to the movie posters for sci-fi and horror films from the fifties and sixties. Did I hit or miss?
Away: You’re actually close. Mostly I was inspired by the covers of sci-fi books I read as a kid and by Heavy Metal magazine. And the cyberpunk movement, with Blade Runner and the like.
RockLine: Your lyrics mostly draw on sci-fi themes, conspiracy theories and environmental issues, and they’re set in the unique world of the futuristic planet Voivod. How did that concept actually come about?
Away: The main visual inspiration was Heavy Metal magazine, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, where I found the name Voivod, and The Lord of the Rings, which is where the name Morgoth comes from. From there I developed the concept further under the influence of the environment we lived in, and that’s how Korgul, Morgoth and the other characters came about, all wrapped in a post-apocalyptic setting shaped by the Cold War of the Reagan era.
RockLine: When can we expect a new Voivod record, and what does the future hold for Voivod?
Away: We want to write it in the summer, record it in the fall and release it around the same time next year. Right now everything revolves around promoting the live album, and we’ll most likely spend most of the second half of the year writing music.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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