The Lost Interview: VOIVOD

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I conducted the following interview with Voivod’s Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain for the ill-fated Backlit zine back in 2013. I recently discovered that I still have access to the old Google drive for the zine and given that I was incredibly honored to interview one the greatest bands in the multiverse, it seemed like a damn shame to leave it to rot down in the vaults. Below is the interview exactly as it originally appeared in Backlit #1.

If there is one band that epitomizes what Backlit is all about, it is surely Voivod.  The forward-thinking Quebecois quartet has been on the cutting edge of heavy music since day one, cranking out post-apocalyptic, punk-tinged thrash metal that often sounded like it was being beamed in directly from the far future.  Unfortunately, Voivod’s future came to an abrupt, heart-breaking halt when guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour passed away due to cancer in 2005, but in a show of great bravery and resolve, the band decided to carry on, bringing veteran six-stringer Daniel Mongrain (Martyr, ex-Gorguts, ex-Capharnaum) into the fold.  It isn’t every day that a musician gets to join his favorite band, but that’s exactly what happened when Mongrain was invited to play with Voivod; his enthusiasm and passion are downright infectious.  I caught up with the guitarist via e-mail to grill him about Voivod’s scorching new album Target Earth, and what it’s like to write, record and tour with your boyhood heroes.

JH: First, tell us a little about how you came to join Voivod after Piggy’s passing.  Were you at all nervous to be joining such a legendary band?  Was it a difficult decision to join, given the circumstances?

Daniel Mongrain: Well, I met Blacky in 2002, we became good friends. I ran into Snake and Away a couple times. Went to Piggy’s memorial…In 2006, my band Martyr (Canada) covered “Brainscan” (from 1988’s Dimension Hatross) on Feeding the Abscess (2006). Then at some point in 2007, Blacky and I ended up playing a medley of Voivod for the 25^th anniversary of metal in Montreal as a tribute to Piggy. His family was there, as well as Snake and Away. Later, I wrote to Away and told him that if at some point they would do something special with the Voivod entity, in any context, I would be very honored–as a fan–to play even a note or a song with them. Because I was a fan since I was 11-12 years old, I knew the repertoire…Couple of months later; I got a call from him asking me to join Voivod onstage for the biggest metal festival in Montreal (Heavy Mtl) featuring Iron Maiden and Motley Crue. It was supposed to be just that one show…Then we opened for Ozzy in Calgary and we went to Japan with Testament and Forbidden…It’s been 5 years now, and a new album 

is about to be released…

I remember I didn’t know what to say over the phone…I felt very honored for being asked that task, very excited to play with my favorite band…I was speechless…I also recall, at the first rehearsal…I was pretty nervous, but pretty confident– I did my homework, you know. Then after the first song…Snake was all smiles and gave me a big hug…They made me feel very comfortable right away.

JH: Did you feel any pressure stepping into the role of guitarist for Voivod, given Piggy’s iconic status as a player and musical innovator?

DM: At first I was a little stressed, but I saw it as a challenge– I mean, I don’t see myself as stepping in anybody’s role, I can’t replace Piggy. He is unique as a person, musician, composer– all I can do is do my best to honor his music and put all of my energy into working with the band to create new stuff all together as a team. I’ve been a fan of this band since before I even played the guitar…Those guys were my first music teachers, so to speak…

Of course at first I was a little nervous, then everything fell into place naturally– nothing was forced, and I felt pretty confident that I could do the job right.

JH: Voivod is a very influential band, can you talk a little about the influence they had on you as a musician and a fan, prior to joining?

DM: For me, they established some rules– one is, you have to be unique and find your own way.  You have to be authentic. Doesn’t matter where you’re from, you can make it happen. Doesn’t matter what people say about you, just do what you believe in. Musically, Voivod is my school of composition– I mean, I learned a lot from all the records, I’ve studied it meticulously, all the details.

They made me curious about music. I owe them my Bachelor Degree in Jazz Music because if it weren’t for them, I probably would never have gone to a university to study music or form a band at all…For me, they were the trigger for many important decisions in my life.

JH: What goals did you have for joining Voivod?  What did you hope to get out of it and were there specific things you wanted to bring to the table that the band hadn’t had before?

DM: Never thought about that. I hope we can do this for years. As long as the guys are in for it, I’ll be there! I don’t have control on what’s next…I just let things go. 

JH: You’re well known for your work in Martyr and with Gorguts.  How do your previous experiences help shape what you’re doing now with Voivod?

DM: The question should be: “How did Voivod help you shape what you did with your previous bands?” Of course I’m an experienced musician, I played in over 70 different bands in all kinds of music in various contexts. I played in a musical, I played in blues, reggae, hip-hop, jazz, rock, tribute, cover bands, etc…In any kind of venue you can imagine. That helped a lot to be a better musician and a better human being. With that background, I was confident enough and mature enough as a musician and a person to be a part of Voivod. But I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.

JH: Let’s talk a little about the new album, Target Earth.  What was it like writing and recording as a member of Voivod, compared to your experiences with other bands?

DM: Different persons, different dynamic, different band, different aesthetic. We didn’t write right away, we toured for 4 years before writing anything, so we knew each other a lot better– personally and musically. Then we improvised together, recorded it and some of the jams became embryos of songs. Then Blacky and I came up with ideas and riffs, we would trade files and record over each other’s ideas. We would sometimes write together and record a demo right away, or work alone and bring ideas to the jam space. Then Away and Snake would put their input and ideas in it, and we would arrange the songs and riffs together.

It came out very naturally and it was great teamwork! Everybody was involved a lot in the composition. I was very happy to experience that journey of creativity!

JH: Were there any specific challenges that arose during the creation of the new album and if so how did you overcome them?

DM: Doing it was a challenge in itself, in a good way. We were all very motivated and thrilled about it. We never really struggled with anything, some songs were written close to the deadline of entering the studio, lyrics also but…That’s pretty usual stuff.

JH: Is there a particular song or moment on Target Earth that stands out as your favorite and if so, what can you tell us about it?

DM: Hmm…That’s really hard to say…My fave one changes all the time…I really like “Mechanical Mind” because it’s very intricate and progressive. I like “Warchaic” for its dynamics and melodies. I love to play “Kluskap O’ Kom” live, I really like them all…We’re very proud of it!

JH: What are some of the themes being explored on Target Earth, musically and conceptually?  How do they relate to previous Voivod albums, if at all?

DM: Well, it has this post-apocalyptic vibe, fear of hi-tech weaponry, insanity, pollution, people manifesting in the streets, conspiracy theory– a lot of topics seemed reminiscent of the early career of the band, but it’s quite actual right now! There is also a song about the first nations, inspired by the Mi’kmaqs in Canada. “Target Earth,” well, the earth could be a target for some aliens up there, but I guess we don’t need them to destroy our world because we’re pretty good at it ourselves! So “target” could also mean that Earth is our target to care for.

JH: Voivod has always been seen as a very forward-thinking or even “futuristic” band.  What do you think it is about the band that makes it unique?

DM: The people in it. Every member’s imagination put together as a whole. The uniqueness of that energy makes a band unique.

JH: How has your perspective on what Voivod is changed, going from being a fan of the band to a full-fledged member?

DM: It didn’t really change. I was afraid it would change, but I get the same magical feeling now when I listen to a record or I play a song as when I was a kid…It’s even stronger now. I mean, a band is always greater than the individuals in it. At some point it belongs to space-time universe. It is in orbit. 

JH: Will you be touring extensively in support of Target Earth?  Do you enjoy playing live and touring?  How does playing live with Voivod differ from your previous bands?

DM: We are definitely gonna tour everywhere we can! Can’t wait to go on the road again. We love meeting the fans, traveling, seeing new places, and going back to places we’ve been, meeting up with friends we made. Playing live is one of the greatest feelings, there’s nothing you can compare with that kind of feeling. I’m addicted to that. Playing music is my passion, playing with Voivod makes me feel like a kid in a candy store.

JH: Are there any final thoughts you’d like to add?

DM: Life is good!

THKD’s Top 100 Metal Albums #17: Rollins Band – Weight (Imago Records, 1994)

In 1994 I was a freshman in high school.  A good boy who followed the rules, got decent grades and showed up to work on time… on the outside.  On the inside I was a fucking maniac, an animal caged inside a pressure-cooker that wanted to kill, fuck or destroy everything in sight.  A ball of hormones and confusion, tightly wrapped in a nice little Catholic school attending, grocery bagging for $4.65 an hour package.  I couldn’t wear my black jeans and Metallica shirt to Catholic school, I didn’t have the strength or the self-confidence to stand up to the privileged, pampered, future white collar scumbags of America that ran the place and I definitely didn’t have the courage to be anything more than friends with the ladies.

Madball – For the Cause (Nuclear Blast, 2018)

I recently had the opportunity to check out The Godfathers of Hardcore, a documentary about NYHC legends Agnostic Front focusing on the lives of vocalist Roger Miret and guitarist Vinnie Stigma.  Of course, you can’t talk about Agnostic Front without also talking about Madball, the band fronted by Miret’s younger half-brother Freddie Cricien, which began back in 1988 with a then twelve-year-old Cricien being backed by the members of Agnostic Front.

Listen to: WHAMMER

In an effort to look beyond the digital promo pile, I recently put out a call on social media for any bands or labels that were interested in coverage to get in touch.  I mostly heard crickets, but I was also lucky enough to hear from Whammer, a new “blackened crust grind” band from Colorado, who sound lean, mean and pissed the fuck off on the demo tracks they graciously sent me to check out.

Birdflesh – Night of the Ultimate Mosh (Everlasting Spew Records, reissue 2018)

When I was in college, there were a few instances where I was beyond dirt poor.  Back then, people actually still gave a shit about CDs, so painful as it was, I’d sell off chunks of my music collection so that I could like, pay my bills and eat ‘n’ shit.  One of the CDs I sold was an original pressing of Birdflesh’s Night of the Ultimate Mosh on Razorback Recordings.

That was really stupid of me.

20 years of the Misfits’ American Psycho

For the most part, everyone already knows the scoop on American Psycho; after years of bitter legal disputes with Glenn Danzig, bassist Jerry Only was finally given the rights to record and perform under the Misfits name.  Recruiting new drummer Dr. Chud and vocalist Michale Graves along with longtime guitarist/Only’s brother Doyle, the resurrected Misfits signed with Geffen records and released their first album in nearly a decade-and-a-half.  End of history lesson.

25 years of L7’s Bricks are Heavy

L7’s Bricks are Heavy came out twenty-five years  ago today in 1992, the same year that I became a teenager. Needless to say, when I first heard the Los Angeles based quartet they were a goddamn revelation; my Midwest-living, Catholic school-attending ignorant ass didn’t even realize that women who liked heavy music existed, let alone women who played heavy music.

Kriegszittern ist krieg

Kriegszittern are a German duo committed to vomiting up short, sharp shocks of punky, war-obsessed death metal.  Their debut demo was recently committed to tape by the ever-reliable and increasingly prolific Caligari Records, and it’s certainly a must-listen for fans of the genre at its ugliest and most primitive.

White Spot – Everything Changes, Nothing Disappears (self-released, 2015)

Those of you that read IG on the regular or follow me on social media know that I’m always up for some good noise rock.  As such, White Spot’s Father Songs proved to be one of 2015’s most pleasant surprises so far, a noise rock album that showcased mainman/madman Marcus Lemoine’s knack for concise yet devastating songwriting and an attention to craftsmanship not often seen within the genre.

Melt-Banana’s joyful noise.

It’s been a few weeks since I saw Melt-Banana at Harlow’s, and for some reason I just can’t get their set out of my mind.  Part of this is no doubt due to the fact that I actually got to see Melt-Banana; sure, they’ve toured the states many times, but keep in mind that I was living in the middle of Iowa up until a year ago, not exactly a hotbed for extreme and/or experimental music.  Since we’ve moved to Sacramento, I’ve already had the pleasure of seeing a handful of bands I never imagined I’d get the opportunity to see without traveling great distances (Sargeist and Ufomammut immediately spring to mind), and the Japanese duo are probably number one on the “holy shit, I can’t believe they’re actually playing where I live” list so far.

Devilspit – Grim, Hateful and Drunk (Caligari Records, 2015)

With an album title like Grim, Hateful and Drunk, it’s pretty easy to guess what you’re getting from France’s Devilspit.  Filthy, punk-influenced black metal is the name of the game here, so if you’re into similarly scuzzy shit such as Whipstriker and DeathCult, you best grab a bottle or twelve of your favorite rotgut and cuddle up with this disgusting tape, which is currently being peddled in a limited edition of two hundred by our pals at the venerable Caligari Records.

-(16)- / Brainoil / Kowloon Walled City / Church @ Starlite Lounge, Sacramento, CA 04/25/16

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Sacramento in the ten months I’ve lived here, it’s that this city loves its doom and sludge.  I’m sure as hell not complaining, especially when we get shows of this caliber; long-running LA sludge godfathers -(16)- descending upon the Starlite Lounge along with Oakland sludge/punk legends Brainoil, SF noise rockers Kowloon Walled City and hometown doom-lords-in-the-making Church was indeed a dream show for fans of all things slow ‘n’ low.

Bretwaldas of Heathen of Doom – Seven Bloodied Ramparts (Caligari Records, 2015)

It’s been a few months since we last heard from the increasingly prolific Caligari Records, but fear not, because the label has recently released yet another slew of great tapes, the greatest of which just might be Seven Bloodied Ramparts, a reissue of the third album from obscure UK metallers Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom. Originally seeing an extremely limited physical release back in 2010, Seven Bloodied Ramparts might be a bit of an oldie at this point, but make no mistake, this is an album that deserves to be heard well beyond the handful of diehards that picked up on it the first time around.

Napalm Death – Apex Predator – Easy Meat (Century Media, 2015)

How good is the new Napalm Death death album?  Against all odds, this band continues to age like a fine wine, and Apex Predator – Easy Meat continues the unfuckwithable fifteen-years-and-counting roll they’ve been on since 2000’s Enemy of the Music Business.  I pretty much said everything I have to say about the band’s late-career renaissance in my review of 2012’s Utilitarian, but it’d be downright shameful if I neglected to spill at least a little bit of digital ink on the stunning piece of work they’ve unleashed in 2015.

White Spot – Father Songs. (self-released, 2015)

I’ve been listening to various forms of heavy music for a long time, and as the years go on, my attention span gets shorter and shorter, especially when it comes to choosing bands to write about.  Basically, if your band can’t pique my interest within the first thirty seconds of the first song (excluding intros), consider yourselves SOL.  This has made it increasingly difficult to discover new acts to cover, as it seems that much of the scene is currently plagued by a complete and total lack of ability to self-edit.

Human Bodies – No Life (Caligari Records, 2014)

Caligari Records has only been active since 2013, but in that time the label has released an ungodly slew of excellent metal with no allegiance to any particular subgenre.  Indeed, the only thread that seems to tie Caligari’s releases together is an ear for quality, and that quality continues to run over the cassette label competition, this time in the form of No Life, the second demo (first EP?) from Boston black metal bruisers Human Bodies.

Samhain @ The Warfield, San Francisco, CA 09/20/14

 

Longtime THKD readers will recall that late last year I finally got to see Danzig live after being a fan of the man and his music for twenty years.  Considering the fact that the set included a slew of Danzig classics + a mini-set of Misfits songs featuring Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein on guitar, I was convinced that I could pretty much die happy.

Dropdead / Full of Hell / Noisem / Plague Widow / RAD @ Midtown Barfly, Sacramento, CA 08/24/14

My second show in Sacramento was in some ways a throwback to my younger years in Des Moines; I used to walk down to Hairy Mary’s by myself to see shows because my sorry ass didn’t have a car and to make matters worse I didn’t know anyone else who gave a shit about the underground.  Not being much of a grindcore fan, my wife decided to sit out Sunday’s matinee at the Midtown Barfly, and as a result I found myself flying solo once again, which is always a delightfully awkward experience given that I’m not exactly the most outgoing person out there.  Also, many of those shows I hoofed it to back in the day were heavy on grindcore bands such as Black Market Fetus, Strong Intention, Catheter, Entrails Massacre and Phobia, to name but a few, so I was excited to experience a show in a similar vein in my new city.  A complete and utter lack of social skills doesn’t matter much when you’re being pummeled at a million miles an hour by some of the most vicious and unrelenting music out there.

Street Sects – Broken Windows, Sunken Ceilings (self-released, 2014)

2014 will be remembered as the year that actually got me excited about extreme music again.  I haven’t exactly been bored, but it seems like this year I’m finding so many exciting young bands that are doing something truly interesting within the genre paradigm.  One such band is Austin’s Street Sects, who are releasing the second part of their “serial album” in the form of Broken Windows, Sunken Ceilings.  The duo creates what can best be described as electronic hardcore; violent, jarring and noisy as hell, like a factory full of automated machinery going haywire and collapsing on itself, the machines still trying desperately to function however imperfectly amidst the burning wreckage.

Eyehategod – s/t (Housecore Records, 2014)

Hard to believe it’s been fourteen years since Eyehategod’s last full length, Confederacy of Ruined Lives.  That album was my first Eyehategod experience; I admittedly came late to the band (keep in mind I was twelve when In the Name of Suffering came out), but it was a true case of love at first listen.  Sure, I was well-versed in metal by the time I picked up the album at my local Best Buy, but I had never heard anything quite like their ultra-corrosive Black Flag meets Black Sabbath in a dark alley blues, and I couldn’t wait for my next fix.