Voivod interview with Denis 'Snake' Belanger:

Voivod against all predictions and despite the large gap the loss of Denis D'Amour creates, they have returned. "Target Earth" which was released a few days ago relodged the unconventionality of the Canadian quartet with its innovative 'thinking' thrash sound. The Rocking.gr spoke with Denis Bélanger (aka Snake) about their new job and how they decided to continue without Piggy, the 30th anniversary of the band, but also about how he feels when they mentioned as a highly influential band for progressive metal.

Congratulations for your new effort. How did you feel when you listened to it for the first time? Did it sound 100% what you wanted to do?
Oh yeah, we spent many hours working on the mixes, fine tuning a little bit here and there, so we listened to the whole thing quite a few times, (laughs). I think we are really proud with the result and it’s something that we create ourselves until the mixes. During the mix we had a wonderful time doing it, was sort of like playing with different sounds here and there. It came out the way we wanted to do it and so after a lot of work, we can say we’re pleased with everything.

How would you describe the sound of "Target Earth"?
It’s kind of raw at some parts. We wanted to capture the live side of our sound, so it’s not a clean sound, it’s more brutal, aggressive at some parts, but there is a different kind of mood in the whole album. There is a part that is more sweet sound wise, but mostly, you know, it’s really kind of up and down. It’s like a sort of roller coaster of sound. It’s a different approach and I think for us it’s a new sound. We used to do like super clean recording ...which was cool, but I think we wanted to go somewhere else this time. Go somewhere that would sound live and I think the approach with "Target Earth" is new and fresh and true. Well, that’s the comment I have (laughs). It was something we wanted to try and it came out good I think.

I believe that the progressive element is quite big in this album too.
Oh yes, totally. We wanted to go back to our roots. A lot of people, a lot of our fans really dig the albums from "Dimension Hatross" and "Nothnigface" era. We wanted to get back to that side we had and I think Chewy did a great job composing for Voivod. For him, it was quite a big task, but he’s been influenced by Voivod all his life and I think he wanted to create something that the fans would love and I believe he succeeded.  

I think that in fact this is the first time without any contribution from Piggy. How you felt when you’re writing the new album and how you worked the songs?
Well, we started up slowly. We’ve been touring quite a lot in the last couple of years since 2008, so with the new line-up we went touring for a long time. That helped us understood each other, so when we were ready we started composing songs but it was kind of a slow process. All this came up naturally. Then we really got into it at some point.  We were quite honest about the music and began to write songs. It’s always like ...you know, one, two, three, four, five, six songs done and then we had a good progression. After that we decided to record it all by ourselves, doing a sort of pre-production before doing anything else. Then we kept working on the pre-production for a pretty quite long time before we were ready to do the whole thing. We went to a studio up north here in Quebec during the winter last year. It’s an isolated place in the woods, you have to have a 4x4 to get there (laughs). So we were only us, no distractions around and we went from the first song to the last one and it went great. We had no distraction, cooking our own food, it was super cool. We were concentrating on doing this album, and it was a great experience, this whole recording process. Then we spent time mixing it, and we have the result now.

When you went into the studio, you had all the songs ready or did you have to develop some ideas while you’ve been there?
Yeah, everything was pretty much ready to record. Of course we tried different things, different approach while was there, like intros and stuff. We wanted to capture new things with the whole vibe of the studio, but most of the songs were written by the time we got there.

How you describe your co-operation with your new producer. He played a major role to the whole process or he was just sitting there pushing the buttons?
Well, mostly we produced ourselves really. Pierre Remillard was there, he helped us on the record but the biggest input was Blacky. I think because he was there all the time, recording and trying to capture the best of everybody. Pierre was there to get everything going and when everything was working well, he was very kind and he was like kind of let us go. He didn’t want to influence us in any way, so it was pretty much a self produced process and that was great. We didn’t have any pressure from anyone, let’s say a label or anything like that, so we were doing it by ourselves, for ourselves and it went really good.

So, the whole deal with Century Media came after you have finished the album?
Yeah, yeah, then Century Media came in. I guess they loved what we had and they wanted to go for it. Actually, they’re doing a great job preparing this release, so we’re really happy.

What are the lyrics are talking about. Science fiction again?
Different things I guess. It depends on the songs really, because there are a lot of subjects. There is a song called "Resistance", it’s an anti-mondial song, there’s one about conspiracy and there’s one like "Target Earth" which is about a hacker paralyzing the communications and stuff like that. And there is one which is talking about more profoundly about war …

Different kind of things...
Yeah, yeah. Mix up of different subjects. Social subjects mix with science fiction.

How did you make the decision to work with Daniel Mongrain?
First of all, after Piggy’s death we took time off just mourning Piggy and we couldn’t see how we’re gonna find anybody that could replace him. We were desperate, but finally we met again with Blacky and Chewy was a friend of his and we knew him. He is a really good guitar player but I didn’t how good he was. So they organized a party. It was like a tribute thing for Piggy with a bunch of guys doing a show. They played a couple of songs of Voivod, and we were stunned. It was like 'Wow!' But, the first time it really passed our minds to get him aboard was after we started hanging out with Blacky a bit more and more. Then we decided to try him just for the fun of it and then he really blew me away. At the rehearsal I was like 'wow'. I had like goosebumps, cause I thought Piggy was at the room. It was really strange. And after that we had this show, the Heavy MTL. At first we just wanted to do one show with Dan and Blacky and then it was such a great success and people loved it so much that we decided to keep going. The phone started to ring everywhere, as everybody thought that we were kind of dead cause Piggy was gone, but the word spread out that we were doing live shows, so all the festivals around the world wanted to have us. Then we had a great tour just after that and the whole thing started up again. It was really strange, but thank God, Chewy was there. It would have been really tough for us to come back.

How was to play again with Blacky after almost 20 years?
Well, it is great. With Blacky we had some differences in the past. I think he’s still the same kid and he’s fooling around all the time. I think sometimes he makes good things, sometimes bad, but that’s who he is. He’s fun. He’s fun to see live, people love what he’s doing live, he get’s crazy. So yeah, I’m glad he’s back.

2012 is your thirtieth anniversary. What you think about it? How it feels to be in a band that has a history of thirty years?
There’s the good side of it and the bad side of it. The good side is like 'yeah, yeah we do this for thirty years'. The bad side is like 'oh my god, thirty years, I’m getting old'. But, I think music keeps you young, somehow. I mean time flies, it’s just the way that it is, but I still love what I do. I consider myself really lucky to be still doing it after all these years, because it is such a tough job. It’s a tough world out there and musicians know that. A lot of people give up after a certain time. It’s a tough world. Anything can happen like in a split second. Anything that you’d been working for years and years can be destroyed just like that. Sometimes you lose a band member; sometimes there’s break-ups. You don’t know what is going to happen, it’s an adventure. So, after doing it for thirty years what I think is that it’s a great feeling to be able to still doing it and all the bands that made it to that point, despite of the distractions, make me a proud of them.

Is there any particular moment all these years that you recall the most?
Oh, yeah there are a few moments, I guess some are the great, great shows we did with Rush. Opening for Rush was great peak. Opening for Motorhead, opening for great bands and big tours like the one with Soundgarden and Faith No More. It’s the Ozzy tour, all those great moments that I never forget. Being on the Ozzfest, it was really great. So many good and bad stuff, but overall it’s an adventure like I was saying. Being able to play with great musicians like David Grohl and Jason Newsted and participating in different projects and stuff like that, it’s a great feeling.

Now that you mentioned Dave Grohl, do you mean the Probot project?
Yeah.

How is Dave Grohl as a guy?
He’s a wonderful great guy (laughs) He’s so funny. He’s got a big smile on his face; he makes you feel like you’ve known him for, since you were young. He’s just a great dude, he makes you feel comfortable and he never really changes. I know him since the early days, when he was in Scream before Nirvana. I remember when he was just picking up the gig of Nirvana. He’s the same guy … never changed, you know. Now he’s maybe “the successful” and everything, and I’m glad he is, but he’s such a good musician, such a wonderful person. He deserves it.

Now, we mentioned the thirtieth anniversary, are you seeing in the future to celebrate the fortieth anniversary?
(Laugh) We did a start by this, getting our staff, ready to go on tour again this year, I’m pretty sure we’re gonna have a busy year this year, so we see if all the thing goes great and nobody gets hurt we might be able to do it for another ten years.

So, you are willing to do it, you are willing to write new stuff and give to the fans new Voivod albums?
Oh yeah, we’re so doing it. And right now we might start thinking about creating new songs already, so...

My next question is kind of tough and I know that you have answered it too many times but when Piggy died did you ever think to split permanently after the release of "Infini" and if so, what was the thing that made you decide to keep going with Voivod?
Well of course ...at certain point, we didn’t know what to do, we were just mourning forever and I think the fact that changed this, was Blacky and Chewy showing up in our lives, After that we had a possibility to keep going and only that for us was great. I think just to honor Piggy we had to keep going and it’s something that motivated us at some parts. It’s like that “we’re doing it for ourselves but we’re also doing it and for you Piggy, you couldn’t make it, but we’ll do it for you”. That’s how it my thinking is sometimes. It motivates me to keep going, that’s how it goes.

I’ve been reading a book lately that’s called "Mean Deviation" and it’s all about progressive rock and metal music. In the writer’s opinion you have played a huge role in the progressive metal scene. What do you think about it?
Well, back in the days we were prog in a certain way and I think we opened the door for many people. If there’s a good band that got influenced by us, it’s a good feeling to be noted, because of what you did in the past. Sometimes there is an evolution and the music industry kind of took what you had somehow. We’ve been influenced by different bands and I think it’s the normal thing that other bands got influenced by different albums that we did. Basically, we’ re trying not to copy ourselves, trying to do something different each time, so there was a progression in each record we were doing. Not only on the record. We had this progression in between records and one after another there was a change movement. Actually, I think it’s cool to somehow be a part of that music out there.

So, how it is to live in a country such as Canada?
Well, it’s cool. Montreal is a great city, it’s really an open minded city, with really diversified cultural life and now it’s winter and we’re gonna have snow soon (laughs)

Ok Denis, thank you for your time.
Thank you my friend, we promise to come back to Greece soon.