Full english Transcript of the Episode with WD-40: 30th Anniversary Special : Hors Série!
Please note : This is an English translation of an automated (yet perfected) AI transcript. It is provided for informational purposes only. While we did our best to capture the vibe, automated tools can sometimes twist spoken words—especially with our local Quebec slang! For official or accurate reference, please consult the original audio episode.
Hugo Lachance: Hello everyone! Welcome to L’album podcast. Welcome, actually, to the first episode of the special series dedicated to WD-40 for their 30th anniversary. We are going to focus on the band's entire discography. We’ll go album by album, song by song, in order. The goal is to go through this discography with Alex and Étienne. The aim is to improvise discussions to put everything into context and see the work behind the albums; that’s what we’re interested in.
Before we start, my name is Hugo Lachance. I take care of managing and hosting this podcast. I’m not a professional host, this is the first time I’ve done a podcast, so I’m a little nervous. I know you’ll be lenient. I allow myself to do this podcast because I believe that, in the Quebec underground scene, this journey is worth highlighting.
For this first episode, we’re going to focus on the mini-album, the EP called Hors-Série!, released in 1996. Since it’s a shorter album, we’ll be able to focus on its backstory. Before I introduce my guests, I invite you to listen to the episode on your favorite podcast platforms as well as on our YouTube channel. All the links are in the description.
You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching "L’Album Podcast". Leave comments, it’s super important if you enjoy it, and fill it up with stars on Apple Podcast, for example. Go like it, you know the drill.
I can now properly introduce my guests. I am joined by Alex Jones and Étienne Carrier. Hello respectively to the bassist and to the singer, lyricist, and guitarist of the band WD-40. Welcome guys to the podcast! We’ll start with the first segment: the artist profile. To help us tell the band's story, I took some excerpts from your Wikipedia page.
Hugo Lachance: Alex Jones and his brother Étienne Carrier arrived in Montreal from Chicoutimi, their hometown. Étienne arrived in 1992, but Alex, when did you get here?
Alex Jones: I got here in '94.
Hugo Lachance: OK. Once in Montreal, Alex founded the bands 84-78 and Raymond Sauvage which, in your own words, and I quote, "both flopped". How did you manage to turn a winning formula into a flop?
Alex Jones: Listen, yeah, I left to start 84-78, that was a different story, but as for the rest, things actually went pretty well afterwards.
Hugo Lachance: WD-40 is formed in 1993 with Alex Jones on bass, Hugo Potvin on vocals, the late Bertrand Boisvert on guitar. Where does the name WD-40 come from?
Alex Jones: It’s because it’s a paradoxical lubricant that happens to be both a lubricant and an abrasive at the same time. It’s wonderful in terms of product paradox. And since my dad worked at Canadian Tire, I ran into cans a lot and I always thought the can looked really nice in terms of the logo. I found out later that it meant "Water Displacement, 40th formula," the 40th water displacement recipe.
Hugo Lachance: So it’s supposed to remove water?
Alex Jones: It’s to displace water molecules. Originally, it was for something that would remove moisture from parts so they wouldn't rust. The analogy is good for the band anyway.
Hugo Lachance: Another excerpt from Wikipedia: Étienne Carrier joins his brother and the band releases its first independent demo, Le calvaire d’un cow-boy, in 1994, followed by Né pour être sauvage in 1995. Both were in cassette format. Cassettes are really trendy right now, they’re making a comeback!
Étienne Carrier: True. In fact, it was Sébastien Pesot, from the band General Fool, who played drums. He’s the one who did the first demo.
Hugo Lachance: So it was General Fool's drummer, Sébastien Pesot, aka "Petit Chaud," who played drums on Le calvaire d’un cow-boy.
Alex Jones: We folded all the jackets, we did all that ourselves. At night, I’d leave with stacks of cardboard sheets that I cut and folded with a ruler wherever there was a crease. I did that for the first demo too, photocopying and folding.
Hugo Lachance: Right, Julien Livernois joins on drums and you release Hors-Série!, a first EP in 1996, following a recording session won at the 1996 Polliwog festival. In October '97, the split Soudain... Les monstres!!! with WD-40 is released. What was that project about?
Étienne Carrier: It was like a pre-production to create an album. It was working pre-production.
Alex Jones: I don't know how we managed to split that into three, because there were only two sides. I remember I really liked the artwork. It was Xavier, I think, who managed to get funding from a Jeunes Volontaires project in Chicoutimi. He had been encouraged by Bishop Couture. For real, he got money to do that. I don't know how they reacted when they saw the cassette!
Hugo Lachance: We’ll move on to the album presentation segment, where we put it into context. We’re around '95-'96. The title is Hors-Série!. Where are we right now, Alex?
Alex Jones: We’re at my place in Saint-Hubert, a beautiful spot for those who have the visuals, with my whole warehouse and a lot of crap because I work in film now as an art director.
Hugo Lachance: Were there two editions for this album?
Alex Jones: At the time, we were in production with Stéphane Toupin, from Productions Criz’antenne. It's possible we were part of it. I think it’s a bit of a favor. It’s just that we had sold so many cassettes of our demos, that’s where I met Eric "Dexter". I like the name, it always fits well in a conversation. He thought we had sold so many demos that he wanted us to move up to the next class, that's-to-say the CD. Back then, it was cool to make CDs.
What happened was we finished second at Polliwog, but we had to print 1,000 jackets when we only had 350 albums. I remember because we had no choice for the jacket printing. We had 750 jackets left without discs. Eric was starting his new distribution company, Aux Ondes, and he told us we went halves on it.
I don't know how I did it because 750 doesn't divide by two. He told me: "You take care of your share and I’ll distribute the rest". We did that for Hors-Série! and Crampe en masse. They were the best contracts of my life. We reprinted Hors-Série! for several editions later on.
Hugo Lachance: The production is by Marc-Henri Thibert?
Alex Jones: He was the guitarist for a sister band. Very nice, a really good guy. We recorded that at Studio Piccolo.
Hugo Lachance: What was the writing context for this album? How did it come together?
Étienne Carrier: It’s the genesis of WD-40. We did nothing else. We worked, and having a jam space back then cost nothing. We had several and we practiced once or twice a week. We were very prolific. We lived only for that: making music, playing, recording. It was truly the youth spirit. We were 21-22 years old.
Hugo Lachance: It’s kind of the sum of your demos?
Étienne Carrier: Exactly, that’s often the case for a first album. For the song writing, it was pretty basic. Alex wrote the lyrics, he’d come in with a musical skeleton and I’d build on top of it. It’s always been like that.
I look at myself a bit like Harrison Ford, who used to be a carpenter. There’s a parallel to be made. I’m a kind of musical frame builder. I do the framing, I really like skeletons. The problem is that over the years, it’s always the same framing, but that’s another story. Basically, that was it. I wanted to go for simplicity, say as much as possible with as few words as possible. It's simple, raw poetry. I was good at it.
Alex Jones: I brought the compositions at first, but for the lyrics, it was always him. For the music, I had composed Né pour être sauvage entirely, but I mostly did the arrangements.
Hugo Lachance: How did you approach the visuals of the album?
Alex Jones: It was the early days of Photoshop. We had a computer and we did pixelated screenshots. The pixels were as big as I am! In the end, it wasn’t that bad. There was even a line on the first demo: "Six smash hit souvenirs".
It reminded me of the movies I watched on Radio-Canada when I was a kid, movies that came out of nowhere. We didn’t know what a "Hors-Série!" (Special Edition) was. Back then, at the video store, Quebec movies were classified in the foreign films section!
Hugo Lachance: They Said Section. For Hors-Série!, I couldn't find any reviews from back then, so I ran a poll on our social media to find out how people discovered the album.
Philippe Reed says: "'Tasse-toé donc dans l'chemin' is the first song I listened to. After that, the Crampe en masse album is hit after hit, it’s a masterpiece for rock with diesel". It’s an album that solidified your fan base.
Benoît Poirier from CISM says he discovered you through the compilation Québec en marge vol. 1 which featured "Tu me donnes le goût". Dominique from Rock Québécois says he buys everything he can find by WD-40 since he saw you live.
Alex Jones: Back then, it was cool because there were a lot of compilations. I remember we went down to play in Quebec City in a yellow school bus and we stopped to pee. There were compilations that made bands travel.
When I was living in Saint-Hubert, we stumbled upon the Kitsch ‘en squatt compilation, it made us discover a lot of local bands. It was the best vehicle to get known and get our songs out there.
Hugo Lachance: We’re moving on to the track-by-track segment. We listen to an excerpt and you comment. We start with the first track: "Enfant de chienne".
What stuck with me from the lyrics is: "150 enraged squeegees. Ain't a windshield left to wash... Wasted cowboy, I salute you. The glue sunning up your view. As long as there are cars you'll have change, the more it stays the same, the less it changes". Those lyrics are a rock lesson. Alex, you talk about an under-the-table job and "squeegee-ing" as a stable job. According to you, misery is all the work there is?
Alex Jones: Look, it was straight out of our daily lives. We worked at the corner of Ontario and Papineau. We saw the squeegee (window washer) phenomenon born at the time; there were squeegee protests.
Cowboy, the legend, is a character I ran into again just last week, he barely changes. We were installing signs at Global Néon and the squeegees lived alongside us.
At the corner of Ontario and Papineau, there was a convenience store run by Big Michel. It wasn't a fancy neighborhood, it was pretty trashy, but we knew Big Michel, we made his signs. It was the corner store where we went to buy our beer at three o'clock when we finished our shift at the shop.
Hugo Lachance: Who composed this song?
Étienne Carrier: Alex composed it, but it’s the first song that I practically rearranged entirely. I thought it sounded like "Septième ciel". I put my distortion on it; it was my first big arrangement. There’s a little nod to the Stooges in there. I was coming out of my punk rock years, I thought there was never enough distortion.
Hugo Lachance: Chapter 8: Septième ciel. I'm the one who played, no but there's like the texture in it.
Étienne Carrier: Maybe as long as even mom. It cuts a bit sharp, but that's a song that was on the demo Le calvaire d’un cow-boy. It's basically an Alexandre composition because I didn't rearrange it that much from Alex or whatever.
Indeed, when I listened to it, I went: "that's Alex right now," because it was too flat. But other than that, it's really 90% his track. Not only the music, but as a love song. You know, it’s a pretty epic love song because as far as I'm concerned, it's nothing else but that, for sure. And yeah, it’s a song like Y’en aura pas de p’tites culottes, and À jamais pour toujours; love tracks are always intense, that’s for sure.
Hugo Lachance: And where does the crooner in you come from?
Alex Jones: I don't know. Doing a show, walking down stairs with a cape, we had talked about it. In my opinion, I'm part of it and that, you don't fake it, you're born with it; I can't just give that to myself. I have to work on my crooner side, a Canadian one by the way. He's a true Canadian. Personally, I love the Commonwealth.
Hugo Lachance: So yes, there is something very passionate in there.
Étienne Carrier: I’ve always been a very passionate and carnal person. It shows, it also carries over into the tradition of WD tracks. It's just that we kept, for example... no, I don't think so, everything on your side. In the end, we stick with our classics of course, like this one, it’s part of it; I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail.
Hugo Lachance: OK, let's keep going with the next one. Basically, the next one is a huge classic, I really love that one when we did it.
Chapter 9: Tu me donnes le goût d'être méchant.
Étienne Carrier: So violent, leading to madness after an episode of abandonment, ending in musical chaos. That’s kind of the structure of the lyrics too. My favorite mode: I go crazy, I don't even understand myself anymore, I just feel like staying in bed; it's raining outside, I'm depressed. Ah! and when I think about it, TV is so good after all. I don't even feel like being mean anymore, I don't even feel like being violent anymore; I just feel like slumping on the couch, I don't even feel like being mean anymore.
You're a bit depressive, but after that it takes off, it builds up, it accelerates, it becomes a mess. No, but it's still one of my favorite songs that I composed back then. It's a well-crafted song though, true, and well-written.
What ended up happening is that I realize now it’s from another era. Like a symbol of another era, that’s what I find fascinating. And even I talk, it's about 30-year-old people who are too old; that's to tell you how young I was when I composed it.
It's quite impressive because, I mean, at that time I had left for the West with a girl older than me who kept telling me... listen, I was 18 and she was 28. She kept telling me how much she knew everything about life and that I knew nothing, and in the end she was right.
It had been a bit... I talk about it a little in there in a somewhat coarse and violent way, but it's a song about a way of saying you're at the end of your rope, you want to destroy everything in the end. Screw it, I give up. For me, it's an expression that drives more and more and annoys me.
We say like it's not a track that would fly today because it’s a track that’s really right on the line, really violent when you think about it. Back then too, I lived on Saint-Laurent and in front of our place, people were hanging out on our steps. I was approaching a test copy in a pretty tense climate. Let's say downtown, we get it, we worked in shops; it wasn't a peaceful climate, let's say. It's clear we were... I was right in it.
Hugo Lachance: Listen, it shows because not only does it show it’s that universe, it was your universe, it shows it’s not something that was made up or an exaggerated depression and rage. But "Tu me donnes le goût d'être méchant" is a team track in that atmosphere. I have a question on that to wrap up on the taste of being mean, Étienne.
Étienne Carrier: Except now I changed my guitar pickups, it sounds less "mean," but I have nothing against it. You were right, I think it made a very interesting sound in those years and I would do it again. And it’s worth a lot if I have a Nice Marketplace store; I wanted to buy it back, I had super.
We're talking about the Metal Zone here, it’s really the crap of the 90s, the MT-2, which was really focused on the heavy metal sound. You had an equalizer on it, you could dial in your sound. I wonder how many I went through because my brother was always taking out my pedalboards.
But you're right, I had several, probably five or six easily. I had two RAT pedals too that broke. I tried to change with other albums we'll talk about later, but often I came back to that even if I played with Gretsches or Telecasters.
I always come back to my old Strat model which isn’t really a Strat anymore; it’s more like a metal guitar, it’s all Dirty Rails on it. It’s the same one I still play with, I bought it in '83. It’s a relic and all that junk, I only use it for WD-40.
Hugo Lachance: Chapter 10: Y’en aura pas de p’tites culottes (No panties tonight).
OK, we’ll continue with the next track. It’s going okay, I would have taken 5 degrees warmer. A WD classic, you look at the landscape. Don't cry, I beg of you. The crooner whom I salute by the way, the bitten one I see who wants to know what became of him. We should find him on Facebook by the way, well maybe not.
Étienne Carrier: He was... he was the one who had the idea for "p'tites culottes," I wouldn't have thought of that. He’s really the one who walked into the jam space, he’s a jazz drummer and he was truly a strange phenomenon. He’s the Gentleman with a Wild Heart. He would also show up in a tuxedo to do his shows.
After that, despite himself, he was an actor, a host at the beginning of MusiMax; I don't know if he stayed. I had heard he wanted to start a... he had started playing cello and left for Las Vegas to play classics by, let's see, what's his name, Cédric, the Paris glasses guy, the lyricist the glasses world.
It was his idea, he came into the jam space doing that crap, we already had that and I put that out. The band would never have been what it is today if it hadn’t been for this song. It wasn’t even our idea, I wouldn't have even thought of doing that, it’s really pure chance. Even the guitar there, when I play all that crap going down a chord: "don't do that," I’m gonna lie to you. We were doing the foreplay of the thing, it's a WD-40 track. Alexandre wrote the lyrics exactly.
And we were precisely in the middle of the Polliwog contest at that time. I remember, there was a first round, a second round, a third round; only one band won per night and we just signed up for the hell of it. It was next to our place, at the Petit Campus. Our jam space was at the Petit Campus and we showed up that night, we had just made this track.
We always had to say what tracks we were going to play with the lyrics. I had shown that, I think it's a good idea. But we were thinking maybe of doing a whole proper production. Oh yeah, I like that. And then, we did that that night and it was a mind-blowing, massive success. No, but it's crazy all the same, that's the reaction.
My next question is on that, sorry to cut you off, but precisely it’s like a track that’s exposed to cause a scandal; I don’t know if it caused a scandal, but it feels like it did the opposite. Women found it pretty rough, the reaction was wild. The younger crowd was more blown away, all the girls were losing their minds at that point.
It's as if all the girls who were sick of being stuck giving the guy a blowjob, finally there was a track about them getting eaten out completely. It’s mind-blowing, it was like a revelation, for all women, it's like a total emancipation. I don't know what happened, but in any case the crew surrounding the production involved really encouraged me to play it and was totally digging it at the time.
People went crazy, the big hit right there. We did the first round, the second round, the third round, that’s truly the finale. Getting out of the drum mode, it’s the spirit of rock, it’s the spirit of pure punk. When I did it, I felt good, everyone does it, it’s like a wheel leg that turns, scandals always come back, even the things there that come back.
But then you guys never did the counter-section, it's just that you never did anything like the others. That’s a bit why you were saying earlier with the media or the companies that there was still a path to read; it’s kind of a total of Quebec education to my knowledge. Women, very nice goals and that’s it.
In my opinion, I wondered if this track had caused a scandal like you say, there isn't one, but it still remains a link that was like filling a need with that. Every single time, I tell myself this track shouldn't have the expected effect if you will, but the effect is truly mind-blowing because girls love it. It’s really a fun track to play, it’s the epic moment of the show.
We hear the young Jean Leloup in there, it’s one of your bullets with the guitarist's universe from '96. You're absolutely right, I’ve always been a big fan of Danzig; Danzig is really my big albums that I don't listen to as much now but they’re cyclical and come back. Earlier I was talking to you precisely about WASP who was always there, who disappeared for a long time but came back.
In those years for example, I had also discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan who was really important to me, he was truly the blues guitarist. That’s what I was telling you earlier, it was pretty much that too now he's tearing it up, but I mean in those years it stuck around because the other guys stood out too. It’s really the best-known blues mix in that genre. It hits hard, it still feels very WD-40.
For me, for sure I have an influence from The Clash, Pantera, and Danzig. We find a lot of those influences in Hors-Série! and Crampe en masse; that little nighttime side, it’s really my more metal side. Totally Danzig, even if now I don't like what he does at all, his Elvis thing sounds like it's constantly poorly recorded. But we'll talk about it live.
Hugo Lachance: Chapter 11: Tasse-toi donc de dans le chemin. And after that we pick up again with "Le chemin," cool. We're back at L'Album Podcast with Étienne from WD-40 for the band's 30th anniversary special this year. It’s off to a good start anyway.
OK, we did "Y'en aura pas de p'tites culottes," we’ll move on now to "Tasse-toi donc de dans le chemin". Almost the floorboard of life if it wasn't at the office. This thing is found on the demo Le calvaire d’un cow-boy. Over time, I’ve always found that you guys did a series of Christmas shows for a few years. What is your relationship with Christmas, sweet and sour meatballs?
Étienne Carrier: You learned it on the podcast: whether it's white or whether it's black, Christmas is a must, you can't bypass that. Christmas right there, it's still a big deal because you know it's gonna be a mess. Usually you can be disappointed by Christmas, but it's still a big deal, like a rite of passage.
Everyone is going to hit Christmas at the same time, something is always going to happen; it can be a mess just like it can be wonderful. I’ve had atrocious news just as I’ve had very beautiful ones. For me it was a point you can't bypass.
Especially since back then, on top of it, we had to go down to the Saguenay, it was complicated, it was an adventure. We almost killed ourselves pretty much every winter with my van, all our gear flying around in the back of the van. It was always a good opportunity to do things we did together back in the day.
We play with Groovy Aardvark, we played with Mordicus, we did two nights in Chicoutimi, both nights were sold out. Recently, we played at Noël dans le parc, it's great timing for a gig, it's fun.
I thought that with WD-40, there was always a good connection with Christmas, especially in this fisherman's track that doesn't make the park and jackpots in my brain. I think it was the guy's idea, I remember I wrote this thing: Pierre-Paul Laberge. You know it started from expressions from a lot of people that I really put together to make this... I don't know what else to say except that I was inspired by a riff.
Hugo Lachance: Humor too. Sometimes in this story, he has to cross the park eventually. We’re going to talk about humor, one of the band's favorite methods that we never play, which talks about "Tasse-toi donc de dans le chemin" but it’s really cool, we didn't see it often either. OK, we continue with "À jamais pour toujours" with you my love.
Chapter 12: À jamais pour toujours. Under the night you had told me. With the idea of too much reverb, my observation is that "À jamais pour toujours" is like the beginning of a series of tracks with somewhat cinematic atmospheres. In the sense that it's a bit like trucks at the borders, asphalt, and then it also becomes recurrent in your catalog.
There are certain tracks that create an atmosphere and "À jamais pour toujours," it feels like especially the beginning comes back later in some of your compositions. It’s more about setting an atmosphere and that’s it. And knowing how you guys built those tracks in our things? No, because I had composed that myself, it’s a writing exercise, but that’s it, sometimes daily life isn't either.
It’s not a track, a favorite method, but the text is still interesting, I remember. There are songs I love for the era: "À jamais pour toujours with you my love on the cold asphalt your body will flow without a cry, without an alleluia". So then it's "our bodies stretch under the night, my beast was named Suzuki, I've got a muffler instead of a heart and I died at 200 an hour" Look, pretty good anyway, it’s true it’s strong for the time.
Because you, it’s obviously not, I've known you for a long time anyway, but with WD I noticed, I was discussing it with a friend at school, you are three people. The three of you, you have your university degree in music, your way of playing, and your way, you, of composing lyrics and your way of singing.
I think nobody screams like you in Quebec in your big songs, nobody really sings like you. There’s nobody who plays bass like you. Your particular playing style. I replaced Julien on drums, it’s Michel, that's something; but Michel is like a clock.
But Julien has personality, nobody plays like him either. He’s a character too, Julien, he was more like a bamboo floating in the wind.
Chapter 13: Segment: Rafales. But it can take all the time we want basically, we don't care, a podcast is just the thing so I did the top 3 of the album. Guys, best songs from the album live?
Étienne Carrier: It depends. Back in the day, when we did "Le goût d'être méchant," it was pretty good. It remains a classic but we often finished with "Tu me donnes le goût d'être méchant" and damn, we hit some moments of pure grace under the lights.
Hugo Lachance: I closed my eyes. What aged poorly on this album?
Étienne Carrier: The sound. What aged poorly for me is "À jamais pour toujours" and "Septième ciel," which aged badly in my opinion. A lot of musical research trying out effects, and you thought about it too, but for me that came later, though apparently it’s coming, for instance trying out something a bit more electro, if you will.
The proudest moment? It’s far back in my memory for sure, but it’s an accomplishment just to step into that studio; those are very good memories. I’m mostly proud of "Enfant de chienne," I think.
Hugo Lachance: Chapter 14: Conclusion. The next episode will be about Crampe en masse, alright? What can we expect? A second thing, we’re going to try to warm things up between the two because we’re recording both episodes at the same time. See you next episode with Crampe en masse, thanks guys!
Étienne: Thank you, see you soon.