Episode Transcript of the episode Michel “Away” Langevin - Voïvod: 40 Years in 4 Albums

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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.

Introduction

Hugo Lachance: We are here on January 13, 2026, broadcasting from Musicopratik in Verdun, and today, for this first episode of our 4th season, I invite everyone to tune in—to connect with one of the greatest metal bands in Quebec. I have the honor of hosting Voïvod on L'Album Podcast! Hey, hello everyone! Before properly introducing my guest, I want to thank our new subscribers on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube too—super important—and on our social media networks, Instagram and Facebook. You know the drill: come subscribe, it’s a quick gesture, it’s free, and it really means a lot. I also want to thank Musicopratik. This episode is presented by Musicopratik. If you are looking for well-adapted, clean, fully equipped rehearsal spaces—and I’m talking amps, mics, drums, everything is there—you can use their spaces to record podcasts just like me. There is even the adjacent Sophronique studio, so for impeccable service, go check them out, right outside the De l'Église metro station in Verdun. So it’s a really neat, great rehearsal space. Thank you very much, Pat Mainville and the Musicopratik crew. Also, this episode is presented by the Hopera microbrewery. Thank you for supporting us again for this 4th season! The Hopera microbrewery is located in Jonquière. There is a restaurant, a resto-bar. There is also a facility in the industrial park in Jonquière called Hopera La Chope. So you can visit, you know, you can drink beer over there, they have a little pub inside, and you can also check out the fermenters that have been named after certain Quebec bands, including WD-40 and Voïvod! And go check out Piggy's very first guitar, which is on display over there, and there you go. And one last comment, we are leaving the floor to Hugo Mudie, who is going to talk to us about Pouzza Fest!

Hugo Lachance: Thanks, Hugo, thanks Pouzza! I am here with Michel Langevin from Voïvod. Welcome to L'Album Podcast!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Thanks for having me.

Hugo Lachance: Thanks for being here, it’s truly an honor. We've been talking about doing this for a long time.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, that's true.

Hugo Lachance: And we are here to celebrate Voïvod's 40-plus-year career. Roughly 43 years this year, actually?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, Snake joined the band on January 7, '83, I think, so yeah, it's pretty much an anniversary right now.

Hugo Lachance: Oh yeah? OK, wow! Super. So obviously, for me, Voïvod represents my youth, and I have so many questions that I think we're going to have to do another episode to cover it all, but we had to agree on a concept. The concept is that you chose four albums, and so that's it—usually we take one album and go one track after another, but this time you chose four albums and we are going to discuss the context of their creation instead; we won't be listening to clips like we usually do. So there you go. Well, let's begin, and I always start by asking my guests the same questions. Michel, where are you from?

Michel “Away” Langevin: I'm from Kénogami in the Saguenay.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, yeah, I'm from there too!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh yeah? Excellent!

Hugo Lachance: Keno, Keno Power! And your childhood album, the furthest back you can remember?

Michel “Away” Langevin: It was The Beatles' Twist and Shout album. It was the first one I received, like a Christmas gift or something like that, or I mowed lawns to buy it, but anyway. It happens to be The Beatles' first album, but the North American version with a few changes to the songs, so the first Beatles album, yeah.

Hugo Lachance: Super. Your teenage album, the one that shaped you?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh boy! At that time, as a teenager, I was starting to listen to—well, a little bit after The Beatles, I asked for the Kiss Alive I album for Christmas too, and I got it. Everyone in the family was saying, "Put it on, put it on," then I put it on, and it was, "Take it off, take it off." That was my new favorite band. And from Kiss to Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, slowly but surely I was heading toward what would become metal. But also at the Kénogami high school, at the school library, I often borrowed Rock & Folk magazine, and they were starting to talk about the punk movement. So I started getting interested in Sex Pistols stuff, but it took a while before I could actually find the albums. But when I managed to lay my hands on the first—and only—Sex Pistols album, it was truly a revelation for my drumming, where I started playing a lot more on the toms, the floor tom, so it became a bit more tribal.

Hugo Lachance: OK.

Michel “Away” Langevin: And at the same time, I listened to a lot of progressive rock, and my favorite band was Van der Graaf Generator—very strange music. But I'd say it was really in 1980, when Iron Maiden's first album came out, that's when I truly decided this is what I wanted to do in life: play drums for metal music.

Hugo Lachance: OK, Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden, OK, the first one, Le Maiden, yeah, yeah. And what was playing in your parents' car or at home?

Michel “Away” Langevin: At home, it was mostly my mother who listened to music while cleaning up, let's say, and it was more like disco, ABBA, Bee Gees, mixed with Claude Dubois, Gilles Vigneault—so less rock stuff. My father had a collection of 45s, and one day I discovered The Rolling Stones' 45, with "Honky Tonk Women" on one side, and I really liked it. At that time, my father and I used to argue: he liked the Stones, I liked the Beatles, but he made me discover the Stones.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, OK, cool! And I imagine you listened to CKRS too?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, I would run home at lunchtime; I ran from Sainte-Famille school to the house because from noon to 1:00 PM they had the Presley-Beatles special, and man, I didn't want to miss a single song.

Hugo Lachance: That's great! Ah, that brings back memories for me too. And your first instrument, the drums?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Drums, yeah.

Hugo Lachance: OK, OK.

The Name Voïvod

Hugo Lachance: Obviously, Voïvod is huge, we could spend hours talking about the history of the band, but I still did some research, of course, I prepared for the interview, and when I search on the National Archives site, the oldest article I found that mentions the word is in La Tribune on November 15, 1915, OK. What does it tell us? "Indeed, otherwise we are preparing to send to the East all the forces necessary for the success of the expedition to hold in check one million good soldiers led by one of Guillaume II's best generals. We need a general and troops. We might have a general in Voïvode Putnic, I hear it said by men of quality and I ask nothing more than to believe it." You see that everywhere, especially in Eastern Europe, they always have someone high up, either a general in the army or a police chief whose title is Voïvod. And over there, they know how to shout "Voïvod!"

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, actually last year we played a festival in Poland, Lublin I think the city is called, and it's in a province they call Voïvodship. OK.

Hugo Lachance: And?

Michel “Away” Langevin: So people were really happy to welcome us.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Where does the name Voïvod come from on your end?

Michel “Away” Langevin: At the very beginning, it was in elementary school in Kénogami, at the school library, I was reading the Bob Morane books and there was one called Le talisman des voïvodes. It was like a mummified gypsy king, anyway, and I really liked the word. Except it was spelled V-O-I-V-O-D-E. And right after that, I'd say, I discovered the book Dracula by Bram Stoker where he explained that Dracula was a voïvode, a king, a warlord, a military leader. And around that time, in the mid-70s, I also discovered Métal Hurlant magazine.

Hugo Lachance: Yes.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Moebius, Druillet, Bilal—I copied their style a lot and dreamed of one day making comic books for Métal Hurlant magazine. That's when I created the concept of Voïvod, with a kind of vampire character named Voïvod back then. I was already starting to alter the spelling a bit to V-O-Ï-V-O-D. So the Voïvod was a kind of warrior who guarded the planet Morgoth. For me, Morgoth is Jonquière! Yeah, exactly, right. And at first, the concept was more Dungeons & Dragons, and then...

Hugo Lachance: But how old were you at that time?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh, 13 or 14, I was very young, yeah. OK. So yeah, I worked on the concept, I drew, I created characters. At one point, I think it was around Christmas '79 when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, I started getting more interested in geopolitics and grew a bit afraid of nuclear war. Then in early '80, I saw an NFB documentary called If You Love This Planet, and it talked a lot about nuclear weapons. At that moment, my concept took a bit more of an apocalyptic turn. And also around that time, it was the start of the movies, the first wave of what we called Cyberpunk—Mad Max, Blade Runner—that heavily influenced my concept. When we formed the band in January '83, I started talking about the concept, we were looking for a name, and I brought up the word Voïvod. The guys were really intrigued, so I explained the concept and we decided to develop it over the years on our 80s albums. By then, it had become truly post-nuclear.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, yeah, OK, it started with War and Pain, the whole concept was there, right, yeah. It was fascinating because Voïvod's imagery is really, really strong, and you know, yes, there is Piggy's music which is original, but in my opinion, Voïvod is the combination of your art and Piggy's guitar work, the way he played, you know.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, yes, we moved forward at the same time while creating the concept. Snake and I often sat down to try and invent stories, and everything was connected: the drawings, the music, the concept. And it moved pretty fast, about one album per year with a world tour, so we had to keep pushing forward.

Hugo Lachance: That's pretty crazy. So I had questions that—obviously you already answered my Wikipedia questions, because I like doing that, I like setting the facts straight by asking Wikipedia questions. So yes, and the other thing is the band also performed in what was called Les mercredis du Vieux-Port, which is where Dédé Fortin, the late lead singer of Les Colocs, filmed the band to direct your very first music video, Voïvod.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, Dédé was on a project called PAF, and it's a bit vague because it was so many years ago, decades even, but I think he had to make like 30 videos over the summer, edited and everything, and he even burned out from it—he told me much later. So he filmed us at the Old Port, I think we played with Unruled, some punk friends from Montreal, and it got really wild, so there was a lot of energy in the video. We also shot in a studio somewhere in Montreal to complement the live show footage, so that was our very first video.

Hugo Lachance: OK, I re-listened to it this morning, it's available on YouTube, it's pretty hot! You guys started out and success came pretty quickly?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, but it still took a couple of years before we could tour internationally. So for 2 years, we toured mostly in Quebec.

Hugo Lachance: OK, OK, I see.

Michel “Away” Langevin: But yes, we were receiving—we were still in Jonquière, we moved to Montreal in the summer of '85—but while we were in Jonquière, we had already started the fan club where we answered letters coming from all over the planet. All of this happened by mail; we sent our cassettes, our demos, our rough tracks to what we called fanzines, which were photocopied.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, yeah.

Michel “Away” Langevin: So we would write to them, enclosing a cassette, they'd reply with questions, we'd answer the questions and mail it back, and months later we'd receive the little magazine.

Hugo Lachance: But how did you break out from Jonquière to get known internationally, did it happen with the first album?

Michel “Away” Langevin: We had a friend—well, we are still friends—Wayne Archibald.

Hugo Lachance: Yes, Wayne! Shoutout to Wayne!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Shoutout to Wayne. Wayne helped us a lot because he corresponded with tons of people all over the planet, not just magazines but also record companies, and he was the one sending our demos everywhere, really spreading the word. Eventually, we got a contract for a song on Metal Massacre V. So we recorded "Condemned to the Gallows," and we only had one day to do it, in a small studio, Le Terroir, in La Baie.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, yeah.

Michel “Away” Langevin: So it's because of Wayne that we got the contract for Metal Massacre, and right after that, we received a contract from Metal Blade to do a full album, which we recorded in 2 or 3 days at Le Terroir studio too, and that became War and Pain.

Hugo Lachance: Right, yeah. And speaking of War and Pain, you released it in '84.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes.

Hugo Lachance: Since you were very underground, I put together a portrait of what the music scene looked like in Quebec in 1984. At the ADISQ gala, the best-selling single was René Simard's "Comment ça va." After that, the best-selling LP was Céline Dion's Les chemins de ma maison. Album of the year: Daniel Lavoie with Tension attention. That's what was in the musical landscape. The artist who made the biggest impact outside Quebec was Men Without Hats. Oh, cool! There are connections to be made, we'll talk about it—band of the year was them. And in that, there was also the rock LP of the year, you had Corbeau's Visionnaire, the live À fond de train by Offenbach and Plume Latraverse, Soupir's Éclipse featuring Normand Brathwaite, Corey Hart's First Offense, and The Box. The big winner that year was Corey Hart. And the children's LP of the year was Claire Pimparé's Monsieur Fantastique. No, I like talking about this because it sets the context a bit, because you had Voïvod on one side, and then the music industry in Quebec on the other—that was the musical portrait. I dug around and found the oldest article, it’s from Le Progrès-Dimanche on October 7, '84, by Louis-Marie Lapointe. It says: "Blacky, Snake, Piggy, and guys from Jonquière, bursting with health and feeling in good enough shape to take the bull by the horns and shove an electric guitar, drums, and bass right between its ears just to teach it that the rock bred in our region is on the right track. The musicians have been together for 2 years, they played at Place Nikitoutagan in Jonquière, once in Rimouski, and they will open for Venom at the Spectrum in Montreal, provided Venom actually shows their faces. Black metal band Venom imposes its mark with a satanic theme. Venom influenced us a lot, not lyrically, but energy-wise."

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, and I know Piggy really liked the guitarist Mantas, so yes, that was a big influence for us.

Hugo Lachance: I think it's fun to go back in time with this, but we'll talk about the show at Place Nikitoutagan again. In that same article, I'll quote you guys again: "Our parents like the record, not the content; we aren't satanic," Piggy added with a laugh. "We talk about war and suffering, we prefer talking about that, we like the feeling, the nuclear aspect, what's coming down the road—that's what makes our originality." Blacky said: "We are always late in Quebec, only a small minority felt the wave coming, we jumped on it, we are building it up, we hope to push back the boundaries of this music; in any case, our record is surely less bad than Venom's first album." I didn't say it, Blacky did! Shoutout to Blacky! But yeah, you guys caught the wave pretty fast. That's why I was asking earlier if you were propelled quickly into all of this.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, in fact, I'm still amazed by the fact that there was no internet back then and everything happened by mail, it's incredible. In '80, you had Judas Priest's British Steel, Motörhead's Ace of Spades, the first Maiden, but just 2 years later, even 1 year later, you had Venom, and right after that, Slayer, Metallica, you know, and in Europe, Destruction—so things were accelerating. It feels like there was a truly impressive explosion for a period where we had to make do with what we had.

Hugo Lachance: Absolutely. Earlier we talked about what was being done in Quebec commercially, but what did the local scene look like when Voïvod started out? You mean in Jonquière? Well, in Jonquière or even in Quebec as a whole, you had Voïvod, but...

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well, in Jonquière, there was Death Dealer, who were more in the style of Iron Maiden, and a little bit later, Messiah Force. There was a band that was literally called Voïer—OK, that doesn't ring a bell—V-O-Ï-E-R, those guys were kind of like Possessed.

Hugo Lachance: OK, oh yeah? OK.

Michel “Away” Langevin: A very good band from Arvida.

Hugo Lachance: Oh yeah? OK.

Michel “Away” Langevin: And yeah, other than that, there was a bit of progressive rock, but there was a band called Exit, if I remember correctly. In Quebec, meaning in Montreal, we used to hitchhike to come see shows at the Spectrum, we'd hitchhike to catch gigs at the Spectrum, and we always had Moustache—there was Anvil or bands like that. But often, it was Montreal bands doing covers of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, all that. There weren't necessarily thrash metal bands—what would become thrash metal—there weren't really any, no.

Hugo Lachance: Right, you guys are pretty much pioneers.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, after that, some small ones like Agression and Damnation popped up, but at the beginning, we were pretty much all alone, I'd say.

Hugo Lachance: I have a question about that from Jean-Paul, a guy from the Saguenay, an internet question. He'd like to know how the guys from Voïvod got along with Death Dealer, were there any interactions? I know Away was good buddies with Pierre Fortin.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, Jean-Pierre—we were high school buddies from Jonquière, then Kéno high school and all that, and we made music together. The first band I ever had with Piggy, Jean-Pierre played bass. We had permission to use the agora at Kénogami high school, and back then we played AC/DC—there wasn't much yet in terms of metal, yeah.

Hugo Lachance: Well, shoutout to Death Dealer.

Michel “Away” Langevin: There was a fake rivalry that people created, like we were supposedly at war—ah, OK. But you know, I think the guitarists, Yves Pilon I think, always wore a Voïvod pin, so it was—but people invented stories.

Hugo Lachance: Ah, of course, you need that to feed the scene. I'll continue with the newspaper articles: Le Lac-Saint-Jean, December 19, 1984, by Doris Larouche. "On stage, the lighting and synthetic smoke highlight the grimacing and menacing faces of the band. The singer has a voice just as deep as Rogatien Vachon. You can barely understand what he says, but in fact, it's the music that matters. In one of the rare interventions the singer makes, he emphasizes one thing: their fantasies are not sexual. 'No, we dream instead of someone getting swallowed by a snowblower.'" And we had a song, "Blower," because when we were kids there were always legends about kids making snow forts and getting swallowed by the snowblower; that always traumatized me, so we made a song out of it. But most people around the world asked us what a "Blower" was, completely unaware of the concept.

Hugo Lachance: That's great. Let's keep going—no, exactly. I participated in a show for the Bad Crew—shoutout to the Bad Crew team, by the way. I listed the 12 albums that influenced my existence, and you guys are obviously on it. I was born in '75, I'm 50, and I'll read you what I wrote: "My story with Voïvod begins, without me really knowing it, in '84 or '85, I'm not sure. My uncle, Luc Lachance, worked as a lighting tech at Place Nikitoutagan on the banks of the Rivière aux Sables in Jonquière. He offered to let me tag along. At the time, the structure of this outdoor amphitheater was made of concrete and covered with a blue and white tarp. I waited quietly in the bleachers, watching the techs hustle around preparing the sound, the lights, and especially the impressive smoke machines. I noticed something peculiar: part of the stage was elevated using plastic Coke crates covered with black plywood." This is me talking. "'It's a metal show tonight, a band from Jonquière called Voïvod, I think, can I come?' 'I'm not sure your mother would agree, it's probably gonna get pretty wild.' I was about 9 or 10 years old. I think I caught a glimpse of guys with funky-shaped guitars. When we left, the band was starting soundcheck. I mostly remember a very high decibel level. I wish I had a clearer memory of that experience because 35 years later, I was discussing it with Away and Snake while shooting the promo video for our Piggy Monument project. In the meantime, the flame was rekindled thanks to Paul Sarasin and his Voïvod special aired on his show Solid Rock on MusiquePlus around '89. It was thanks to the "Tribal Convictions" music video that I bought the superb Dimension Hatröss." So that was among your very first shows, right? The first one at Place Nikitoutagan—yes, June '83, I think, OK.

Michel “Away” Langevin: And I remember that in the crowd, we probably had our friends the bikers from Jonquière, the Missiles, I don't remember exactly, and my grandmother right in the front row! And yeah, it was a great experience, and we actually recorded the show. That was our very first demo that we sent out. And at the end, for the encore, we played Motörhead's "Stone Dead Forever," and when we start, you can hear the motorcycle engines revving up in the back, OK.

Hugo Lachance: Oh yeah? OK, wow! Well, so I almost witnessed a historic moment?

Michel “Away” Langevin: The absolute, total beginning. And we played there again for the 35th anniversary at Place Nikitoutagan, we played again a little bit later. I think we played three times at Place Nikitoutagan, yeah. It's a beautiful venue, and that's where the plaque was supposed to be installed too, but unfortunately, the site was demolished and the contractor demolished the plaque at the same time.

Hugo Lachance: Yes, yes, shoutout to the contractor, leave us a comment on the Bye Bye. Now that is metal! Yes, it is. I also mentioned the MusiquePlus special, Voïvod on MusiquePlus on Solid Rock—did that make a big impact? Because for my generation, that's really how we discovered Voïvod, with all the music videos, the whole special universe you guys created. Did it have an influence?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, yes, Solid Rock helped us enormously. Plus, they used "Tribal Convictions" as the theme song, so really—both Paul Sarasin and Geneviève Borne helped us out a ton with Solid Rock and that special for the release of Nothingface; it really gave us a boost, we became much more popular in Quebec, among other places.

Hugo Lachance: Oh yeah, it was perfect timing with "Astronomy Domine" which was a massive hit, the cover and everything, fantastic, OK, cool! But shoutout to Paul.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh absolutely, Paul, we cross paths pretty often.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, yeah, I'd love to invite him on L'Album Podcast. I hosted Claude Rajotte at the beginning of last year around this time, and I'd love to host Paul, we'll talk. So in Voïvod, the current members are you, of course, Michel Langevin—Away—Snake, Denis Bélanger, Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain, and Dominique "Rocky" Laroche. The former members, obviously, are Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, Jean-Yves "Blacky" Thériault, Pierre St-Jean, Gilles Brisebois, Eric "E-Force" Forrest, Jason "Jasonic" Newsted, and Vincent Peake, well yes.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes.

Hugo Lachance: Yes, and where do the nicknames come from? What's your mechanic for that?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh, it's a mix of a bunch of things, because we knew that Quebec names might be a bit hard to remember for people abroad, and we told ourselves we'd find names that represented the personality and would be easy to remember. It was like a mix of Venom, the Ramones, and the Banana Splits! That's great! So in my case, at the exact same time we formed the band, I was studying science at the university in Chicoutimi, and because of my homework, I always showed up late or not at all to band practice. And during the breaks at rehearsal—we practiced in the basement of the insurance office belonging to Denis Bélanger's father, Snake, OK. During the breaks, I'd go upstairs, sit at Nic's father's desk, grab his pencil and his notepad, and do drawings, OK. And I'd leave them there; in fact, Snake's mother, who also worked at the office, would gather my drawings in the morning so his father wouldn't see them before he arrived. Then one day she gave them back to me—I still have my old drawings, yeah. And because of my drawings, the concept, and the fact that I maybe didn't show up all the time, they called me Away. OK, that's a good one! That was my name. And Snake back then was tall and skinny, and later he filled out a bit, right, rounder, yeah. Blacky always dyed his hair black and he wanted us to call him Blacky because he had a little dog when he was young named Blacky, he wanted us to—so they are easy names to remember. Piggy is the one who got the ungrateful nickname, Piggy. Sometimes Piggy would say, "I don't want to be called Piggy anymore." OK, Piggy, but it stuck anyway, of course. And the others, did they adopt nicknames too? Yes, well every time there's a new member, we find them a nickname. Often, the name is decided by the member himself—oh yeah, OK. So Jason was Jasonic, Jason Jasonic, and Rocky's artist name was already Rock La Roche, so we said we'll call you Rocky, he was very happy, perfect. And well, the resemblance is there, actually, yes, for sure with the hair and everything, but Chewy is a big fan of Chewbacca, he can imitate Chewbacca, yeah, keep that in mind.

Hugo Lachance: Let's keep going and do the discography quickly. So War and Pain in '84, Rrröööaaarrr in '86, Killing Technology '87, Dimension Hatröss '88, Nothingface in '89—man, it goes fast!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, yes it does, one album per year.

Hugo Lachance: One album per year with a world tour. Angel Rat '91, The Outer Limits '93, Negatron '95, Phobos '97, the self-titled Voïvod in 2003, Katorz 2006, Infini 2009, Target Earth 2013, The Wake 2018, Synchro Anarchy 2022, Morgöth Tales 2023. Is there another one on the way?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, there's another one coming; in fact, there are two coming out at the same time. We are currently mixing the symphonique album that we recorded at the Grand Théâtre in Quebec—with that, unfortunately, yeah. And at the same time, we are composing and recording a new studio album at Radical Studio around Trois-Rivières, so we're doing that simultaneously. Meanwhile, the symphonique album will come out before the studio album, we are further along on it.

Hugo Lachance: I really can't wait to see that. That's also a good number of live albums, 27 music videos, 6 EPs, 4 compilations, about 21 demos, and two DVDs—that's quite a lot, right?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh yeah, yeah, I've lost count, but I'm not even sure my tally is right because there is just so much material, we have a good catalog. So much so that the royalties are piling up, and while I have no intention of retiring, one day when I decide to stop, I think I'll be able to live off my royalties.

Hugo Lachance: Oh yeah? OK, well we wish that for you. And also, for instance, I don't want us to dive into that because it takes us into a whole different topic, but we were mentioning that you are a visual artist. I'd really love to do an episode with just the two of us to just talk about art, OK—we'll talk about Voïvod obviously—but to just talk about art, I'd really love to do that. Your work is exceptional and I find it really cool. But yeah, we'll do that sometime. So the concept was 40—not 40 albums—but 40 years in four albums. So you chose four albums: Killing Technology, after that Phobos, the self-titled one, and then Synchro Anarchy, right? OK.

1- KILLING TECHNOLOGY

Hugo Lachance: So, we're gonna start with the first one: Killing Technology. How would you describe or name this specific period?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well, I decided to choose four albums that represent the four different lineups of the band, OK. And Killing Technology was a massive milestone for me because it was the first album we ever recorded in Berlin, OK. And back then, things were pretty hectic because we had to put out an album a year coupled with a world tour, and usually, we had to end the tour around the Berlin area just to be able to record an album. Which means we had to compose Killing Technology before even going on the world tour for Rrröööaaarrr in '86. We went on tour in North America with Celtic Frost, then we headed to Europe with Possessed, and right after the last show, we took the train to Berlin to record Killing Technology. So, we could actually test the songs on tour before tracking them. But we had to do the exact same thing for Dimension Hatröss because we did a world tour for Killing Technology with Kreator that ended right around the Berlin area to record Dimension Hatröss; we had to compose Dimension before touring for Killing Technology. So it was truly intense.

Hugo Lachance: But that was around the time the Wall fell, right? Or a bit before '89, I think.

Michel “Away” Langevin: I think the actual fall was early '90. And when we were in Berlin, we tried to go to the other side of the Wall, but they wouldn't let us because they said, "You look too funny." Oh yeah? Well, we had ripped jeans, Blacky had half his head shaved, and we tried through Checkpoint Charlie, which wasn't far from the Music Lab studio where we were recording, and they said "no way." We tried through the subway, and once we got to the other side, they sent us right back. By the way, it was pretty eerie because between East Berlin and West Berlin, there’s what you call a no man's land where they had closed two or three subway stations, and on the subway platforms, there were soldiers guarding them so people wouldn't try to cross through the tunnel. And inside the tunnel, there was like an archway with another tunnel, and right in the middle of the tunnel, a soldier was guarding it with a tiny light above him. I thought that was the saddest job I had ever seen, so it was quite something. Also, in the mid-80s, the Second War had been over for what, 40 years, you know, and yet there were still remnants of the war in Berlin—bullet holes, half-demolished buildings, fields full of ruins—so that was the whole atmosphere.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, completely.

Michel “Away” Langevin: It really helped us develop a Killing Technology sound, OK. Because Killing Technology is also less thrash; the album was starting to feel a bit more prog, a sound that was a bit more reserved, if you will, more controlled.

Hugo Lachance: Yes, we've always been huge, huge fans of King Crimson, Van der Graaf, but Piggy was a step ahead of the rest of us in terms of his technique because he started playing when he was 9 years old and was already great when we formed the band. The rest of us were trying to catch up to him, and I think right around Killing Technology is when we became capable of integrating progressive rock elements because we had finally learned our respective instruments well enough. So our sound shifted a bit, and also, some events happened that deeply affected us, which we integrated into our sound and concept. I'm thinking of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, then Reagan's Star Wars project, and the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. So those are things that left a massive mark on us, and so our concept became more and more science-fiction oriented.

Hugo Lachance: OK, oh that's hot. And speaking of a shift in sound, when I did the episode for Barf's 30th anniversary, Marc Boncour mentioned—well, the context was that we were talking about how he loved heavy albums and wanted bands to stay heavy forever. And he goes: "When I heard Voïvod's Killing Technology, I stripped my patch right off!" Imagine, it was still very heavy back then, but...

Michel “Away” Langevin: But indeed, on the world tour with Kreator, we could feel that some people were scratching their heads like, what's going on with Voïvod? Killing Technology was still a pretty big leap.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, for sure, but at the same time it was cool for giving the band a certain accessibility, you know. And it was just as—well, we were selling more and more, right? To the point where even Angel Rat and Outer Limits sold a whole lot.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, yeah.

Hugo Lachance: OK. In an interview from '87 regarding the Killing Technology album, Michel Langevin described the band's style for the very first time using the term "space metal." Oh OK, yeah, that works, space fits.

Michel “Away” Langevin: People have tried to come up with so many labels. Everyone called us nuclear metal at first, then it was speed metal, and at one point thrash metal, then space metal. There was even the bass player from Cro-Mags—the first show we ever did in the US was with Cro-Mags and Venom at the Ritz in New York—and he used to call us "deco metal," like art deco.

Hugo Lachance: Oh yeah? Wow, that's pretty cool, so there's been no shortage of names. But I think Space Metal works over time, I think it's the one that holds up the most.

Michel “Away” Langevin: For sure the first two are straight thrash, but now we've made a return to that kind of sci-fi, space-themed progressive rock, and strangely enough, we're winning Junos with these albums, which are getting more and more complex.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, and?

Michel “Away” Langevin: So it makes it even more relevant, I find.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, OK, cool. So still in '87, the band released a single titled "Cockroaches"; the title was inspired by the fact that cockroaches would be the only species to survive a nuclear war. The idea for the song came from the massive number of cockroaches in the band's Montreal apartment.

Michel “Away” Langevin: That's true, yes. We moved to Montreal in '85, out East on Bourbonnière Street, right next to our capitalist friends, Alien Nation. They were the ones who told us there was a vacant apartment across the street. On the very first night, we put some bread in the toaster, and when the toast popped up, a bunch of cockroaches came flying out from the top of the toaster! That's when we realized, oh, it's infested—there were even some in the spaghetti sauce, yeah, yeah. And it was truly, truly wild! The four of us in the same tiny apartment. But we lived and breathed Voïvod to the max from '83 to '89. We practiced every single night, and we composed the music, built the concept, I did drawings—we did all of that at the same time, we lived together, so that's why it moved at that pace.

Hugo Lachance: OK cool, we're gonna blast through the credits quickly. The title is therefore Killing Technology, year '87, what was the label?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Noise, Noise, OK.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, that's fun because when we moved to Montreal in the summer of '85, we set up camp at Émile's place—Viger-Hamers, I think—where absolutely everyone used to practice. It was truly hardcore, you had hardcore bands and metal bands. And was it a step up from the rehearsal spaces on Saint-Hubert Street in Kénogami, in the basement? Does that ring a bell? I didn't see those ones, no, OK, scratch that. But Émile's place was dangerous; there were shows, zero security, skinhead attacks, it was real rock and roll. And as soon as we moved in, someone—the walls were made of concrete blocks, and for the top two or three rows they had run out of cement, I think—someone just pushed them through and stole our instruments, amp heads, stuff like that, and we were in a tight spot because we had tracked Rrröööaaarrr but at that point, we had no money to mix it, and we had to rebuy gear. That's when, along with our manager, Maurice Richard from Rockatac, we came up with the idea of organizing a festival and booked what has now become the Grande Bibliothèque—back then it was for roller skating, I can't remember the name, the roul... I don't know, it wasn't the patinodrome nor Roulatex, I don't remember.

Hugo Lachance: The Palladium, right.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Right! So we invited Destruction, Celtic Frost, Possessed, Nasty Savage, and tons of people showed up, even from the US and everywhere. There were so many people that we managed to buy back our gear, finish the mix for Rrröööaaarrr, etc., and we gave a rough mix to Martin Eric Ain from Celtic Frost, who brought it back to Noise in Berlin, because those guys were on Noise. That's how we landed a three-album deal: Rrröööaaarrr, Killing Tech, and Dimension Hatröss, and that's when we could finally start touring internationally as well.

Hugo Lachance: OK, wow, super! So, production by Harris Johns and Voïvod, hm hm. Sound engineer and tracking: Harris Johns, hm hm. Mixing: Harris Johns assisted by Blacky and Piggy. Musicians: Piggy, Snake, and Blacky. Lyrics by Snake. Studio and mixing: Music Lab in Berlin. Recording period: November 27 to December 14. That's still pretty fast, eh!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, it was fast, but for us back then, yeah, because we were used to way less time. And in those days, it went pretty much like: you'd do track two, you played it two or three times, how many mistakes did you make? A couple. You? A couple. OK, average. In fact, it makes me laugh a lot—the very, very first track we ever recorded, "Condemned to the Gallows" for Metal Massacre, at the end it's supposed to hit tchak, but it goes t-t-t-tchak, not a single one of us hits it at the same time, it's hilarious, it sounds like Voïvod, it's fine.

Hugo Lachance: And on that note, speaking of which, we'll take a quick detour here—on May 29, 2021, Éric Desrosiers for La Presse, I'll quote you: "I was at my cousin Richard Langevin's place and he had a drawing on his wall that he did of Atom Ant, a cartoon I adored, he recalls. Right away I asked him: 'Hey, will you give it to me?' He told me: 'No, but I can show you how to draw it.' He never stopped since." Comic books, album covers, fine art book editions of his drawings, Worlds Away: The Art of Michel Langevin. So is that how you started drawing? I've probably always drawn, but the first drawing I remember doing is Atom Ant because of Richard Langevin, who is my cousin, and who happens to be married to Diane Dufresne, by the way. Through him, I ended up playing drums for Diane Dufresne for several years.

Hugo Lachance: OK, I didn't know that, wow. And about the covers, I just want to make a quick detour because it's really interesting. Early on, the first two covers were drawings, acrylic paintings?

Michel “Away” Langevin: The first four, the first four, OK.

Hugo Lachance: And after that, you shifted over to the tech side?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, because like I said earlier, I studied science at university, I had no background in art, so it took me months to finish paintings. And since things were shifting into high gear with Voïvod's pace, I had less and less time to make them, and it became problematic. Around '87, I bought a Commodore Amiga, which was already pretty multimedia for the era, to speed up the process, and that's when I started making digital art from that point forward, starting on Nothingface.

Hugo Lachance: Yes, that's it, Nothingface.

Michel “Away” Langevin: So there wasn't much resolution, not many colors, and it was restrictive, but it gives that aesthetic of the era, the pixelation and all that, which has always fascinated me. You were one of the first to do that in the field.

Hugo Lachance: Well, among the first, but my friends told me it wasn't art; a lot of my friends who were into fine art found it insulting because they were more about building their own canvas. In fact, Rrröööaaarrr, I did it on a piece of cardboard from a grocery store wooden crate because we had absolutely no money. When we moved to Montreal, we had 150 bucks a month each from welfare, OK. So on the first of the month, we'd eat a burger and fries at Lafleur, and the rest of the time it was Kraft Dinner, ramen, so we weren't exactly wealthy. So I did the cover for Rrröööaaarrr on a piece of cardboard, and one of my friends who had studied art at university was so insulted that for Killing Technology, he built me a canvas.

Hugo Lachance: A canvas, ah OK, OK. Where are those paintings now? Do they still exist?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, yes, I still have them. People have offered me—I've been offered fortunes for those covers, but to me, they are like memories of achievement, and I keep them preciously. Maybe one day I'll donate them to a museum, some museums have asked me to donate them, but I'm holding onto them for now.

Hugo Lachance: Yes, that would be a great idea so people could see them; I'd be really curious to see that.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, right now until Sunday, it's at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, until January 18, as part of an exhibition on 60s, 70s, and 80s music in Canada.

Hugo Lachance: Which one is it?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Dimension Hatröss, along with Snake's stage costume from the era, the straps and all that, also the gas mask, bullet belt.

Hugo Lachance: OK cool. Right, let's get back to it because we could go on for a long time, and I love this. So yeah, there's the Killing Side and the Thrashing Side. So that's what you were saying earlier, right. According to Wikipedia, the concept of Killing Technology was born out of Voïvod's fascination with the 80s Cyberpunk aesthetic, dystopian sci-fi, movies like Blade Runner, the themes of technological overdrive, and the man-machine conflict. So it's exactly what you described. And how did the themes in Voïvod evolve alongside technological developments? We can talk about it more later when we discuss another album, but at one point when the internet entered the frame, the concept took a turn where there was a whole lot more info available on—of course, there were a lot of conspiracy theories mixed in there, I try to keep my distance from all that, but it evolved with what was happening. On tour, I always bought Discover Magazine and Omni Magazine, and man, I would read those on the plane heading to Europe, taking a ton of notes, and then we'd talk about it; Snake and I would invent stories for the Voïvod and everything, so it really moved with the development of technology, OK cool.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah. Anything else to add about Killing Technology?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Not much, but I have great memories of the US tour with Celtic Frost, it was a non-stop party. Every time we finished a show and went to the hotel, there would be like 40 cars following us just to party; everyone would jump into the pool with clothes on or clothes off, OK, I remember that. And the tour with Possessed in Europe was very, very turbulent, it was more political and there were riots in Bochum at one point. In Germany, security didn't want the kids to mosh or stage dive, and they started punching the kids and all that. The entire crowd turned against security and rushed the stage to beat them up; security ran away. Then people destroyed the gear and it ended in a riot, it ended with a sort of militia showing up with dogs. I tried to exit through the back of the club and there was a dog that started barking, a big German Shepherd barking at me, and a soldier yelling at me in German. I understood he wanted me to exit through the front, so I went out the front, and there was a row of punks spitting on a row of police-soldiers, and every soldier had a dog waiting for the soldier's command, who was waiting for the commander's command. I had to walk right between the two rows to reach our—we had those little European vans—so it was really, really intense.

Hugo Lachance: Wow! OK, that's a bit more serious, yeah.

2- PHOBOS

Hugo Lachance: Let's move on to Phobos, perfect, yeah OK. So Phobos—how would you call this period?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well, that's the period with Eric Forrest, so the second lineup in the 90s. At that point, Blacky had quit the band right after recording Angel Rat, while we were mixing. Snake quit in early '94, we had just come back from...

Hugo Lachance: But Blacky wasn't in the music videos for Angel Rat, he was...

Michel “Away” Langevin: No, because he left before the mix, OK, OK. And after that, we mixed the album and released it, and who was on bass? Pierre St-Jean, Pierre St-Jean, OK, who was in Heaven's Cry, progressive power metal, yeah, a friend of Piggy's ultimately. From La Brique, the bar La Brique, so Pierre did the tracking for The Outer Limits with us and the Limits tour. We also had Gilles Brisebois from Jean Leloup who did several shows with us, and Martin Dubé—that's his name, Marty from Éric Lapointe, OK—played bass for us. We opened for the band Fight, Rob Halford's band, which ended up in Alaska, anyway, OK. And finally, Snake decided he had had enough of music, that he wanted to open restaurants, and that was that. So we auditioned Eric, and we decided to ultimately replace Blacky and Snake with one person, to become a power trio. Through our manager at the time, Pierre Paradis, he introduced us to Eric Forrest, we did an audition, and we felt it was the perfect match. At that moment, we had decided to make a return to the truly heavy music of early Voïvod, and Eric came from a school like that—more Sepultura, Machine Head—so it was perfect for us. The problem was that our music being way heavier than Angel Rat and Limits, we were heading deep into space rock territory, and MCA wasn't sure how they could promote it, but we had a great relationship with them, so they told us: "Look, we're not gonna put your contract on a shelf, you're free to shop around as you please." Because I had friends at the time, like in Carcass, who had issues with Columbia, I think, if I remember correctly, where the contract was shelved, they couldn't use the band name anymore so they called themselves Black Star because they couldn't use Carcass, oh yeah. I had played in Holland and Jeff Walker was with him and he was flipping out; eventually, they sued the company and won, but we were lucky that MCA just released us, we went back to the independent side, and we signed with Hypnotic in Toronto, yeah, OK, yeah. But it resulted in—for me, it's one of my favorite Voïvod albums, Phobos.

Hugo Lachance: Oh yeah? I loved working on it so, so much, the sound is so good, the production is insane.

Michel “Away” Langevin: The title, because Phobos is actually the larger of the two natural satellites of Mars along with Deimos, named after the Greek god of fear, and is characterized by its proximity to the planet, its fast orbit, its irregular shape, and a trajectory that will lead it either to crash into Mars or to break apart. The name Phobos derives from the Greek word for fear, hence the term phobia, and Deimos means terror. But on this album, you can really feel space, the reverbs, the guitar sound, the vocals, everything; I adore this album.

Michel “Away” Langevin: It was the first album where I actually had access to data on the internet where I learned things—things that were pretty out there, mind you, from storytellers—like supposedly Phobos had an irregular orbit which made a lot of people in the past think it was an artificial satellite, meaning extraterrestrial, OK, OK. So I took advantage of those little elements to turn it into a long concept; we wanted it to be like the Dimension Hatröss of the 90s for us, like 10 years later, yeah. So we worked tremendously on the interludes. I'm trying to remember his name, I have a blank—James from Malhavok, he's the one who helped me make the interludes, James Cavalluzzo, yes that's it, and with Ivan from Men Without Hats; Ivan helped me with the lyrics for "The Tower," OK. He had already helped me for "Electronic" too, that's what's in the credits for that. Ah yes, I know why, because for the interludes, I went to Ivan's place because he had a collection of keyboards, synthesizers, and Ivan is the singer of Men Without Hats, of course, he's an old buddy. And I had already played with Men Without Hats, I did the Sideways album in the early 90s and a Canadian tour, we had a lot of fun by the way, and Ivan is still a friend. So yeah, I went to his place, to his studio, and I made samples of all his keyboards, they had the whole crew, oh yeah. And that's what I gave to James from Malhavok so we could play around with those sounds, we had fun making interludes. And he's an electronics genius, James, with industrial music and all that, but it's well done because...

Hugo Lachance: It's well done because, you know, electronic tweaking often ages poorly, but on Phobos it's perfect, yeah, super, super, I re-listened to the whole thing and it's perfect, yeah.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh, awesome. I had also done a little bit on the accordion—I did one at the end of "The Unknowns" on Nothingface—but here I did "Le Temps Mort," which represented in the concept the time when people gather their dead; there's like a small curfew to gather their respective dead, and I did an accordion part.

Hugo Lachance: OK, wow, super! The credits: released in '97, Hypnotic Records under Universal. Musicians: well, Eric Forrest, right, he's the one who was added. Music: basically you guys wrote all the music. And there's a track by Jason Newsted?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, during the 90s, Piggy, Jason, and I had a trio called Tarrat, T-A-R-R-A-T, OK. And we used to go to Jason's place in California, to his studio, just to jam, and we did improvisations, but we had also composed songs, OK. And Jason couldn't release those songs because he was under contract, but we had a ton of fun with him and he's a truly good friend. For Phobos, we decided to cover, with Jason's agreement, a Tarrat song, OK, "M-Body."

Hugo Lachance: "M-Body," right, yeah, OK, yeah, OK, OK, OK, that's good, perfect. And how did you—it's still pretty exceptional—how did you meet Jason, through a tour?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, when we played at the Stone in San Francisco, a legendary bar, the Metallica guys always came to see us and we bonded with Jason. He brought us to his house in—I think it was in Oakland back then—and he had a small studio, and we even played football with him, oh yeah, OK. And we did several recordings just for fun, and we stayed in touch over the years, and yeah, we've known him since '88, I think, OK, OK. Right around his arrival in Metallica, pretty much with ...And Justice for All, right, yeah, that's it, yeah. By the way, back then, it was just a sort of bongo, and obviously over the years, we saw him settle in better and better until he had an estate. OK cool, we'll have the chance to talk about that a bit later.

Hugo Lachance: So, Signal to Noise studio in Toronto, mastering by Brett Zilahi, mixed by James Cavalluzzo and Rob Sanzo, produced by Voïvod and Rob Sanzo, assistant technician Sylvie Desmarais, recording period March-April '97. Yeah, well back then, we spent a lot of time in Toronto, and for a couple of albums, we'd spend 3 weeks, 4 weeks in Toronto. We stayed at the Alexandra Hotel, which was very rock and roll, right downtown, and it was a great period for us, yeah, OK cool. And yeah, there are 13 tracks on it, and it ends with a King Crimson cover?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, and a tough one at that, "21st Century Schizoid Man." And the big difficulty was that in the studio, I didn't have eye contact with Piggy. Oh no, OK! So we had to do the song without seeing each other, and some parts are really, really hard. And Eric Forrest wasn't familiar with the song, so Piggy and I played the song without a click track, live, and without seeing each other. And after that, Eric overdubbed the bass and the vocals, but it was truly a feat to do that. Ivan was even in the studio that time and he was almost insulted, I remember. When we finished—we did like three or four takes, three or four versions, and then we chose one. But when we walked out and went into the room with the console, he was sitting there, and I will always, always remember it, he was saying: "You guys are psychos, you guys are psychos!" That's great! So, there you go for Phobos, OK. Anything else to add? Except that it was a period where, since we had gone back to being independent by doing licensing deals with slightly smaller labels, we were touring, touring a lot in Europe, in the US, and I remember that period as a time of traveling, oh yeah, all over the world. Was it during this period that you became like truly respected? Because you are respected by all your peers; basically, all the biggest metal bands know Voïvod.

Michel “Away” Langevin: It's hard to say or to answer a question like that, but...

Hugo Lachance: Is there a specific moment where you realized you had bonded with that community, that you had earned their respect?

Michel “Away” Langevin: I'd say it would be the year '90, when we did the North American tour with Faith No More and Soundgarden, and after that with Rush. I think that was the year everyone discovered us, and at that time, the song "Astronomy Domine" was playing on MTV, MusiquePlus, MuchMusic everywhere, and I think that's where we earned a lot of respect. Besides, I had seen Rush at the Forum and there were bands opening for Rush that got booed; people were there to see Rush and that was my fear. But when we played "Astronomy Domine," the crowd became louder than the music, but in a good way, yeah. It's—but it's quite a version you guys made, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a huge success, yeah. You gave it such a beautiful personality. Did you hear feedback from the Pink Floyd guys? We had to get David Gilmour's approval, and so he listened to it, approved it, and made sure the royalties went to Syd Barrett, who was still alive back then, OK. And just a quick anecdote like that: we were heading to play with Rush in Toronto, at Maple Leaf Gardens, and we stopped in Kingston to gas up the van, and the van never started up again, OK. The gear was in a rental cube truck that left for Toronto, but the van was stuck in Kingston, broken down. And then we saw a tour bus for a Montreal-Toronto organized trip that was heading to see the show, and we asked the driver: "Can we hop on?" He let us board, and we did Kingston-Toronto standing up in the bus! OK, and did people recognize you? People were laughing, like "What are you guys doing here?" Explaining it was super funny.

Hugo Lachance: Classic! All right, we're gonna continue with Voïvod.

3- VOÏVOD (Self-Titled)

Hugo Lachance: So, what would this specific period mean to you?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well, it stems from a couple of events. We had done the Kronik album in '98 with Voïvod featuring Eric Forrest, and during the European tour, we had a very serious accident where we rolled the vehicle about five times. Eric was thrown from the vehicle and very seriously injured; he was lucky to be alive. So he was in a coma for what, about ten days in Germany, and then he was finally transferred to Ontario near his parents' place, but he was in the hospital for maybe a year, oh yeah, OK, OK. We started up again in '99, we opened for Iron Maiden, OK, but then after that we went—that was in 2000, we went to Australia. But coming back from Australia, around the holiday season in 2000, Piggy and I had lost our momentum; we felt like our illusions had sort of evaporated, and so, during the holiday season in 2000, we decided to put an end to it, OK. So we had a meeting with Eric, we discussed all of that, and we decided to move on to other things. On the other hand, Piggy and I knew that we would eventually collaborate together, and in 2001, we called each other back and said, "Let's start a musical project again." At that time, he was doing the lighting for that beautiful theater on Saint-Laurent, Le Monument-National, oh yeah, OK, OK. And I was involved with Diane Dufresne, so yeah—but we really wanted to start collaborating again, though not necessarily as Voïvod, not necessarily as Voïvod. Then we got in touch with Snake, who told us: "I just opened a new restaurant, OK, I'll be ready in about a year." Then we thought of Jason. I called Jason, who had left Metallica by that point, and he told me: "I'm taking a bit of a one-year sabbatical, you know." So Piggy and I said to ourselves: "That's perfect, we'll take this year to compose an album." OK, and that's exactly what we did, and at that time, Piggy and I used a pretty unique technique because we shared a rehearsal space with bands like Grimskunk or Xavier Caféine or other Montreal people, and we would write stuff there. Piggy would send me—he would make me CDRs with guitar riffs, and I would try to map out the drums. Then I would learn his songs by heart on the guitar, just the guitar part, and then we'd go to the space where my drum kit was set up, and with a couple of mics, I would play his songs completely by myself, oh yeah, OK, yeah. That way, he ended up with a drum track captured with just a couple of mics to use for rough demos. After that, he would re-track the guitar over it, and it was funny because he would guide me through certain parts since Voïvod's music is quite complex; just sitting there trying to remember his riffs and the song structure was tough, and sometimes he'd wave at me, "the solo is right here, play the solo!", it was hilarious. Eventually, we ended up with a batch of songs for an album, and while we were making progress, Snake was writing lyrics in his spare time, and Jason on his end was tracking bass in his studio—sometimes it was right on his porch with a little recorder and his acoustic bass, yeah. So we moved forward like that during the year 2001, and it was in 2002 that we went to record it at the Record Plant in San Francisco. But before that, we went to his studio, Chophouse, which by then was located in the San Francisco suburbs, super well set up with a massive studio and everything. We spent some great time there piecing this album together, OK. And in 2002, we got offers to do shows with Dio and Motörhead; that's when Vincent Peake joined us to play bass while we were setting up the music, and we did a few shows with Vincent here and there, it was really fun. So in 2002, we recorded the album with Jason at the San Francisco Record Plant, and then in early 2003, we got the offer to tour all over the US with Sepultura, oh yeah, OK, yeah. So we did that, the whole United States, and then Jason got a call from Sharon Osbourne, OK—so he had left Metallica, and their bass player joined Metallica, so Sharon called Jason to join them. Then Jay calls me and goes: "I just got the offer to play for Ozzy." Right then I was like "ah, we're screwed, you know," and in the exact same breath he tells me: "She offered for Voïvod to open for Ozzy!" Oh, OK! So that was incredible, we toured all across Canada opening for Ozzy, and we did Ozzfest all over the US. At that point, Jason was playing two shows a day, OK, and he was trying to beat Paul McCartney's record of over three hours of performance. So it was highly demanding for Jason to pull off two shows a day and three hours of playing—he's a true warrior. By the end of it all, he was completely wiped out, you know. Besides, we were supposed to go open for Ozzy in Europe, but Ozzy had an accident, broke some bones, and canceled it, and Jason was glad, "oh yeah OK. I'll finally get to rest up." We were disappointed though, yeah, I understand. And I heard you had a great anecdote about Ozzy getting lost? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I got lost—I can't remember if it was in Calgary or somewhere else during the Canadian tour—where I took a wrong turn backstage and ended up in a corridor that wasn't lit anymore. So I tried to turn back, took another wrong turn, and I was getting more and more lost deep in the bowels of the arena, and guess who I stumble upon, also lost? Mr. Osbourne! Mr. Osbourne! So I brought him back to his security team, who were happy to see him again, and that was my encounter with Ozzy, pretty cool, ah wow! Yeah, it was a massive adventure nonetheless, right? Oh yeah, yeah, which was cut short unfortunately because we were in the middle of composing a double album when Piggy got a cancer diagnosis, and that was that.

Hugo Lachance: At that moment, was it his first diagnosis? Or I know that in '88 he had a tumor, a gland in his head, and he tested some experimental pills and it worked. We had actually canceled a US tour with Testament and Vio-lence because of that ordeal, but we ultimately did the tour later when he got the green light from his doctor, though just with Vio-lence, yeah. So that yielded a good album with "Gasmask Terror" or "Carry On," which was the single on it and was super good, you know. Yeah, great tracks on there, "Divine Sun," "The Multiverse," it's full of great songs. It's an album that's maybe more punk metal, less progressive, but I love this album a lot, even though it's a bit out of print right now, but we're working on it, yeah. It's not available on streaming platforms? We are in negotiations to re-release the Jason era, a bit like Noise did with the 80s Noise era, exactly. And eventually, we'd love to put out the Eric Forrest era too; there's a lot of material we'd like to gather, yeah, for sure.

Hugo Lachance: OK cool. So, self-titled Voïvod 2003, Chophouse Records, production by Brian Joseph Dobbs and Voïvod, music editing by Kent Matcke, Jeff Lefferts, and Enrique Gonzalez Müller. The musicians are the four of us, lyrics by Snake. I was searching the internet and came across a video of Dave Grohl talking about Voïvod, saying that when he was young, he was always looking for the weirdest stuff, and then he mentions Voïvod—pretty cool. And he also said he loved the accent. So my question—I don't know if anyone has asked this before—but my question is, how did guys from Kénogami—and I know how we speak English there—how did you learn to speak English that well?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well look, I learned it with Black Sabbath and a dictionary when I was young. But during the very first tours, we barely spoke at all; the first two or three albums, it was a mix of French and English, you see. Then at one point, Harris Johns in Berlin during Killing Technology, he goes: "Who is writing these lyrics?" Because I think his father was an American soldier based in Berlin, so he speaks perfect English, but his mother is German. So right away for Dimension Hatröss, a secretary from Noise Records came in to help us; she was originally from London, English, but she was living in Berlin. And she helped us anglicize it, oh yeah, because at first it was a bit rough, yeah, exactly. So we had people over the years who helped us a bit, but in Jason's case, I asked him at one point, "Can you help Snake out?", and he said, "No way." He wanted nothing to do with it; he said, "Snake talks backward like Yoda," and he goes, "I'm not touching that." "OK, true, that's definitely his style, you know." OK.

Hugo Lachance: So you recorded this album at the Chophouse studio?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well yes, we essentially built it in Montreal with rough demos, but after that, we went to the Chophouse in San Francisco to really polish it and do the multi-tracking. Once we felt it was ready, that was in 2002, we went to the Record Plant in San Francisco—OK, got it, because it's not listed in the credits, ah maybe, yeah.

Hugo Lachance: Photos, the cover artwork is obviously by Away, very simple with the Voïvod logo, and photography by Danny Clinch, hm hm.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Ah yes, we did those photos in New York when we were doing the mastering there; it was freezing, and we look like we're freezing in those photos, but it sets an atmosphere.

Hugo Lachance: Following that, in 2005, Denis "Piggy" D'Amour received a colorectal cancer diagnosis, and complications arose such that any surgery was futile. Piggy nonetheless wrote numerous songs to leave the rest of the Voïvod team a posthumous legacy. He died on August 26, 2005, surrounded by his family in a Montreal hospital. A year later, Katorz was released, the result of the legacy left by Piggy, I imagine. Oh yeah, at that time.

Michel “Away” Langevin: When we decided in 2004 to make a double album, OK. And we used the same technique where Piggy and I went to the space and I tracked drums without the guitar, but he had already composed the pieces, OK. Then he re-tracked the guitar over that, but it all came from his own ideas, all of it, yeah, OK. And early on, in March 2005, he had told me: "You know, I'm in pain and it wakes me up at night," and I said: "Well, go see a doctor." But we had so many plans with Jason, and he told me: "I'm afraid everything will collapse because of me." I said: "Yeah, but if you don't go see a doctor, that's where everything is gonna collapse for you first." So he went to see the doctor, and unfortunately, it was a cancer diagnosis. So toward the end, I spent the summer of 2005 visiting him at the hospital, and he told me: "You know, using Pro Tools on my laptop, I re-did the entire guitar parts along with the solos. It's just that the drums were done with a couple of mics at the rehearsal space." And he gave me the password to his laptop, and sure enough, the tracks were there, OK. And I had to re-record the drums—well, that was after his death, in early 2006. I had to re-track drums over songs that hadn't been recorded to a click track to begin with, which meant there was a lot of hesitation because I was trying to remember the songs; it's already incredibly difficult to track drums professionally, but especially since I had spent my entire life in the studio with Piggy, and now he wasn't there—he was just in my headphones, and it was deeply demanding. So much so that we did Katorz in 2006, shortly after Piggy's death—it was traumatic—and then we decided to take the double album and split it in two, OK. So Infini came out what, in 2009, three years later, because it had just been too demanding to... And by then it was confusing because we had reformed the band in 2008, but without Jason. Jason meanwhile was working on Infini, the entire Infini album, so for him, it was purely a studio thing, whereas the rest of us had gone back to touring with Daniel Mongrain, Chewy, and we had called back Blacky, who stayed for a few years, yeah. So there were sort of two lineups at the same time, OK, yeah, that's it, it was a confusing period. Basically, Piggy wanted his legacy to continue? Yes, well, he wanted us to do something with it, so he—and it required his consent anyway, and the consent of his family who handed me the laptop, and that was it; with the password, I managed to track down the Pro Tools files, OK.

Hugo Lachance: And how did that happen? Well, we're going to transition toward Synchro—well, Synchro Anarchy—but how did the choice of Dan Mongrain come about? Because those are some massive shoes to fill, it's not easy, you need the right person.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Two events happened. While the band no longer existed after the Katorz album, Snake and I decided to take a two or three-year step back, OK. And during that time, there was an event at Club Soda to celebrate Quebec metal and Piggy and all that, and Blacky, Chewy, Dan Mongrain were there along with members of Montreal bands—Pat Gordon, Jackson on drums from Barf—doing a Voïvod medley. And that's when I saw that Dan Mongrain is a being apart. I said to myself: "My God, he truly has Piggy's spirit, the approach." And he learned to play by listening to Voïvod's music, so—and also, I had participated in a farewell show event for Ghoulnatics, yes, where I played a song, and during the show, Dan Mongrain came up to play a song too. And at that moment, I had the exact same flash: this guy is exceptional, OK. He was the very first person who came to mind. When we were at the Club Soda event watching the Voïvod medley, we said to each other: "This guy is like a child of Piggy." It's true, it's a continuity, it's fascinating nonetheless. Then we got the offer from Heavy MTL in 2008 for the first edition to play alongside Maiden, Mötley Crüe, and a ton of bands during the festival, so they wanted us to reform for that festival. But Snake and I weren't convinced we wanted to do it. They made a great offer, and then there was a second offer because we said no, we said no. For the second offer, a third offer really, which was even bigger, our manager at the time, James MacLean in Toronto, told us: "If you say no to this, I'm sending someone to break your arm!" So then we thought, well OK, maybe we can try doing one show, and we didn't want it to feel like sacrilege without Piggy, but it went so beautifully. During the show, there were young kids, tons of young kids who couldn't believe they were finally seeing Voïvod in their lifetime, they never thought they'd see Voïvod. Word spread instantly, and then we got the offer to play with Judas Priest at the Bell Centre, oh yeah, OK. Then Monsters of Rock in Calgary with Ozzy and Judas Priest, an offer from Testament to play in Tokyo, OK, wow! And all of that was in 2008, and it just—it never stopped after that, OK. Ah, but that's cool because the demand was there, people were truly happy, and you stumbled upon the right person.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Absolutely, not just in terms of his playing, but his composing. Piggy's style wasn't quite like Dan, Chewy. Piggy was more old school, boogie, Hendrix, Jimmy Page, whereas Dan Chewy is far more surgical, everything is precise, it's a whole different world. But it's so advanced as a style of writing that it's a great challenge for me and I love it; I really love the return to progressive rock that we've embarked on over the last few albums.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, well listen, shoutout to Dan Mongrain, excellent work.

4- SYNCHRO ANARCHY

Hugo Lachance: We're gonna keep going with Synchro Anarchy. Now, this period is quite unique because it happened right in the middle of the pandemic.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, and so at that point, thank goodness we had toured a lot in 2019, and the last one we did was with Gwar in Europe, oh yeah. And when we came back, we did some jam sessions at the end of 2019 and early 2020 where we recorded everything, OK. Thank goodness we did that because in March, I think, everything ground to a halt, and then we no longer had access to our space and all that, but we had our jam banks. At that moment, with social distancing, each of us from our own homes, we got onto Logic Pro and started sharing files, putting them on Dropbox, so at that point, I started programming drums for the rough tracks, OK. Then we started piecing sections together and going "this works with that, that functions like this," and ultimately it made the album quite progressive because it often jumped from one idea to another pretty abruptly. So that gave a distinct style to the album. But the massive difficulty was that we didn't have access to a rehearsal room or a studio, and it's really in the practice room that it morphs into Voivodian material, let's say; we didn't have that luxury, OK. And we also really missed playing shows, so we started doing online shows in 2020 and 2021 where we played classic albums, Nothingface or Dimension Hatröss, in their entirety, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember the last one—we called them the Hypercube sessions—and during the final session, I remember we told ourselves: "OK, we have an offer to do a Century Media album, an album, what do we do?" But on the other hand, the deadline is pretty tight, OK. And we were sitting around a campfire, I remember, and we said: "OK, let's go, let's jump into the fire." Yeah, and ultimately, we worked like crazy so we could eventually get access to the studio, but with masks on, 6 feet apart from each other.

Hugo Lachance: Listen, with WD-40 we did the exact same thing here, the Projet 6 pieds was done right here. Jean-Loup was here, I was there, and we did the first part—I recorded my drums in my own space, sent them over, Alex tracked the bass, it happened exactly the same way, we developed a technique for that, made some good rough tracks, you know.

Michel “Away” Langevin: We developed the technique that we still use now where, for the new album, it's based on stuff we do in the practice room, but I program the drums for the rough tracks, OK. And I really try to program them exactly the way I play, right. And that means by the time I get to the studio, I know every single twist and turn of the songs, so it allowed us to develop a remote technique that lets us move forward pretty quickly. Because in the old days, it only happened in the rehearsal space once or twice a week, so we keep moving forward, always making progress thanks to Synchro Anarchy. And to our great surprise, we won a Juno! Yes, yes, yes, but it's an excellent, unique album, really good. And yet it's very progressive, very prog; The Wake and Synchro Anarchy are truly progressive. The Wake is beautiful too, and we won a Juno with The Wake as well. And the new album we're currently composing is very space-themed, progressive, like Phobos, and there are parts that sound a whole lot like Phobos when we drop into really heavy rhythms, a bit like Neurosis.

Hugo Lachance: It's Neurosis, yes, Neurosis, yeah. That's to say, I don't know if it fits the timeline, but it's pretty much around the same time.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well yeah, because we did shows with Neurosis and Crisis in the US, and then after that, we ended up touring with Neurosis in Europe. But by that point with Eric, we had already had the accident in '98, I think, but they are great friends, and they were influenced by Voïvod. And besides, we had opened for Neurosis at the Medley, and with Eric, that's where we invited Snake to come up and sing the song "Voïvod," I think, and that was kind of it, that's when he came back into the fold a bit.

Hugo Lachance: Wow! So Synchro Anarchy, let's look at the credits. So, year 2022, Century Media, copyright We Are Connected Music. Yeah, we decided to form a partnership among the four current members, so a label—no, it's not exactly that, it's more to license our material, but it's not incorporated or anything, it's just, in fact, we also have a kind of, what's it called again, a registered collective as well, OK cool. So, arrangements by Chewy; yeah, Chewy is the band's arranger, yeah, yeah. Radical Studio, that's his own studio, I imagine, right?

Michel “Away” Langevin: That's Francis Perron's place, it's just outside of Trois-Rivières, in Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel. Ever since the lineup with Rocky, starting with the mini-album Post Society, it's been over 10 years now that we've been tracking at Radical. And that's where we did our Hypercube sessions too, in his studio during the pandemic, and so the new album, we are currently tracking it there. And Francis is also the one currently mixing the symphonique album, he's the one who did our sound for the symphonique shows, and hearing that...

Hugo Lachance: Mastering by Maor Appelbaum, recording and mixing by Francis Perron, the whole thing published by Piggy Was Here.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, we kind of decided to also create a little publishing company with the new lineup called Piggy Was Here, OK, basically because you own your master tapes and everything, yeah, yeah, OK, OK cool.

Hugo Lachance: So, cover concept by Away, and photography by Catherine Deslauriers. Now, we talked about Dan, and we talked about Rocky too; yeah, how did he join the band?

Michel “Away” Langevin: It was actually—we were supposed to do it in 2014, we had a huge show at Jonquière en Musique, OK. But Blacky decided to quit the band right before, OK. And at that moment, Dan goes: "I know someone, I am absolutely certain he can do the job." OK, so we did an audition at the Cégep de Joliette where Dan teaches in the music department. And just like with Eric Forrest, it took 20 seconds for me to know he was the right guy, great attitude. And his kind of approach in terms of his playing style is exceptional, it's really, really advanced, OK. So we knew that with him, we could head toward compositions that were more fusion and...

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, but it's a great fit actually, I find.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Completely, truly completely. And we still get along so well, the chemistry is excellent on tour, the shows have a lot of energy. He used to play with Steve Hill before, right? Yeah, that's it, OK.

Hugo Lachance: Well listen, shoutout to Rocky, hey Rocky. And that's it, I would have loved to bring the whole band together today, but everyone is a bit scattered all over the place, not here with us, yeah, that's how it goes.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Denis' girlfriend fell ill and he has to take care of her. Dan with his studies and all that, with his teaching, he decided to take a break right now during the Christmas break. And Rocky is in Cancún playing a gig, oh yeah, OK, great, OK.

Hugo Lachance: No, well, shoutout to the guys, we'll catch them next time. Synchro Anarchy, anything else to add about this album?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Just that Synchro Anarchy was a real test to pull off, but we learned a whole, whole lot, and from there, it's like a step on a staircase that leads to the next album somewhere, yeah. Right, it's with this great—with this particular lineup that you guys learned to work together, I feel like it's going to propel you into the future, you know, and yes.

Bien reçu. J'ajuste les recommandations selon tes choix (la proposition 4B pour une brique, la proposition 5C pour s'accoter et la première option par défaut pour le reste). Voici la traduction de la PREMIÈRE MOITIÉ du document (qui s'arrête juste avant le segment des messages des invités surprise, au niveau de la transition vers Aut'Chose), tout en conservant la mise en page d'origine.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well, for the 40th anniversary in 2023, we decided to re-record some obscure tracks from our career and we released the album Morgöth Tales, and among other things, we re-did the first song, "Condemned to the Gallows," OK. I haven't listened to Morgöth Tales, so it's deep cuts that span across our entire career, along with a new song called "Morgöth Tales" which was composed for the album. And after that, we started composing material, and then we got the offer through—we were talking earlier about the article with Céline de Monchamp—that was originally for L'Itinéraire, the magazine L'Itinéraire. I'm highly involved with Le Bon Dieu dans la rue, L'Itinéraire, Les Impatients, things like that, and I bonded with Céline. It was an article sponsored by La Presse, and it was put online by La Presse as well, and printed in L'Itinéraire. And it was the principal bassoon player, Stéphane Lévesque, I think that's his name, from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, who saw the article and forwarded it to the production director of the MSO. She saw the name Richard Langevin, and since Diane Dufresne had already played with the MSO, she contacted Richard Langevin. And when I got back from touring, I had a message on my answering machine from Richard telling me: "The MSO is looking for you." So that's how—it's incredible, that's how projects come together sometimes, yeah. Ah OK, oh yeah, that's surprising, OK. But how did it go with the MSO? Did the people, the musicians, feel like playing Voïvod, or?

Michel “Away” Langevin: In any case, they had a great experience; they didn't expect such a beautiful reception, and the crowd's response between the songs—the applause was incredibly loud. And at one point, people—because the conductor, Dina Gilbert—at one point, people started chanting "Dina! Dina!", she had never experienced that, it was super fun. And then we got an offer in Quebec City, at the Grand Théâtre, with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and that's the one we recorded to release on vinyl and CD, and after that, we got offers to do them elsewhere, OK. But look, professional musicians need sheet music; how did you transcribe it, how did you do that? We actually had—there was a choice between three arrangers from the MSO, and there was one that I found—we wanted it to feel like a sci-fi movie soundtrack, OK, and among other things, a bit of concrete music like Planet of the Apes, so a bit retro but modern at the same time; anyway, it's hard to explain. And out of the three rough mock-ups we received, Hugo Bégin's was the one where I felt he grasped the assignment best. As soon as we heard his first mock-up, it sounded like Mad Max or, you know, an apocalyptic film, you know. And how did he make his mock-up, with? He programmed the drums and put in orchestral samples; he did a truly great job, he worked hard on it. But Dan Mongrain got highly involved in the process with Hugo Bégin because Dan teaches music, jazz, and all that, so he knows his stuff—sheet music, parts, and arrangements. In fact, on The Wake, he had already written a score for string arrangements for some tracks on the album, and he had also done a horn arrangement for the Jazz Festival in 2019 for the show at Club Soda, which we re-recorded in the studio for The End of Dormancy vinyl, OK, wow, OK. So he knows his way around arrangements, you know, and composing, all that, so he collaborated heavily with Hugo Bégin.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, I really can't wait to hear that; as you were saying, unfortunately I missed the show, but...

Michel “Away” Langevin: Ah, it's truly epic, yeah.

Hugo Lachance: I'll go next time.

Questions from the Public and Guests

Hugo Lachance: We're gonna move on to the segment because there are questions from the public—I did a callout, so questions from the public. There's Carl Bormann and Vinny Vinette from the band Les Ghouls who asked the exact same question—I don't know them, but anyways, the same question: the first time you played drums and the drummers who influenced you.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, the first time I played drums was Guy Desmeules—the Guy Desmeules store in Jonquière. I went to school not too far away, and during lunchtime, I'd go try out the drum kit that was on display in the store, and I was listening to the Beatles and all that, and I was very young—I was in Secondary 1, I think. So right away, I realized I had it, OK. But even younger, I had a friend who played—he had a band, his father had a band called the TD Boys, he was in the TD Boys, so it was the father and his sons playing weddings, all that. And he was sitting on the curb playing the Beatles on an acoustic guitar, singing in fake English, but he knew the chords. And I asked him, "How come you know that?", and he explains that he's in a band with his older brothers and all that. Then he takes me to his house, and his brother's drum kit was there, yeah. And when I saw that, with the cymbals looking like flying saucers, that was the real first time, OK, but I didn't know how to play at all back then. And it's funny because his brother who played drums and was older had hidden his drumsticks so we wouldn't play, and we cut up his chicken coop stakes so I could play! He was furious, anyway, good, yeah. But in any case, that's when I fell in love with it, with the drums. And after that, at school, I'd see the drum kit on display at GD, and I started banging on it and realized I had it. At the beginning, I was in my room with chicken coop stakes, with chicken coop stakes banging on my pillows! I had set up all my pillows and I was banging on the bed, on the pillows, the feathers were flying everywhere, my mother wasn't happy, I was trying to figure out how to play. And when I came across the drum kit at GD, I realized I really had it, I'm capable—I was able to do Beatles beats, which were ultimately the basic AC/DC beat. I wasn't able to do the "Honky Tonk Women" beat that I had discovered, all that—I wasn't able to do the poum-tchak-poum-poum-tchak yet, you know—but I was able to do the Beatles, and I eventually learned the Elvis beat, that one's tough, OK. That helped me when I discovered Motörhead, when I discovered—by the time I arrived to do the Motörhead beat, I already had it down completely, and that remains my favorite beat, and I've always kept it; there's one on every album. So I'd say probably in the mid-70s is when I really started to grasp how to play drums, and it was the Beatles.

Hugo Lachance: OK, well for me it's kind of the same thing; I went to Poitevin & Bouchard with my father, yeah, and I said: "I want a wooden dowel." You know: "Why do you want that?" "I want it." I get downstairs, I set up in front of my Solid Rock video cassettes, I watch Tommy Lee, and like you, I put the couch cushions out, then the movements, and the Stryper kit I think—that whole era, that famous independence came through that too.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Ah, that's it! Yeah, well, you know, for sure back then I didn't have a band or anything, but the guy at GD couldn't stand hearing me bang on the drums at lunchtime anymore, because instead of going to have lunch at my house, I went to play drums at GD and then I went back to class at 1 o'clock. Then one time he told me: "Look, if you give me a dollar, you can go play for an hour in the rooms where they gave drum lessons in the basement, wow!" So I mowed lawns and I gave him a dollar every day; I went there, I learned pretty quickly that way, wow, that's hot. Yeah, and we were talking about Messiah Force—the guitar player worked there at GD for a long time, yes, his name slips my mind, I know him well but his name slips my mind. Didn't he pass away recently? No, no, OK. There's the—ah no, no, it's another guitar player, the other guitar player, the soloist, yeah, Jean-Denis who passed away, yeah, yeah, OK, OK, shoutout to Messiah Force, yeah, that's it.

Hugo Lachance: Well, among the other questions from the public, Jean-François Ferland: "Hello. At the end of the song 'The Unknowns' on the Nothingface album, it's supposedly you playing the accordion. If that's the case, what is the context behind adding this piece of accordion to that song? Did you learn to play this instrument during your youth?"

Michel “Away” Langevin: No, I learned roughly around the time of Nothingface when I tried to make an ending for the song "The Unknowns," but I didn't really have any training, and we had to change the pitch of the accordion so it would match the chords, yeah. I put some on Phobos again; I haven't played a whole lot, I haven't played since the Phobos album in '97.

Hugo Lachance: OK, so the invitation is out there for you to play accordion on the next album.

Michel “Away” Langevin: I played on an album for the Doughboys, some friends, yeah, and John Kastner, and—ah yeah, and I had completely forgotten, I just remembered. So I've only had three experiences but I'm not very good, and sometimes people ask me to play accordion on a project and I say I don't know how to play; I don't even have an accordion anymore, I left it with one of the Men Without Hats brothers and I never got it back. Well, now the challenge has been issued.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah. And another question: "Did anyone play traditional music in your family?"

Michel “Away” Langevin: No, there are no real musicians in my family. For me, it really happened at GD, with the Beatles, Alice Cooper, Kiss, plus AC/DC, all that. But at home, there wasn't really—I was the one listening to music on the family sound system eventually, OK. I bought vinyl when I had enough money, when I had shoveled snow off drivevays or mowed lawns, yeah. My mother helped me buy my first drum kit which was a Sonor, a really good quality kit. It already dated back to the 60s; it was a sort of German imitation of Ringo Starr's drum kit, oh yeah, OK. But you didn't have the double bass drum? No, no, I got that in '83, early '84 maybe. But did you learn to play double bass drum at the very beginning of Voïvod? At the beginning of Voïvod, I had a tiny drum kit and there was no double bass drum; there's practically none on War and Pain. I really developed that style while composing the Rrröööaaarrr album with the Voïvod guys. And at that time, I went up to Montreal and back with my mother to buy a drum kit at Steve's, a massive kit that must have cost a fortune; we weren't that rich. My mother and my father were patient, oh yeah. At one point, I was on my tiny kit in my room, the Sonor, and I was banging away on it and thought to myself: "It must be loud downstairs." I went down—I was right above the kitchen, imagine, yeah. I asked my mother: "Is it loud?" "Stay right here!" And she went up and did a drum solo up there—man, I couldn't believe it! I moved the drums to the garage; I played wearing my winter hat and mittens because it made no sense. But you guys weren't wild, basically—you weren't Voïvod as I imagine, you weren't wild into alcohol and all that?

Michel “Away” Langevin: No, not excessive in that way, no, no. That's to say there were tours, we took full advantage of the parties, all that, but when it came to developing the band, we were highly, highly disciplined.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, that's it; no, but maybe that's why you had your parents' trust too, because it wasn't just anything.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, well at the same time, that's to say I had to continue my studies, Corey, I couldn't just stay home like that without going to school. That's why I ended up first at the Cégep de Jonquière in pure sciences, then in what they called unified engineering at the University of Chicoutimi, until we decided to move to Montreal eventually.

Hugo Lachance: Did you graduate from university?

Michel “Away” Langevin: No, no, I didn't finish because I dove into it—I did one year at university. On the other hand, I switched from chemistry to pure sciences at Cégep, so that means I stayed at Cégep a bit longer than I should have, OK, yeah, yeah.

Hugo Lachance: OK cool, your scientific side shows in your work too.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oui, well, I bought science magazines and I integrated that into my concepts because it truly is science fiction, yes, completely, you know—inventing stories, worlds based on scientific facts nonetheless. Without it spilling over into conspiracy theories, but all conspiracies start with something true somewhere, you know. Before, for sure, in my concepts, I tried to predict what was going to happen in 20 or 30 years, but now with Snake, we have a hard time predicting what's gonna happen; we just have to look at what's happening right now, and it's pretty science fiction as it is.

Hugo Lachance: OK cool. And for the second-to-last part of the interview, some people left you messages; now I'd ask you to put on the headphones, maybe plug them in—I realize they aren't plugged in, OK. Can you hear properly? Yeah, OK, so here is the first message.

Fabien Cloutier: Salut Away, it's Fabien Cloutier. There are tons of things I could tell you as a fan of your music because over the years, you guys have never been lazy; you've always continued to search, to explore, and through exploring you found things too, and you never forgot to be good through it all, so thank you. But also thank you for what you made possible—I'm thinking of a whole bunch of creators over the years. We saw you be born, we saw you evolve, we saw you stick to your ideas, and I think thanks to you guys, whether in music or in plenty of other artistic fields here, well, there are a lot of people who did things their own way a bit more, who listened to themselves a bit more, and who were perhaps more unique because they saw you beforehand sticking to what you loved and what you wished to do. So I say thank you for that, and I hope we'll cross paths at some point and hang out and shoot the breeze like guys from Lac-Saint-Jean—you have to say Saguenay, right?—like guys from the Saguenay and guys from the Beauce can do, OK, bye guys, see you soon!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Brilliant! Doesn't he wear Voïvod shirts?

Hugo Lachance: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, he's a buddy of Snake's, I think they were in sketches together for—he's an actor.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, that's it, I've seen him with a shirt a couple of times, and yeah.

Hugo Lachance: Well, when we did the Piggy Monument, he was an ambassador and he brought out his Outer Limits shirt, I think—in short, a white T-shirt. I think Snake was in one of his sketches at one point, playing a bartender or something; anyway, I might be mixing it up, though Snake knows a lot of actors. Thank you, Fabien, by the way. Snake—we discovered him with what would become Groupe Sanguin at the Cégep de Jonquière in theater; he did improv.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Ah yeah, OK, yeah, well, I knew him since high school, but it was at Cégep when I saw him do improv at one point, I went: "Ah, him—we were looking for someone theatrical!" OK, ah well yes, eh, well yes, it shows. The second one.

Vlad (Hopera): Hey, salut Away, it's Vlad from Hopera. I'm sending you a quick message to send you a thank you—in fact, several thank yous. A musical thank you first, obviously, to thank you for what you've done for the world of music. Pioneers, influencers obviously—not today's influencers, I can hardly picture Snake doing influencing with his phone! Influencing the world of music the way you did, in 2026 to still see international bands talking about you as a source of influence, a source of motivation, a source of creation. A thank you for everything you've done, thank you for still being here, thank you for still innovating—the concerts with the symphonic orchestra are insane. Thank you for what you're going to do because obviously we still expect a lot from you. A human thank you too—ah, thank you for knowing you. It's been about ten years, more than ten years now since you rolled into Hopera on a Sunday, I think, for a show in Jonquière; the place was closed, we re-opened for you, and from one thing to another, well, obviously I think we got into the habit of crossing paths, seeing each other, hanging out. Thank you for your friendship; know that you will obviously always be among our friends, whether with the fermenter or our tasting center. And I think we can officially say that every single day, you are with us. We can't unhook it, unfortunately, but Piggy's old vinyl of War and Pain is always with us; whether it's his guitar or his old frames, you will always be part of the Hopera family. Thank you for appreciating us, and a huge thank you for everything, and keep up the good work—we're still waiting for another 40-45 years of career! We love you, and we'll see each other very soon to have a little brew in Jonquière, in the motherland, thank you!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Vlad, thank you, Vlad! Yeah, I think that was the show where we went to Jonquière en Musique where they gave us the title of ambassadors of the Saguenay and we signed the golden book and the plaque and all that; I think that's where we met Vlad, if I remember correctly.

Hugo Lachance: Oh, he's a thoroughly good dude.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, yes, yes, but I find it cool that he gets involved in the musical community and with the whole podcast too. And he also mentions the influence—you are an influence for many of the greats in music; how does it feel to sense that?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Ah well, you know, for sure it's truly a beautiful tribute that there are people who are really important in the music industry like Dave Grohl. Listen, his last show here next door at the Verdun Auditorium, he stopped everything to greet me. I had to stand up with my beer—cheers! Everyone was applauding me, follow spot, well—and there are many bands too that became bigger than us in terms of success and all that, Meshuggah, Fear Factory, and they always mention us in interviews as a primary influence and all that. And that—that is a beautiful, you know, it's a beautiful tribute. There are people who would be insulted because they'd think "they copied us," but we don't look at it that way; we see it as a tribute that people draw influence from what we did back then or now, and it doesn't bother me. Whether it's people like Tool, or—and obviously at the beginning, I'm never sure, it could be like part of a mutual appreciation, let's say, of Killing Joke, you know, but eventually, we end up sharing the stage with those bands at festivals in Europe where they tell us, "yes, yes, we were influenced by Voïvod," and that confirms it for us.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, and in fact, what is happening to you, you fully deserve it—a source of pride, and it's not for nothing either that you have all these honors finally coming back to you after 40 years anyway, right.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, in fact, we are more and more popular; yeah, it's crazy.

Hugo Lachance: Well, you carry it well. We'll continue, a slightly longer message but very heartfelt.

Voici la traduction de la DEUXIÈME MOITIÉ du document (incluant les messages de Roxane, Éric Forrest, Jason Rockman, Luc Lemay, Émile, ainsi que les projets futurs et la conclusion), tout en conservant la mise en page d'origine.

Roxane (Enfant Sauvage): Allô Michel. Um, I don't know if you recognize my voice, we don't speak face-to-face all that often. Anyway, it's Rox, Rox from Enfant Sauvage, among others, and I was asked to say a few words for you. I was super honored to take part in the podcast you're doing with Hugo; I assume the questions and the interview are interesting because it's always interesting with him. So, it's quite unique because, from what I remember, Voïvod has pretty much been part of my life, part of my soundtrack since I was quite young, you know. I vividly remember Voïvod's music videos back when I watched MusiquePlus; they really left an impression on me. So after that, I have to admit I was really, really happy in 2017 on the Plains of Abraham when you played with Metallica for the Festival d'été. And then, that sort of last-minute pop-up gig you agreed to do near Le Knock-Out—I was truly, truly happy. It was magnificent; it's honestly one of my best memories of a spontaneous Voïvod concert like that. In fact, I've seen you live really often, and above all, I remember that sort of message I passed along to Santa Claus as a little joke, and then you guys actually showed up at my shop! I was just so, like, I was a bit in shock; I was like, OK, they are actually rolling into my shop, so thank you so much. And then, I remember we crossed paths again in 2018 at L'Anti, and that's where we spoke a bit more because we were celebrating Lucien's 70th birthday. And what I found really interesting was that when I started singing, I was genuinely impressed and, you know, I was—I was a bit of a beginner when it came to vocals with a band; usually I was behind the drum kit, so there you go. You—well you among others, along with the other guys too—really made me feel confident. I distinctly remember you telling me that my voice sounded like the female vocals in Crass; that left a big impression on me and it actually reassured me at that moment. I went, "OK cool, you know, he kind of appreciates what I'm doing and how I'm handling my shit." We crossed paths again later in 2019, I think, sharing the same stage at L'Impérial—I was highly honored once again—Enfant Sauvage and Voïvod. And since that time, well, I think we run into each other here and there, and I really wanted to highlight, over all this time, your kindness, your gentleness, and your accessibility. Thank you again for drawing the cover for Enfant Sauvage following a casual request like that; so when I talk about accessibility, that's exactly it. So, well there you go, I hope everything is going great; we'll see each other soon anyway for another performance. In short, we've already done others together with Aut'Chose. Thank you again for all your musical input, your personal input, so on that note, I wish you a great end to the interview and look forward to crossing paths again. And thank you again for being the magnificent person that you are and that you will probably always be, I hope, so there you go, bye-bye!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Thanks Rox, that's cool! Ah yes, we love Rox a lot.

Hugo Lachance: I edited out some parts because she was being very spontaneous, it lasted about 5 minutes I think, but she says hello to your girlfriend too.

Michel “Away” Langevin: We did Pouzza Fest—yes, Nathalie absolutely adores Roxane—and we did Pouzza Fest together not long ago. And Aut'Chose soon, at La Sala Rossa; it's funny because the pop-up gig near Le Knock-Out was the morning after the Metallica show. When we opened for Metallica, it was packed—there must have been 100,000 people, it was insane. For me, it was like a bit of an abstract mass, and the next day it was right on the street with passersby, squeegee kids, and—and I found that more stressful than the previous night's show because it was real eye contact, you know, and it was—it was truly a completely different context, we absolutely loved it.

Hugo Lachance: Cool, can we take a quick detour through Aut'Chose?

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, of course, that is quite a mind-blowing project.

Hugo Lachance: How did this project of reviving Aut'Chose come to life?

Michel “Away” Langevin: It was Ron McGregor, who is a photographer and an old buddy of Voïvod's since the mid-80s, and he was taking care of Aut'Chose's new website and is a great, great friend of Lucien's, yeah. And at one point, he called me and said: "Lucien and Jacques Racine, Aut'Chose's guitar player, would really love to reform but with a solid band, you know." And I said: "Well, for sure Piggy would flip out because Piggy and I used to listen to Aut'Chose." So then I suggested Joe Evil from Grimskunk to Ron, and Vincent Peake on bass. And we did that for what, about fifteen years, but obviously Piggy passed away right when we did the Aut'Chose reunion show—it was early 2005, at Café Campus. And that's where Piggy was feeling really unwell, and after the show, we went to Multison studio, I think, and we did a live-in-the-studio performance to record and make the album Chansons d'épouvante. And right after that, Piggy went to the hospital and barely ever came out. So at that moment, Martin Dupuis covered some—we had commitments, Martin Dupuis played guitar—and yeah, from Groovy Aardvark, then Alex Crow, with whom I had played in Caféine and in the band Cosmos, a prog band we had together. In Cosmos, he played keyboards but he's an excellent guitar player, and he's the one who took over. So it's with Alex, Joe, and Vincent that we're going to do the tribute show to Aut'Chose for the Taverne Tour, hm hm. We also did it at the FME, the latest FME, along with, let's say, modern poets and poetesses from Lucien's school of thought. So it's truly a beautiful show full of emotions with TEKE::TEKE at the FME, and so we're doing that again with Enfant Sauvage at La Sala Rossa on February 13.

Hugo Lachance: Ah OK cool cool, that will have already passed by then, but oh well. Well, thank you Roxane for the message, and everyone go listen to Enfant Sauvage, it's just too insane, it's insane, it's insane. Let's keep going.

Eric Forrest: Good evening everyone. Tic tac tabernac, what's going on, Forrest here, hello! Thank you very much for the invitation, talking a little bit with us and talking a little bit with—it's magic, incredible memories with very interesting. Interesting was Piggy going to buy a new Digitech thing, I think, and him for more space sounds or something, and I think it helped a little bit, a lot actually, with the creation. Um, what else can I say, uh yeah there was uh actually in fact Voïvod released the—the new record, uh it was a privilege to be part of that, and see you soon September 2026, same thing anyway, thank you very much to everyone for the support, and Eric Forrest, thank you for the message.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Thanks Eric! We're still in touch with him; he often comes up on stage to sing the track "Voïvod," "Tribal Convictions," or lately the song "Rise" from Phobos because we actually re-did it on Morgöth Tales. We asked Eric to sing on the album, and we asked Jason to sing a song from the Jason era—well, not to play bass, but to sing on the song "Rebel Robot" from the Jason era.

Hugo Lachance: Ah, but thank you Eric for doing it in French because I said it would surely please the listeners here.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, well, he's been in Toulouse for a long time because of his surgeries; it's a climate that is better suited to—ah yeah, OK, OK, I see, OK, well thanks Eric, much appreciated. Let's keep going.

Jason Rockman: Hey, salut guys, it's Jason Rockman. Look, 2026 has just begun, but when I think back to 2025, probably the three concerts I loved the most all year were the three shows where I saw you with the two symphony orchestras, the one in Montreal and the one in Quebec City. Honestly, probably the best Voïvod shows I've ever seen because it was truly special. So for 2026, more Voïvod with the symphonies and more music in general from the four of you. Love you guys, and you already know that, thanks!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Jason, thank you, Jason! J is a good friend, Jason. We run into him often for the film We Are Connected at Fantasia, and he was at Meshuggah with the Canadiens mascot, backstage, hyper metal. Yeah, he's a—he's a good guy, a good guy, well thanks Jason, that's cool.

Hugo Lachance: I also have a text from Luc Lemay—yes cool, from Gorguts—and regarding the note for you: "You can simply pass along to him that I have immense respect for his work and his artistic approach. We need a second journey in the vein of 'Jack Luminous'!"

Michel “Away” Langevin: Oh OK, OK, yes. Yeah, that's quite a challenge; in fact, it was a challenge that Mark Berry, who produced The Outer Limits, had thrown at us because he felt there was a song missing on The Outer Limits and he had told Piggy: "Are you capable of composing a new song?" And Piggy said: "Not only that, but I'm gonna make you a 20-minute one!" And he said: "OK, let's see," and yeah, we rose to the challenge. We haven't played it live very often though—wow, it's such a great track on top of it.

Hugo Lachance: Yeah, I think we're gonna put it back in rotation.

Michel “Away” Langevin: We realized recently that we had played it in Moscow, yes, several years ago now, but I had completely forgotten. It's because Dan Mongrain dug up a DVDR that someone gave us from the Moscow show and he goes: "Hey, we were playing 'Jack Luminous' in Moscow!", I had forgotten, oh yeah, OK wow, that's wild.

Hugo Lachance: So, moving on, one last message from a fan you probably know.

Émile: Salut guys. Uh, I want to say congratulations on your 40-year, 44-year career. For me, from the start, I've been a fan of Voïvod since the age of 16-17, something like that. Before that, I listened to classic heavy metal, but whatever, so that's that. For me, you guys—so yeah, congratulations, and after that, I wish you plenty more great years for 2026 with the shows on tour. And I'll leave you with a little "Astronomy" just like that.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yeah, that's it, it's Émile, yes, I know Émile! Thanks, Émile. I went to meet—the Aut'Chose vinyls were re-released last year and there's a little shop over in Joliette, a high-fidelity audio boutique, and they carry vinyl; my mind is blank, I forgot the name, but I met Émile there during the launch of those vinyls, OK, OK. Yeah, he's the one who also wrote me the Osbourne anecdote, ah OK yeah, thanks Émile, that's super kind. He jams sometimes with Rocky and Dan from time to time; Rocky does a lot of jams at the Bistro de Paris, Jojo, and at Le Zaricot I think, that's it, and I know he participates in those things.

Hugo Lachance: Exactly, so no, I'm really glad, thanks to the people who left messages, it's really cool.

What's Next for Voïvod

Hugo Lachance: Listen, we're gonna wrap up on this, but first, what's on the horizon for Voïvod? Because there is a lot going on!

Michel “Away” Langevin: Yes, yes, things are shaking right now. Right now, the first order of business is tracking the new album and mixing the symphonique album. But in March, we have shows in the US, OK. In June, we have a tour in England and a couple of festivals, including one in Iceland—we've never been there, and that's with the band Midnight, OK, a really good band in the vein of Motörhead, right, OK. Then in July and August, we have festivals and shows all over Europe, OK. That hasn't been announced yet, but we're currently setting all of that up. The mini US tour is with the band BAT—BAT is guys from Municipal Waste, oh yeah, OK, OK, OK. Then, we have offers to do the symphonique show but in 2027, yes, yes, yes, yes, OK. So this year, the symphonique album will be released, we'll finalize the tracking for the studio album, but that will surely come out next year. But so, several shows this year, and what else—well, we have the documentary that we'll eventually release on DVD, We Are Connected by Felipe Belalcazar, who did the documentary on the band Death. There's Jeff Wagner's book, Brave New Voivod, which is already out, it just came out—a massive 550-page book. Um, surely some other things I've forgotten. Keep an eye on Chicoutimi as well for the 350th anniversary; there are things that are going to happen, yes, yeah, Chicoutimi's 350th, we're preparing something big that's quite multidisciplinary, off we go.

Hugo Lachance: Listen, and you personally, are there any projects coming up for you in terms of your artistic creation?

Michel “Away” Langevin: For me, actually, in the past I was heavily involved with a ton of musical projects, but I've pretty much put that aside because Voïvod is—I'm so busy with Voïvod that I'm truly focused on Voïvod. On the other hand, on tour, I do drawings at the end of the day. I do a drawing that represents my day in each city, OK, and I'm currently putting together a book with all those drawings—literally thousands over the years, over the decades—so I'm in the process of assembling a book with that, yeah.

Conclusion

Hugo Lachance: Listen, thank you so much, yes, for being here; look, we could have talked for hours, but I'd love to do an episode with you where we just talk about art, that would be really, really... Well, thank you for being here, thank you for Voïvod, thank you for being so accessible. I think Roxane was completely right about that, so thank you, thank you.

Michel “Away” Langevin: Well, thank you, I'm glad to have taken part, cool.

Hugo Lachance: Well, thank you to you, the listeners, thank you to Hopera, thank you to Musicopratik for lending us the space—go check them out, they're really cool! We'll see each other again for another episode of L'Album Podcast!