An Interview with Chewy of Voivod
Chewy, Snake and Away from Voivod at the Manchester Academy 2 on November 30th 2019
Voivod, are one of the most interesting acts to emerge from the eighties thrash boom. As our reviewer played avoid the beetroot juice with GWAR, his satanic majesty sat down somewhere dryer with guitarist Chewie.
“Great to meet you and thanks for taking the time to talk to Rockflesh. Can you tell us how the current European tour is going? Has the continent been treating you well?”
The shows are pretty packed, a lot of people are showing up which is great because during the period up until Christmas. There is always a lot of tours going on across Europe at this time of year, but we have managed to draw people ,so it is very positive. We had a few problems with the tour bus so we didn’t get a lot of sleep. I hope it didn’t show on stage. We got the energy from the crowd and the adrenaline to deliver. It has been a tough start regarding the bus situation. We changed 4 drivers, we have had 2 different buses and 2 temporary buses in between. It’s hard when you are jet lagged, you play your show, you go to bed late, you have to get up early. We almost got on fire, but everybody is safe and healthy.
“Well, it didn’t show on stage at all!”
Thank you!
I”t was my first Voivod gig. You started your set with more thrash at the beginning then went more proggy in the middle before finishing with more thrash?”
Welcome in! Oh totally, Voivod has always been about exploring and experimenting with obviously the thrash scene at the beginning in the early 80’s, they were pioneers of that genre, but after the 2nd and 3rd album, they put a lot of progressive music elements. They were big fans of King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Genesis and also the prog scene was pretty big in Quebec around the 70’s. Because of all those bands, that went to play in Quebec, the French province of Canada produced a lot of progressive bands at the time so all of this influenced the band and it became part of Voivod sound.
“As a band known for their intelligent take on metal, Gwar make strange tour bed fellows.”
I guess the link between both bands is that they started as sci-fi characters, like monsters coming from space or Antarctica, and Voivod has a little bit of the same story at the beginning, about an imaginary world.
“I guess, a different take on a similar subject matter”
They are also good friends of the band since the 80’s, they are really funny and their shows are very entertaining. We do get along very well and people turn up at the shows so I think whilst it makes an improbable bill on paper, it actually works very well as a live show.
“One of our writers and tonight’s reviewer, Stewart believes “Dimension Hatross” is the most underrated record ever made. How did it feel at the time making stuff so far removed from your peers?
It came from the progressive music which influenced the band, also classical music like Debussy, Bartók, Stravinsky,Penderecki, Shostakovich and also movie soundtracks like Mad Max. This made the music less thrash and more sophisticated. And there is a story to it, it is a concept album so you have progression following a timeline. I wasn’t in the band during “Dimension Hatross” but it was one of the best record out there during those years which is still relevant today. It is a journey to another dimension, all the imagery, the layout of the album with the album cover is very intricate and unique. It takes you to an imaginary world with a certain vibe which if you get it, you become a fan for life.
“How does it feel now that every band is doing prog and rhythmic time signatures?”
I wouldn’t call Prog every bands that have odd time signatures, it isn’t really the essence of prog. It is the development of music, thematic, themes that are developed. If the themes are more complicated with changes of time signatures and it adds to the song, go for it, but it is not because you have that kind of elements that it should be defined as prog. I am not good with etiquette anyway, with labeling a genre. It helps categorizing everything, its good for clothes, we want to know if it small, large or medium, but with music it is different. If you can create a unique style that you can describe with few labels but it quite doesn’t belong anywhere, when your band has its own sound which is hard to describe, I think the goal is achieved. You have your own identity in the world of music in general, not just metal, it is just music.
I think Voivod achieved that at a very early stage of their career and that is why I became a big fan at the age of 11, I have always been a big fan until I played in the band, I have now been in the band for almost 12 years. What is amazing is that all the elements that got me interested as a kid are still there today, conceptual, musical universe they have created
“In the same vein and i know it maybe hard to talk about it but what do you think Piggy would have made of your progression as a band?”
When we started in 2010-11 to write for the “Target Earth” Album, I had these worries during the first stage of the writing but having been a fan of the band from a very early age in my musical journey, I thought “I don’t have to fight my nature because it is my part of my main influence”, the writing of Piggy and the music of Voivod is part of my musical DNA, so when I let go of that pressure, it became natural and I didn’t ask myself any questions. I brought ideas to the space where we jammed and together it became very quickly some Voivod songs as soon as Away and Snake added their parts. They never refused any of my ideas on a basis that it wasn’t enough Voivod. We jammed, transformed the matter, once the ideas are out there, it isn’t yours anymore, it doesn’t belong to you. It has its own entity and you have to feed it with good ideas, painting a picture with the colours of everybody in the band. The song becomes a reflection of their inner artistic personalities. Our job is to make it the best we can together. I think that was a very similar process with Piggy as well, he would bring a lot of ideas, forge and sculpt the air, sculpt the audio until it becomes alive. Music is waves in the air that you have to manipulate to create this marvellous thing which doesn’t exist any other way.
“With your latest album “The Wake” reinforce the fact that there is always an evolution in your sound sound. Given that you have been doing this for forty years, how do you ensure that you are not stagnating and always musically moving forward?”
Our creative process is more natural and we do not think too much about it because the less you have on your mind, the easier it gets to channel your creativity, be spontaneous and improvise a lot. A melody will end up on the record like the melody of “Absolute Being” that Snake sang when I brought the riff, first thing he sang was the melody your hear in the record, I stopped the band and said “what did you just sing? That is just perfect. Let’s record it right away”. The first ideas are often the right ones. If you don’t let this happen, it becomes too calculated, like you are trying to control the music.
“Do you find it hard to stay inventive?”
It is the most fun part about the process for me as a composer. Some people don’t have that talent so to speak, some people are performing or interpreting which is great, it is a great talent to have and some are great at writing or both. Personally, I think you have to be in the right frame of mind, after an album like “The Wake” where you work very hard, you are emotionally drained. It is only a year later, after having released the album that I feel l am ready to start writing again. I have new ideas that pops in my head because I have once again room in my head, there is energy coming back.
“Are you likely to go straight back in the studio?”
We are pretty much at the end of the support cycle of our last album “The Wake”, we have been on a great journey, we won Juno in Canada, best Metal album of the year, it is like the Grammy, we have been invited to the Jazz festival in Montreal, I wrote a brass quintet arrangement for one of the song, there was a saxophone solo, so there was a lot of exciting stuff, we played on our province music celebration and that was on TV a few weeks ago. We have been invited to tour with a lot of bands and attends a lot of festivals. It was really a great year. We played in Japan, in Australia, Europe, United States, Canada and we have plans to go to South America soon. So now, as the touring cycle is almost over, we need to go back to writing. The band isn’t going to last forever, so we feel a bit of urgency to go back in the studio. Since Rocky got in the band, the line up has been very stable, it has been very inspiring to work and tour together, it is easy going so it is a good time for us to do another album/tour cycle.
“Regarding concept albums such as “ The Wake” and others , can you tell us more about your thoughts behind them whether the story or music comes first?”
Actually, we write the music first, we jam together and Snake usually end up singing melodies over without words, finding his way like a snake?
“Is that where his name come from?”
No, but it is good analogy. The songs take form and the melodies inspire him for a subject, mood or landscape. With the ambience of the music, some words will jump at us. Snake told me yesterday, do I see a desert, do I see water, what are the elements implied in the imagery, so it starts from there with a very vague draft and as we develop it a bit more, it becomes a story. It is a journey towards a finished song and usually we don’t even remember how the first draft or first verse were. If you were to compare the 1st draft with the final version of a song, you would probably think of it as 2 different songs. I have to mention as well that Snake is a fantastic storyteller, so it does help.
“Finally, regarding any future plans for 2020. Is there further touring, festivals in the pipeline or a break before any future record.”
i have wrote a bunch of ideas, recorded them but we haven’t jammed together with these ideas so that is what we are going to do in early 2020, get back to the jam space and just create new music. We also some project in the making to put a great ending note on “The wake” album. We are hoping to release some interesting versions of songs but I can’t say more than that as it isn’t official. It should be a great surprise for the fans and for all music aficionados to discover Voivod in an another way. So it is all very exciting. We are also doing festivals in the summer, I think we are going to book a tour around the Wacken festival, so hopefully it will work out. In the UK, we haven’t played Bloodstock in 7 years and Download in 10, I think.
“So, you are definitely due to play UK festivals, let’s hope you get invited, it has been far too long.”
It would be great for sure!
Thanks Chewie, great to speak to you.