Never say die
Not even the passing of Voivod’s founder can keep the legendary Quebec metal outfit from realizing their vision

BY Chris Bilton September 16, 2009 21:09

VOIVOD
open for Down Fri, Sep 18. Kool Haus, 132 Queens Quay E. $34. 8pm.

The story of Quebecois thrash metal veterans Voivod is almost perfectly emblematic of the trajectory of heavy metal over the past 30 years. Gaining popularity in the ’80s as an extreme and sophisticated musical force, the band bumped up against grunge in the early ’90s and then faded into a years-long hiatus as nü-metal reigned, only to find that here in the 21st century’s classic metal revival, they’re more respected than ever.

But there’s a further bittersweet quality to the Voivod story; their past two albums, 2006’s Katorz and this year’s Infini, have been completed and released since the death of guitarist and founding member Denis “Piggy” D’Amour. How these records came to be is the stuff of mythmaking: when Piggy grew increasingly ill after being diagnosed with colon cancer, he spent what were ultimately his dying weeks recording the guitar parts for both albums in his home. On his deathbed, he summoned long-time friend and bandmate Michel “Away” Langevin in order to give him the codes to his laptop — in which a heavy-metal legacy was stored.

“The guitar tracks for Infini are the very last tracks that we wrote as a band with Piggy,” says Langevin on the phone from Montreal during a brief break from the band’s summer festival schedule. “It’s a miracle that this album even exists.”

According to Langevin, they had started working on a considerable amount of material back in 2004, making demos of the songs on the cheap just to get them down on tape. “After we wrote those 23 songs, Piggy went back to his apartment with the laptop that Jason had given him, and with Pro Tools he re-recorded all of his guitar tracks professionally,” he explains. “When he passed away I didn’t know that all of his solos were done and all of the effects, he had doubled the rhythm — it was perfectly recorded and perfectly performed.”

Turning those songs into two proper albums was, understandably, a less fortuitous experience. With former Metallica bassist and Voivod member since 2002 Jason “Jasonic” Newsted at the helm, the band (which also includes original singer Denis “Snake” Bélanger and long-time bassist Jean-Yves “Blacky” Thériault) set to work adding proper drum parts and beefing up the guitar sound. In the trailer for the upcoming Voivod documentary by director Sam Dunn (Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey), we see the band dealing with the loss of Piggy while they work on his music. “Those sessions are a bit blurry in my mind because it was a few months after Piggy’s departure,” Langevin recalls.

In the event that the name Voivod doesn’t ring a bell, what you need to know is that this thrash institution began its unlikely ascent from the northern Quebec town of Jonquière back in 1982 as a hash-addled hybrid of punk and metal steeped in nuclear and Cold War paranoia. Voivod earned much respect from metalheads the world over for their idiosyncratic prog-thrash epics.

Listening to late-’80s albums like Dimension Hatross and Nothingface today, you can hear elements of what became mathcore, metalcore and just about every other subgenre under the blackened sun. “We were trying to play futuristic music,” says Langevin. “Maybe the sound of the recording might be a little bit ’80s, but musically we were trying to be as far ahead as possible. But we didn’t really overthink it — to us, it was just metal mixed with King Crimson and hardcore [punk].”

Of course, nobody said being futuristic was easy, or profitable. “There were a couple of occasions where the band was Piggy and I, just writing material for a couple of years while there was no band at all,” says Langevin. “These were years where we had to soldier on. We didn’t want to be put down by that and become depressed or become bitter musicians. We were always writing material, and so when it was time to start a new project there was always like 50 songs ready to develop.”

So what's he gonna do now, join Megadeth?

Seriously, Megadeth gotta be due for another drummner or bass player or guitar player or hairdresser change by now!