Published at 1:01 am. Updated at 11:00 a.m.
At that time, Guillaume Beauregard had a rather modest idea of what success was. “I remember working at a ski resort and spending all my shifts listening to CISM [la radio de l’Université de Montréal] » says the man whose group, Vulgaires Machins, had not ventured outside Granby much. “Intravenous pedophilia [tiré du premier album des Marmottes] I played a lot and for me back then, touring with CISM was what success was all about. »
Around twenty years after the group’s dissolution, the mark that the Marmottes Aplaties left in the big little history of seriously dubious music continues to be confirmed. After putting their discography back into circulation in 2018 (on vinyl and online), the trio, consisting of singer and guitarist Bruno Lamoureux, bassist Sébastien Goyette and drummer Martin Lussier, starts the engine of their car to put all these puppets together with some shows impress Montreal, Quebec and Alma.
“Because they were one step ahead of us, they made us want to play in the same leagues as them,” Beauregard continues. They had so many great hooks, crazy levity and ridiculous lyrics. For display they created a kind of magic. »
Like friends
The Marmottes Aplaties were formed in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu by three high school friends who were barely 15 years old when they recorded their first demo cassette (Truck, 1994). was able to follow this example.
“Les Marmottes is the kind of band that made you want to make music,” says actor (and drummer) Marc-André Grondin, one of the group’s most enthusiastic apostles. In November 2018, the Ecrapoutis mammals offered him the surprise of a visit to the set of En direct de l’univers, one of those incredible moments that France Beaudoin’s show evokes.
PHOTO ÉRIC MYRE, PROVIDED BY ATTRACTION
The flattened marmots on the set of Live from the Universe
It’s like being told that you don’t have to be a virtuoso: if you’re good and have heart, that’s enough. They always seemed to be having fun, they were doing their best, and besides, you had the impression that they were your friends.
Marc-André Grondin
As introverted as he is, Olivier Niquet was for a time the singer of a basement band called Out of Range, which performed certain skate-punk anthems by NOFX, Lagwagon and No Use for a Name. “And when the Marmottes arrived, it was refreshing to hear that music, but in my language,” recalls the man whose brainstone has every word of the album 1001 Songs to Improve Your Meals (1996) imprinted on his brain. Including “The Boy Scouts,” “A Golfer’s Revenge,” and… Intravenous Pedophilia.
To this day I couldn’t tell you what NOFX or Lagwagon were singing, I have no idea what their message was. As for the marmots…well, I understand there weren’t any!
Olivier Niquet
Destroy in the Bell Center
Bruno Lamoureux, now 45, works as an artistic director in a publishing house, Sébastien Goyette at a secondary school and Martin Lussier as a professor in the department of social and public communication at UQAM. He is also perhaps the only professor at UQAM to have organized a spaghetti wrestling match (during the release of the Marmottes’ second album, Episode Sangre, in 1999).
It’s Bloody Episode that Destroy, the group’s signature song, whose music video parodying the Godzilla films has probably received as many airplays on MusiquePlus as the Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way. A hymn to the constructive power of destruction, driven by one of the most menacing and electrifying bass lines in the history of Quebec rock.
“MusiquePlus has allowed us to reach audiences across the province that we would never have dreamed of,” says Martin Lussier, now a member of the group Le Dernier Assaut with Sébastien, while Bruno recently founded the group Cornette. “This ensured that the theaters were full when we arrived in Saguenay, even though we had no radio coverage. »
However, Les Marmottes did not expect that one of their songs would one day be part of the Bell Center playlist, as has been the case with the Canadian version of Détruire since 2019.
The result of a long lobbying campaign by Marc-André Grondin, carried out on Twitter. “I have a friend who works at Groupe CH,” he says, “and he told me that one day Geoff Molson came into her office and asked her, ‘What are these, flattened marmots?’ Lots of people are talking about it on Twitter . “She looked up the Destroy video clip on YouTube and watched it with Geoff Molson. I’ve never had as much influence as I did back then. »
This Saturday September 23rd at Foufounes Électriques, on the 29th at Anti de Québec and on the 30th at Café du Clocher in Alma
Your favorite Marmots Aplaties song
William Beauregard
” Lunch Box. I never understood the lyrics, but the chorus is the band’s best hook. »
Marc-André Grondin
” Destroy. Even if you call it “destroying,” there’s something positive about this tune. No matter how I’m feeling, it’ll give me energy. It’s so simple, but it works. It’s a bit like the Quebec equivalent of Surfin’ Bird. »
Olivier Niquet
” THE fine steps, because the phrase “fine steps are mean” is brilliant. »