Published at 1:21 am. Updated at 7:00 a.m.
The song you are most proud of
America cries because, after a career of 25 years, I have been very fortunate to touch people in such an extraordinary way and to understand the times in which we live without falling into denunciation. Originally I wanted to do a song with our character JP Labrosse. A little later, in 2015, we almost released a version in October, but it wasn’t ready yet. I changed the melody completely. Writing is something difficult for me. I work, I work.
It also makes me proud that a popular song was played on the radio. I was one of those who suggested shortening it and everyone told me: “No, don’t worry. » I think they were right.
Your worst song
Wait [2004], a kind of slightly kitschy rock with a bit of reggae in the middle. The text was intended to be a denunciation of the liberals of the time, I used the slogan “We are ready”. To tell you how old it is: it’s a restructuring of the state. We had a Cowboys discussion forum at the time and there were people who criticized me after the Union Break [2002] criticize without offering solutions. I made it my mission to find solutions through songs and it was terrible.
PHOTO IVANOH DEMERS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Les Cowboys Fringants with the Francos in 2003
The Felix who made you the most happy
Winning the Félix for song of the year 15 years apart for The Shooting Stars [2005] and America cries [2020], It was cool. It confirms to you that you are not a has-been, that you can still be relevant. We were also proud to have won the Singer-Singer-Songwriter Show category in 2003 because the show is important to us.
And no, I have never been nominated for Author or Composer of the Year. Every year there is the same running joke within the group, they call me Bredouille Pauzé. But I take that with a grain of salt. We can’t have everything.
Your most unforgettable encounter at an after party
At some point Kevin Parent came to us. He was pretty hot, we had never spoken to him before and he really wanted to do a wrist shoot with Karl. Karl finished him off in a second.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
The Fringants Cowboys in 2014
Your strangest song
I often come back to the album Les nuits de Repentigny [2021], which is a load of nonsense and nonsense. There’s a song about it, Little Tommy, about a budding psychopath who harms small animals while moonlighting at a hardware store. This one is really strange, especially since my six year old son came to sing on it.
The Cowboys Fringants song preferred by singers
Since I’m not very well known, I would often go to a bar to film myself next to a singer playing Hector’s Shack and fucking recognize me. But at the end of the week I went to a bar and there was a singer about 19 years old who came to see me and asked me: “Monsieur Pauzé, would you mind if I played a Cowboys song?” The singers call me sir.
Your song that moves you the most
The approaching winter always makes me shiver because I really didn’t have a cent back then and the bills were literally piling up. I wrote it with a sense of urgency. With this album [Break syndical, 2002], it made or broke. When we played it with the OSM, I had tears in my eyes at the end.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Karl Tremblay with the OSM in 2018
Karl Tremblay’s best vocal performance
Karl is an underrated artist. We were recently in the studio with Gus van Go [réalisateur attitré des Cowboys depuis 2015] and he told us that Karl is one of the five best singers he has ever worked with. Any song you put in his mouth won’t be lame. During the first songs of the show with the OSM, when he is alone in the orchestra, he sings at the top of his lungs. The people in the orchestra had told him.
The best Cowboys Fringants song you didn’t write
I really like “Royal Pub” by Karl. The text is well structured, well put together, there are two or three sentences that I’m jealous of, like “There are always deep inside her/drawers that don’t close properly/that remind her every day/that it’s us.” “all alone.” Karl is not a great song producer, but the songs he has released are always beautiful.
The funniest monologue during Awikatchikaën
[Karl, sur scène, a longtemps eu l’habitude d’improviser un monologue au milieu d’Awikatchikaën.] Sometime in 2002 or 2003, while touring in Abitibi, Karl improvised a monologue in which he spoke of the villages of Rapide-Danseur and Rapide-Sept, of a ghost that haunted these villages. I remember he started dancing very quickly. Jerome [Dupras, bassiste] and I was on my knees because we were laughing so hard. It was of the caliber of a Louis-José Houde or Mike Ward.
But on a different note, there’s also the time at the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Hot Air Balloon Festival when Karl climbed a dozen stacked chairs before falling onto a monitor. Or the one at Chez Maurice in Saint-Lazare, where he threw himself into the public eye from the second he arrived. Or when he took a friend of ours who looks like Wilfred LeBouthillier and made him bend over in the crowd. Everyone had caught our friend, nobody had caught Karl.
Your worst show
It was about ten years ago in Kelowna, British Columbia. We were between tours, but we agreed just to have the opportunity to spend time together. Karl had a few too many Canadians to drink on the plane. Marie-Annick, who was pregnant, was in Tabarnac. When we got there we realized we had been traveling across Canada doing a show in a cafe in front of a hundred people who didn’t really know us.
Just for 8 seconds, Karl made a mistake at least eight times, but Jérôme and I made a mistake in every song. As we left the stage, Marie-Annick called us incompetent and irresponsible. We ended it at the hotel casino, where one beer turned into several. We left at 6am the next day and Jérôme missed his flight.
Today everyone laughs about it.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
At the Bell Center in November 2021
Your best show
To conclude our series, there is a show at the Bell Center on a Saturday night in 2021 that we left the stage saying to ourselves that it was our best show ever. The audience was completely attuned, we were solid, we gave two or three encores.
The last Quebec Summer Festival was certainly special, but I wouldn’t rank it among the best because I would have preferred there to be 25,000 fewer people and my friend to be in good shape.
The phrase from one of your songs that best represents you
October’s refrain: “And October has flown by/another year where I didn’t take the time/to see the fall slowly leafing out.” Every year I tell myself that I will go to the cabin more often, and if I don’t go there, I won’t take the time to stop. But do we really want to stop? Do we want to spend our lives drinking tea and looking at the forest, or isn’t it better to enjoy everything else?