Presenter Denis Talbot lost a good friend on November 15th when Karl Tremblay passed away. The two men had become good friends over the years and particularly became friends during the show Monsieur Net on Musique Plus, where they were presenter and columnist respectively.
During LCN’s special national tribute broadcast honoring Cowboys Fringants singer at the Bell Center, Mr. Talbot remembered what kind of person Karl Tremblay was.
“It’s like I lost a brother,” he said. This guy was easy. I never heard him slander. He was close to his friends and found it easy to make friends.”
“What he enjoyed was having fun in life, having fun on stage and meeting people,” he adds. When I had the pleasure of seeing him interact with people, you could see that it was sincere and not at all the “rockstar” game.”
- Listen to journalist Florence Lamoureux guide you through yesterday’s tribute evening at the Bell Centre QUB radio :
Mr. Talbot remembers finding it unusual that the singer of a musical group wanted to participate as a columnist on a show about video games in the early 2000s.
“I told myself we would give him a casting and see what it would be like,” he said. In the end he turned out to be very good, friendly and with a very special sense of humor, the kind of humor I really like, so we hired him.”
“But before I hired him, my boss told me to tell him that this wasn’t the right place to promote his music business,” he continues. I tell Karl this and he says to me: “Denis, tell your boss that we just came from a European tour and we were sold out everywhere, I don’t really need Musique Plus.” So we never talked about the Cowboys Fringants, that’s what he wanted not. He wanted to talk about games.”
He recalled an anecdote that occurred when he showed up at the Musique Plus studios with his face swollen.
Karl Tremblay jumped from a stepladder into the crowd during his performances.
“One time he fell off the stepladder into the crowd and the crowd fell silent, but he kept singing and got back up like nothing had happened,” he says. That was Karl Tremblay too.”
The video game specialist believes few people have achieved such unanimous support among Quebecers.
“It’s rare in Quebec to have someone who has such an influence on everyone,” he says. I wanted to get my hair done tonight but even my hairdresser cried, she was thrilled. She said she didn’t know him but considered him almost a member of her family.
“I would have liked to have done all these honors while he was still alive,” he adds. I would have liked him to see her, to feel her. Let him see that love.”
He hopes the Cowboys Fringants will find a way to carry on despite the loss of their singer.
“I hope the group finds a way to continue,” he shares. You’re losing the voice of your group, but I hope someone manages to pick up the torch and carry on this Cowboys tradition.