Exactly ten years after winning the Les Francoouvertes competition at Club Soda – and releasing their first record The weight of confetti -, The Boulay sisters are back with a fourth album entitled escape the night. This new opus allowed the two artists to have fun. Using pop rhythms to reveal open words without metaphorical devices, they embrace their plurality and embrace a new freedom to say things however they choose.
“It is not for nothing that we do this in life, the music lives in us, it is a part of us; it’s healthy, it’s beautiful and we stuck to that,” explains Stéphanie Boulay gently.
Four years after the release of their last album La mort des étoiles (2019) and two years after announcing they were going on hiatus in September 2020, the best known singer-songwriter sisters from Gaspésie are back with Escape the night.
Bright return
This light-flooded album makes us believe that the difficult times of the last few years (waves of denunciation after the #metoo movement, loss of your manager and your record company, the music world reveals its dark side, court proceedings with your old record company) stayed behind, even turned into pensive ones moments that forced her to go back to basics.
“This new album is as much an opening to the future as it is a point,” continues Stéphanie, 35. We continue, there is still beauty to seek. Then a period, because we’re getting to something of the order of the end of a sentence. Everything is possible.”
“We mourned and are now happier than ever,” adds Mélanie, the 32-year-old “little sister”. We came back because we had the inspiration. And then we had the privilege of choosing every person to work with, including director Connor Seidel, who is a real genius.”
In order to successfully carry out this double project – a return to music and a new album to present to the world – the duo asked themselves: what to look out for to see enough positives in your profession and, above all, to want to come back to?
“I said to myself: what I love is first and foremost writing songs,” says Stéphanie. It’s in my life and it makes me feel good. I had my answer.”
Pop accepted
Under their new record label Simone Records, the duo will present the fruits of their deliberations of the last few years on October 21st. All in a new and refreshing style: more frontal lyrics, less hidden behind poetry and metaphors, and fully embraced pop music, more rhythmic and inventive than anything the pair had offered before.
“Maybe Pop is watering down those comments that are a little ‘in your face’,” Mélanie launches.
“What is certain is that we all aspire to enter people’s lives,” Stéphanie continues. When you write a song, you wonder if it will carve out a place in people’s lives.
“In life we make music so that people feel understood,” adds Mélanie.
The song “Especially, especially” talks about the love-hate relationship between musicians and social networks (“I need so many likes!” Stéphanie confides). The song Comme si looks back on a childhood and a life full of violence.
“The feeling I have after writing a song and recording it in the studio, that I came out of nothing and proud of what we’ve built together; that’s the best feeling for me, that’s magic!” says melanie.
“There are people who give birth, who marry, who experience their lovesickness or their grief with our melodies,” adds Stéphanie. When we think of mothers who play our songs to their children, it touches us and gives meaning to everything we do.
The new album by the Boulay sisters escape the night, will be launched on October 21st. Some dates for their 2023 tour of Quebec have already been announced, including Longueuil on February 23, Brossard on April 20, Quebec City on October 13 and Trois-Rivières on October 21, 2023. For more information on ticket sales: lessoeursboulay.com
Two ways, one vote
Stéphanie sometimes lives in the country without needing the hustle and bustle of the city from time to time. She also has a musical lover (Francis Faubert), father of a daughter, whose mother-in-law she finds herself to be (the new song Pas sa mère is also about this rarely sung reality).
Mélanie had two children with her partner, comedian Guillaume Wagner, and her family became her priority. Despite everything, she wants to continue her career to show them what a mother and accomplished woman looks like.
The different paths in life of the two sisters could have led to their departure. Undoubtedly, they agree, it’s the music that allows them to find themselves every time. Also mutual friends, strong friendships that last over time and despite the distance, like their relationship that has often changed but whose foundation (love of music, values) remains deeply rooted.
“These are difficult changes because before we were the same and had the same kind of life,” explains Stéphanie. Now our priorities have changed and we have changed. We still decided to choose each other again and continue singing together, even though we don’t necessarily want the same things in life anymore.
Connected through the heart
They say they are proud that they managed to make a fourth album together.
“It’s a relationship where everyone takes a step back,” says Mélanie. Like any relationship in life, there are ups and downs. It is also an employment relationship. This album means that we have decided a fourth time. We have everything in common where we are right now, our values. Even if our lives go in different directions, we basically have the same view of the world, the same allergies to injustice, the same things touch us and annoy us.
Both sisters feel it’s important to point out that their relationship isn’t perfect, even if it seems like it is. Like everyone else, they have conflicts, and their family relationship is intertwined with their business, friendship, and work relationships.
“It’s a lot of work to stay Zen, to get along and to join forces,” confides Stéphanie, who is also an author and whose novel A l’abri des hommes et des chooses (published in Quebec in 2016) will be published in France next January.
mass questions
One thing we don’t know about each of you?
Stéphanie: “I feel like an open book, but hey, I would say that people don’t know that I’ve been doing a little 5 km walk every day for a year, like a little lady [rires].”
Mélanie: “I have an almost unhealthy obsession with maintaining my swimming pool [rires]. I can go to Club Piscine four times a week to check the water in my pool.”
The book that changed your life?
S: “Witches, by Mona Chollet. Because it made me make peace with my decision not to have children and to devote my life to creation. That I haven’t felt guilty or incomplete since then, despite not fitting in with what’s expected of me and my priorities. That it taught me that there are a thousand ways to be a woman.
M: “All the work of Annie Ernaux, all the rock, because she’s my favorite author. Also the gannets by Anne Hébert. My entire artistic intellect was built around this work.
Complete the sentence: Being a woman in music in 2022 is more like…?
S: “Nevertheless, there is a conflict… It is still a test, but also a gift because the places are narrower; We see it in festival programming, for example, where it’s often guys’ names that top the bill and all the salary differences.
M: “A source of pride in being there, still being there with humility, having overcome all the microaggressions, staying successful, having made a place for yourself even when faced, it is one source of pride.”
Describe your sister…
Mélanie about Stephanie: “She’s like an inverted whippet. Steph gives more exposure to her vulnerable and sensitive side, but inside she has a great strength of character.
Stéphanie about Mélanie: “She is an extremely strong person, solid with convictions. She is also a Whippet because internally she has a tenderness in her heart that is accessible with time and patience and a certain vulnerability.
Which song are you most proud of and why?
S: “We after us. I think it’s the closest we’ve come to touching on something universal, even though the song is embedded in relation to us it could end up appealing to anyone.
M: “The same for the same reasons.”
Your new favorite song on the new album?
S: “Escape the night, for it is we who admit our good times and bad, who embrace everything, who carry on and move forward. There is gratitude, resilience and letting go.”
M: “Lights in the sky. It’s a song that gave us confidence.”