The singer met at Cégep Lionel-Groulx, where he experienced his musical awakening, and sketched a portrait of his career watermarked with the social themes that pervaded the lyrics of his greatest songs.
On the way to the fires is the fifth studio album by Paul Piché. Released in 1988, it was a huge commercial success, selling almost 200,000 copies, with songs like J’appelle, Sur ma peau or Un château de sable.
Although the album was released 10 years after his debut, Paul Piché says it was the first time he realized he was fulfilling his childhood dream, a dream that had long gone unacknowledged for fear of missing it in the bud suffocate
I secretly dreamed of becoming a singer, but I didn’t dare to make it a real official dream because I was afraid it wouldn’t work out and I wouldn’t have a dream anymore, he explains. It took me two or three records to fully accept the fact that I’m a singer.
Enlarge picture (New window)A poster for a Paul Piché concert in his early days
Photo: Paul Piché’s Facebook page
From his beginnings in the student café to his encounter with Beau Dommage
Born in Montreal and raised in Laval and La Minerve, a small Laurentian village, Paul Piché took his first steps on stage in Cégep Lionel-Groulx in Sainte-Thérèse. After an academically rather disastrous high school diploma, he barely entered CEGEP, accepted under conditions. His militant flame had already begun to glow.
It was then that I began my intellectual life. I even made a documentary, An Indian or White Problem, he recalls. The 1972 documentary, filmed in Kahnawake, identifies several problems facing Native Americans while also touching on the construction of dams in James Bay.
At the same time, he was invited to perform at the Cégep student café, where he performed for the first time songs such as Essaye So Pas and Y’a pas grand choose dans l’ciel à soir, which were found on his first album, Who’s That good weather (1977).
He quickly repeated the experience, and in the same cafe he met the members of Beau Dommage, who had not yet formed an official group. This meeting will prove crucial for him as it is Robert Léger – who will later autograph some of Beau Dommage’s successes – who will push Paul Piché to record his first album.
Beau Dommage in 1975
Photo: Jean Pierre Karsenty
There are several members of Beau Dommage who played on the record and other friends of Robert’s including a group called October, Mario Légaré and even Serge Fiori who came to play the guitar, adds the singer.
A crucial meeting with Pierre Falardeau
As a teenager, Paul Piché also discovered his sovereignty streak, in contrast to the convinced federalism of his father, with whom he always got on well despite all the differences of opinion.
It was a bit complicated, my identity, because my mother speaks English, so I only watched TV in English. But at some point I understood that I’m from Quebec and I have to accept my difference in North America, he explains. And that defending that difference was a treasure for humanity.
The most important catalyst for Paul Piché’s drive for independence was undoubtedly his meeting with Pierre Falardeau, then a professor of anthropology at Lionel-Groulx, who quickly became one of his best friends and comrades-in-arms in the fight for a sovereign and more egalitarian Quebec.
He was really a role model, he influenced me in terms of ideas, politics and the way I see the world in general. He also influenced my attitude a lot, says the singer.
“In the beginning, the character of Paul Piché was the plaid shirt, the work boots, the quickdraw, the way of speaking… all of it is totally ‘Falardien’. »
— A quote from Paul Piché
Planned stunt in Matagami
Paul Piché’s activism has always been peaceful, whether through his songs or through the founding of the Artists for Sovereignty movement in the 1995 referendum. 1970s.
Strongly opposed to building hydroelectric power stations in James Bay because of their potentially devastating impact on local indigenous people, they set out to blow up a bridge in Matagami to delay the project.
We were all against the project because it didn’t respect the rights of the indigenous people at all and together with my group of Cegep friends and Pierre Falardeau we decided to blow up the bridge. We drove here in a tank, five guys, to check, he remembers.
Pierre and I had fun climbing under the bridge to see where we would place the explosives, but we looked at the situation and thought it was too dangerous for anyone to die.
Art to change the world
Although active in the field his entire life, much of Paul Piché’s demands came through his songs: support for strike movements on Jean-Guy Léger, for the feminist cause on Where Arethem (written with his then-wife, Armande Darmana), the denunciation of the destiny reserved for the indigenous communities on La gigue à Mitchounano or even sovereignist fervor on Voila c’que nous faut.
While being televised by Radio-Canada in 1996, the singer and his amazing friend the filmmaker were asked the question: Can art change the world?
I naively do things for it [changer le monde], knowing I’ll never get there. I think of the writer George Orwell who said: “Without hope but with determination,” Falardeau replied somewhat cynically.
Paul Piché’s answer illustrates perhaps one of his key differences from his friend: me [j’y crois]otherwise I would do something else. That’s my first reason to make a song. Falardeau told me I was optimistic, and I am. I have the impression that I will succeed in changing the world.
This text is based on an interview conducted by Stéphane Leclair for the program Les grands interviews. Comments may have been edited for clarity or conciseness.