Guitarist DAN MONGRAIN: How I Landed VOIVOD Gig

Mark Kadzielawa of 69 Faces Of Rock recently conducted an interview with VOIVOD/MARTYR guitarist Dan Mongrain. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

69 Faces Of Rock: How did you get involved with Voivod?

Dan Mongrain: First of all, let me say that VOIVOD is my favorite band of all time. I remember being 11 years old and listening to "Killing Technology". I didn't even play guitar at that time. I bought a guitar after I saw these guys on Musique Plus (Canadian music television),and started to play. It was "Ravenous Medicine" video clip they showed, and it was just awesome. I decided to play guitar at that very moment. I met Blacky [VOIVOD bassist] in 2002, and we played together for 20th anniversary of metal in Montreal, Quebec. It was a band with Flo Mounier from CRYPTOPSY and some local players that were known in Quebec. We played a show there and became friends. A couple of years later, I was writing an album with my other band, MARTYR, and we decided to do a VOIVOD cover of "Brain Scan", and we invited Blacky to play on it. Around the same time, Piggy [late VOIVOD guitarist] got sick and passed away. Our album was finished. We decided to do that song live as a tribute to Piggy. In fact, we played with Blacky at another festival, and we did a medley of VOIVOD songs. Snake and Away were in the crowd, and so was Piggy's family. We did like a 15-minute medley of VOIVOD's songs. I wrote an email to Away saying if he ever needed me to perform a song with them for a special event I would be very honored to do so. A couple of months later, he called me back and asked me play a show with VOIVOD. He told me Blacky was coming back as well, so I immediately agreed to do it. I'm honored to play with VOIVOD. After all, I'm playing in my favorite band.

69 Faces Of Rock: When you picked up a guitar, how influential was Piggy's playing to you?

Dan Mongrain: Actually, Piggy was a big influence for me for writing music — not as much playing, but much more about his way of thinking about writing music and composition. His writing is very progressive, it was very thrash metal in the early years, then he got very progressive. He's got that Stravinsky vibe, and KING CRIMSON, and lots of jazzy influences as well. He had keyboard chords like EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER in his writing instead of power chords. All in the upper register of the guitar. His writing was very unique and it's still very unique to this day. And Blacky's bass lines were always so complementary to Piggy's guitar, and the drums as well. It's like every piece of the puzzle that falls in the right place. It's perfect.

69 Faces Of Rock: When you stepped into Piggy's shoes, how did you adjust your playing?

Dan Mongrain: First of all, I knew the songs well. I knew all the structures, and all the ideas behind the songs. The sounds and the solos were all in my head. So, it was not really hard to learn all that. Some parts were hard to figure out as to what he was doing, but I've listened to these records a lot, so I knew the songs. My playing, in my other band, MARTYR, it's more like surgical and precise, very tight picking. Piggy was more loose and more laid back. I had to learn to play with Away because Away plays a lot more laid back, too. It's more heavier, actually, because he is sitting on the beat. I had to learn to play with the guys. After a couple of rehearsals, I felt more comfortable. It was more of a challenge to learn how to play with new musicians who knew each other very well.

Read the entire interview from 69 Faces Of Rock.