VOIVOD Drummer 'Dreams' Of Writing Music With New Guitarist, Carrying On With Band

Keith Carman of ChartAttack.com recently conducted an interview with drummer Michel "Away" Langevin of Canadian metal innovators VOIVOD. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ChartAttack.com: It seems as if [late VOIVOD guitarist Denis "Piggy"] D'Amour left you a gift, having recorded perfect guitar tracks before he passed away. It's like he wanted to ensure VOIVOD continued.

Away: It made us think he knew something was wrong inside so he rushed to get things done professionally. What really impresses me is that he also wrote two albums of material himself with guitars and bass. One day, Snake and I would love to finish it, but it won't be VOIVOD at all. There were 25 electric songs and five acoustic songs meant to be solo albums. He even put some drum and vocal ideas there. The music is really impressive.

ChartAttack.com: It's like you get to help him finish his solo material like he helped you with VOIVOD.

Away: Snake convinced me to keep working on this stuff. After the release of "Katorz", we took a couple of years off. I thought VOIVOD would be forgotten, but it went the other way. Over the past few years, there have been more offers to play and pressure from fans to get into the studio and finish "Infini". Snake finally said if we don't go on stage or in the studio, the music will rot and die. Better to make it live again, which convinced me to get back into the action. I had been concentrating on my art with a gallery and commissioned art. I finally thought Snake was right.

ChartAttack.com: What's the situation with members? You've got Blacky and Jasonic [Jason Newsted] on bass and now Dan Mongrain on guitars. It's kind of messy since Blacky's playing live, but Jasonic is on the disc...

Away: [A few years ago], Jason couldn't make it to a show, so I asked if he minded if we had Blacky come back out. He was entirely behind it. As for Dan, we've known him and his band MARTYR for a while around the Montreal scene. He's sort of a student of Piggy — not that he was taught by him, but Dan learned to play listening to Piggy. Our main fear was that people might find it sacrilege to go on without Piggy, but the reaction was great.

ChartAttack.com: So what does the future hold for VOIVOD now that you've tapped Piggy's vault? Will Dan take over his role now?

Away: VOIVOD is strange. I've learned to take it day by day. Piggy's departure has brought all of the VOIVOD members closer, like Blacky, Jason and Eric. All the little grudges suddenly seemed stupid when Piggy took ill. Now it's like a family; a collective. I really dream that down the line we could write an album with Dan and have everyone involved. That'd be great, but it's just a dream. I realize now that VOIVOD is pretty established and it'd be great for the people who like our music that we keep working on the project. I'll try to do so. We want to play live as much as we can for the next few years, but I'd also love to finish Piggy's two solo albums with Snake, write with Dan eventually, and see what comes up.

Read the entire interview from ChartAttack.com.

Fan-filmed video footage of VOIVOD's June 18, 2009 performance at Nouveau Casino in Paris, France can be viewed below (courtesy of "nfbeer").