VOIVOD To Begin Pre-Production For New CD In September

VOIVOD are continuing to demo material for their much-anticipated reunion album with vocalist Snake (a.k.a. Denis Belanger),which is tentatively due in early 2003, presumably through Century Media Records.

"Our goal is to have 25 [songs] done by the end of August," drummer Away (a.k.a. Michel Langevin) stated via the band's official web site. "We will pick 10 among them. Pre-production will start in San Francisco in September.

"It probably feels like we disappeared for quite a while," Away continued. "Well... we did! We worked much harder than usual to make sure that our new project would match all expectations.

"We received many touring offers, including a reunion show with [former bassist] Blacky! However, except for a couple of weekends with DIO and MOTÖRHEAD, we kept absorbed in our creative process and everything else didn't really matter."

Meanwhile, former bassist Blacky (a.k.a. Jean-Yves Thériault) himself commented on the possibility of a reunion show with VOIVOD via a posting on the fan site www.voivodfan.com.

"I have always kept in contact with Maurice Richard over the years (VOIVOD's first and only real manager)," Blacky stated. "He had the idea for a reunion for years, he was just waiting for the right time which finally came up a few weeks ago. He wanted to produce a VOIVOD reunion to mark the 20th anniversary of metal made in Quebec, which basically started with VOIVOD in 1982.

"He asked me (and also the current line-up of VOIVOD) and I replied to him within the hour saying YES of course, because this would be the right time for this project, as far as I'm concerned. To tell the truth here, how could I not want the opportunity to play with Piggy again? Maurice waited but never received any reply after two successive offer to the band. Finally one day I had a meeting with him and Johnny Hart (he is the one that managed AGGRESSION, built and managed the Iron Gang fan club for a long period, 1984-1988 and is making a comeback in the scene. He will release an unreleased album of AGGRESSION, very soon, check their web page). We talk about many things and also about this reunion project, at the end of the meeting I pointed out to Maurice that perhaps he should call Piggy directly instead of wasting his time with the current leadership. That's what he did. At that time Piggy told him that he knew about the offer but couldn't accept yet cause the scheduled date for the show could conflict with them being in California for the recording of the new album, and that they wouldn't know for sure before the 3rd of August. He also mentioned that it might be hard to sell it to one of the original members. (surprise!)

"Then this news today, you guys got the answer that Maurice was looking for, a direct answer, yes or no, and the no side won. So be it, I may have strong words here, but my guess is there is probably no fat chance of a future VOIVOD reunion of the first line-up. "