On June 4, the Grand Théâtre de Québec will host a singular event: Voivod, Quebec’s veteran sci-fi metal outfit, will perform alongside the Orchestre Symphonique De Québec, under the baton of conductor Dina Gilbert. More than just a one-off gig, this collaboration is being recorded, with hopes of releasing it on vinyl or CD.
“The problem with making a record is that you have to pay a lot of royalties, because there are a lot of musicians and it costs a fortune,” said Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin in an interview with Le Soleil (transcribed by Blabbermouth) “However, we’re working on recording the Quebec City show and eventually releasing it on vinyl or CD. We really want to do that.”
There won’t be a video release, at least not a full-scale one. “A DVD costs much, much more, so we forgot about that idea and focused on the audio,” Langevin explained. “We haven’t yet decided to turn this performance into a live album, but we’re working very hard on this major project.”
This marks Voivod’s third time playing with a full orchestra. Earlier this year, they joined forces with the Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal for two sold-out nights at Montreal’s Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, on January 29 and 30. The setlist from the first of those performances spanned the band’s long history:
- Experiment
- Holographic Thinking
- The Unknown Knows
- The End Of Dormancy
- Into My Hypercube
- Forgotten In Space
- Cosmic Drama
- Pre-Ignition
- Nuclear War
- Fall
- Tribal Convictions
Encore:
12. Astronomy Domine (a Pink Floyd cover)
As Langevin recalled in an interview with The Metal Voice last December, this whole orchestral partnership started in an unexpected way.
“Oh my God, I think we’ve been dreaming about that forever. But it came through a strange chain of circumstances, where I did an interview for the magazine L’Itinéraire, for homeless people selling magazines on the street, and then I did an interview with one of the journalists for the magazine, and it ended up being published online by La Presse. And then the people directing the orchestra, the organization, they were made aware of that by one of the musicians from the orchestra, who is a metal dude and he’s a fan.”
The path from local interview to symphonic collaboration continued with a bit of family serendipity. “It’s funny because since my cousin Richard Langevin is married to Diane Dufresne, a famous singer from Montreal, and she had done the orchestra before, so they got in touch with him, because I was mentioning him in the article, because he showed me how to draw. [Laughs] And anyhow, they phoned Richard, my cousin, and he phoned my mother. [Laughs] And when I came back from touring with Voivod, I had a message on my answering machine saying that the orchestra was looking for us. So, quite amazing.”
Despite not initiating the collaboration, Langevin said it’s long been part of the band’s internal conversations. “We didn’t approach [the orchestra], but we always talked about either doing symphonic shows or doing a soundtrack for a sci-fi movie or something like that. It’s part of the dreams we have.”
For Voivod guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain, the opportunity meant diving deep into orchestration, with the help of arranger Hugo Bégin. Mongrain had previously composed an arrangement for brass quintet for the band’s 2019 appearance at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, but this was another level.
“I never tried to write for a whole orchestra,” he admitted. “I know a little bit about it, studying orchestration at university and knowing my music theory and all that. But what happened is that my help with the project was to provide the music sheets to the arranger, Hugo Bégin. He did amazing work. He took the music sheet that I wrote for the guitar and bass. So he had a template to work on. And so he orchestrated it for the whole orchestra and added his own color to it. And it’s very efficient. It’s like a movie soundtrack, like the movie we used to watch, like Planet Of The Apes and Ben-Hur and Mad Max and all that. Voivod has been influenced since the beginning by those movies, so you can hear it, but with the whole orchestra, it’s very exciting. So I exchanged a lot of emails and messages with Hugo, the arranger, and we worked really hard on it, and he was really, really fast and efficient. And until the last minute, the last day, there were little modifications here and there, but it’s gonna be amazing. It’s a dream come true, but it’s so big that you only imagine something like that in your wildest dreams, but you know it’s not gonna happen. So this is just a life-changing experience, a bonus in a career. It’s gonna be grandiose.”
And the experience won’t just be about the music. Langevin hinted at ambitious visuals to accompany the performance, made possible by a tech-forward creative team.
“We’re also gonna put a lot of work into the visuals with a company called Noisy Head. They’re really high tech. It’s gonna be spectacular. They did stuff for Lizzo or Chemical Brothers. And also they did a symphonic show with the music of Harmonium. And so, yeah, it’s gonna be pretty sci-fi visually as well.”
If all goes according to plan, Voivod’s latest symphonic fusion will soon live beyond the stage — on vinyl, on CD, and maybe even as one of the most adventurous live albums in modern metal.
