The Future Of Voivod

Infini is the name of the progressive metal outfit/Jonquière, Que. natives Voivod's latest — and possibly last — full-length album. The affair is culled from tracks founding member Denis "Piggy" D'Amour left on his computer before he passed away in 2005.

Bassists Jean-Yves "Blacky" Thériault and Jason "Jasonic" Newsted, drummer Michel "Away" Langevin combed through this material with vocalist Denis "Snake" Belanger and able to craft 13 songs to finalize both D'Amour and Voivod's legacies.

Langevin discussed this emotional foray into what could be the end of an era.

CHARTattack: How difficult was this undertaking?
Michel "Away" Langevin: It had the same difficulties as [2006's] Katorz, in that we had to re-record our respective tracks over the guitars. It's very difficult to be tight. We also did it in different studios so it's hard to make it sound like a band in one room.

It seems as if D'Amour left you a gift, having recorded perfect guitar tracks before he passed away. It's like he wanted to ensure Voivod continued.
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.

It's like you get to help him finish his solo material like he helped you with Voivod.
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.

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

It seems as though Voivod are experiencing a resurgence, especially after the lean years earlier in the decade when Eric Forrest was playing bass/singing.
There were quite a few periods where we were so underground, it was pathetic. It's a period where the albums were unknown, but the live show was fantastic.

Around 2002, Jason brought things back for us. It was another period where Piggy and I had split the band because of too much obscurity. We didn't think we'd do anything again.

Eventually, we wanted to get back to doing music so we called Snake and he was into it. Since we'd been jamming with Jason or a studio project, we asked him if he'd be into doing the bass tracks for us. We never thought he'd eventually join the band.

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