Guillaume Chiasson, main songwriter with Daphné Brissette of the group Bon Enfant, who launched his third album yesterday, Special requestphilosopher about the role of the rock musician in the era of artificial intelligence: “This reflection often comes to me: in ten years, we will no longer know the difference between a real studio session with real musicians and what can accomplish AI. What place then for the musician, if we can faker recording? I think it will be on stage: seeing a musician giving a concert cannot be replaced. Perhaps this is where the rock band still has a role to play. »
Bon Enfant, one of the most important Quebec rock successes of recent years, has a mission: to save rock from the clutches of artificial intelligence, one good concert at a time.
And with another good album recorded with the sweat of his brow, here in four different studios and under the good care of director Emmanuel Éthier. “Sixty percent of one’s job is to have taste!” » says Daphné Brissette about Éthier’s contribution to this new high-caliber album, inhabited by these hypermodern reflections about artificial intelligence and, more generally, “our era where everyone seems to be constantly confronted with others and comparisons with others, via social networks,” Chiasson attempts to summarize. “The idea of this album is to look for a way to evolve positively in all of this. »
The concert will be the vector of positive development. Daphné Brissette, singer and lyricist of Bon Enfant: “We like that, giving shows. We cram everyone together in one vanthese are still working conditions that suit us! On the new album, the song Rock passion talk a little about that, precisely, the gathering. I think that’s a talent I have: bringing people together. I like bringing lots of people together around music. This is still something powerful for me. »
And the group is ready to hit the road again, assure Daphné and Guillaume. ” I’m eager to ! » says the singer, who found the “break” between Diorama (2021, winner of a Félix in the Album of the Year – rock category) and this new album, “in any case longer than for certain others in the band “. She obviously refers to the three other musicians who, in recent years, have given a boost to their own solo projects.
When Bon Enfant was born, with rock enthusiasm seventies inspired as much by the sound of Fleetwood Mac as by that of Louise Forestier, bassist Alex Burger was already fomenting a solo career. It can’t be inventedhis second solo album (produced by Alex Martel), was released exactly a year ago. The same goes for drummer Étienne Côté, who, under the stage name Lumière, launched a notable third album in the spring of 2023, entitled GLAM. Finally, keyboardist Mélissa Fortin offered an excellent first album of instrumental compositions, between pop, rock, jazz and prog, entitled Prismacolor.
“It’s important for health [de Bon Enfant] that everyone is emancipated in their own project, affirms Daphné. I don’t feel that the musicians are frustrated or restricted in their creation with the group, because it’s still Guillaume and I who write the songs. Everyone can develop their own project, and come back happy to Bon Enfant. This is all beneficial for everyone. »
“There was that fun in the conception of this third album, says Daphné. Everyone knows their role in the group, everyone brings their personality, even if the others did not share the same musical references that we used to compose the songs. » Guillaume likes to quote Einstein, or at least recall this phrase attributed to him: “The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. ” Concerning Special requesthe and Daphné will only reveal one: Television, the famous art punk group of Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine, pillar of the scene underground New Yorker of the late 1970s.
This raw, dry, nervous and stripped-down sound which inhabits several songs on the new album. The assertive guitars, cut out in the mix. The very calculated choice of synth sounds, replacing the more psychedelic keyboard arrangements of the first two albums. “We could name lots of other references, but the idea, in the end, is that it all ends up sounding like Bon Enfant,” says Guillaume. That’s the strength of this group: Daphné and I write the songs, and even if we have ideas for arrangements, when the rest of the members arrive in the studio, it transforms into something else. »
Daphné and Guillaume talk about Special request like a “ vibe »“very New York in spirit, very nocturnal”, specifies the singer and lyricist, who notably recalled her years working behind a bar to compose the text of Night guard.
Through her texts, Daphné searched for light: “You just have to listen to the news to see that the world is great dark. Our way of surviving this is through creation and music. The first version ofPlastic area was super cynical, very dark. I asked Stéphane [Lafleur, d’Avec pas d’casque] to clean up my text ideas. With him, I understood that we had to bring glimmers of hope as much as possible, and we decided to spread that throughout the songs, to make it a positive album. »
“ Special requestsummarizes Daphné, it’s like an instruction manual for navigating our times with your head held high and with a smile. »