Except for Lying and to another extent I Remember Being Homeit is not so much a question of distance on Julie & Danny, the first album by the musical couple Julie Doiron and Dany Placard. Yet this is what characterizes their relationship these days, he in Montreal, she in Memramcook, very close to Moncton, a relationship that is lived “with its ups and downs”, agrees Doiron. Recorded in their home in New Brunswick, this first album combining folk, country, grunge and the two national languages of the country speaks rather of the small joys and the weary sorrows of everyday life.
“There could be mayo in the fridge / There was still no great hope”, shout Julie and Dany on mayo, their voices battling against fat grunge guitars. A fusion song: the text is pure Dany Placard, the musical aesthetic recalls the rich rock heritage of Julie Doiron. “Dany pushes me indirectly — he inspires me, rather — to try something else. This grunge side of the album, it doesn’t come from me, it’s him who wanted it”, assures the one who, in 1990, founded the legendary group Eric’s Trip in Moncton.
“I’m making music with someone who played squealing grunge at the time, I’m going to take advantage of it to make grunge! Dany answers tit for tat. Julie and he met somewhere in the fall of 2018.
The following summer, as a duo, they offered the most charming closing concert in the history of the Emerging Music Festival in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, a bilingual singing tour, filled with reciprocal smiles and admiring glances. Immediately after, someone from the record company Simone Records pulled Dany by the sleeve: “If you make an album together, can we release it? »
It will have taken three years and a pandemic for us to hear it. An intimate disc glorifying the happiness of days that usually flow. It’s reminiscent of this scene, in an episode of Seinfeld (“The Pitch”, 4and season), where George and Jerry are chatting at the restaurant about Jerry’s TV show project. George suggests that it is a ” show about nothing “, thus summarizing in a short sentence the spirit of the famous sitcom. Placard agrees: “That’s it, a record about everyday life, about the beauty of the ordinary — but with things that happened to us for real! »
The idea behind Tomato popped up on its own while Julie was preparing her seedlings. Dany had found the music ofI Remember Being Home while Julie was taking her bath upstairs; when she came back down, she said, “OK, I have the text, we’re recording. One take and that was it: “I was singing in the bath while I heard him play,” says Julie. Epic guitar rock Jean-Talon Market was born just as simply, from “a demo that I had saved in my phone and had completely forgotten”, explains Julie. “By recording her voice, I understood that she was telling the story of the day when we met for the first time at the market,” says Dany.
Sometimes in English
Dany Placard even makes his new way of singing natural – in English! “Yeah,” he drops while Julie chuckles. “You know, I come from Saguenay. From a Quebec sovereigntist family who doesn’t speak English. I found myself having to speak in English because Julie has a lot of Anglo friends”, which recalls their first tour together, in Spain, three years ago, in the company of an American group. “Everyone spoke English in the truck, I had to learn by force. The union of Bleuet and Acadienne had this unexpected effect on the career of Placard, who, for the first time in his career, was mentioned by the specialized media Pitchfork.
” I’m making some jokes saying that this collaboration with me will ruin his career! says Julie, all smiles. In any case, she encouraged Placard to settle permanently with her lover in Memramcook, where several musician friends already resided, including Julie Aubé and Vivianne Roy, of the Hay Babies, and Mico Roy, of the Hôtesses d’Hilaire.
“The Acadians are really trippy,” declares Dany Placard, who is getting more and more fond of his new little village. “When there’s a snowstorm, what I do is let Julie go and scrape the driveway. When the neighbors see a woman scratching the driveway alone, they come back with their tractor saying “Get out of there, you’ll hurt your back!”, and they scratch our driveway for free. »
Here is already a subject of song for their next album!