By dint of talent and relentlessness, the girls of NOBRO are very close to reaching the major punk leagues. Recruited by the label British Big Scary Monsters (The Get Up Kids, illuminati hotties, Laura Jane Grace) in 2020, the Montreal quartet has already reserved the month of December to record their first real album. Until then, its members will have fun smashing eardrums, including those of festival-goers from Quebec City on Friday evening in a 100% punk-rock poster at the Parc de la Francophonie (le Pigeonnier), with The OBGMs, Millencolin, Pennywise and Sum 41. In rock and hockey alike, singer, bassist and 5-foot-4 center Kathryn McCaughey, alongside her friends, plays to win.
The anecdote told by Kathryn McCaughey perfectly illustrates the attitude of NOBRO. “Growing up, I just wanted to play hockey — in my tiny town in Alberta, that was all there was to it. I was also one of the first girls to play hockey, even though my mother didn’t want me to play. She said to me: “Hockey is for guys, you will play ringette.” “No mom ! I want to show the guys that I can be as good as them!” She first played defense, but her small stature meant she was more likely to play as a center.
And she excelled at it, having played up to college level. “I was finally being taken seriously,” says Kathryn. If you feel deep inside that you have to accomplish something, do it, in all situations. In hockey, studies, music, you have to fight. One of the most satisfying personal victories is proving others wrong. »
Ponoka is a farming village located an hour’s drive south of Edmonton. It’s a miracle that the locality has spawned one of the most furious voices in Montreal rock. “My mother is of Indonesian origin. However, very early in my life, I became aware that there was a vast world outside Ponoka that I wanted to discover. What hockey, first, then studies allowed him to do. The philosophy graduate passed through Vancouver and California before settling in Montreal, where an ex-musician friend taught her to play bass and compose songs.
Export party
NOBRO was born from his meeting with guitarist Karolane Carbonneau, keyboardist and percussionist Lisandre Bourdages (both also members of Comment Debord) and the formidable drummer Sarah Dion, member of the Shirleys (like Bourdages) and of Émile Bilodeau’s orchestra. .
” It was cool to set up a project that bridges the gap between French and English,” says Kathryn McCaughey, recalling that French compositions are part of NOBRO’s repertoire and that we will hear more of them on the upcoming album. “The mostfunis that when we play [nos chansons en français hors du Québec], nobody cares if they don’t understand the text. Only the music takes precedence. It’s exciting to take what makes Montreal so special and bring it with us on tour,” adds the musician, who since her arrival has learned to converse naturally in French.
Kathryn McCaughey not only learned our language by moving to Montreal, but also doing the party. The group’s recent mini-album (Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar) begins with a few bars of gospel, before we hear one of the girls unpin a can of beer and the punk nature comes back at a gallop, on the song Better Each Day. At the very end, Life Is a Voyage is a moment sketched in the studio, with the girls laughing before recording live this hymn to the party.
” Yeah, we go hard, concedes the musician, smirking. We embrace that side of our lives,” she says, emphasizing the immense professionalism and talent of her colleagues and friends. “We push our limits together, we motivate each other to have even more confidence in ourselves and to become better. »