From Backstage to Stage | A Very Ordinary Guy

“Matt is really the most relaxed guy,” says Joelle Proulx, who is one of the main members of his team. The Press was able to verify this by spending an entire evening in the company of the star of Quebec new country.

Matt Lang is a trickster. The kind who calls his manager too early in the morning to make her believe that the truck containing his band’s instruments has been stolen, when that’s not the case at all.

“I remember Googling Matt Lang and theft and finding nothing, with Matt on the phone, very serious, asking me to get out our insurance papers,” says Vickye Morin, from Agence Ranch, who, with Joelle Proulx, oversees his career.

That Thursday in July, during our visit, his new victim was none other than the photographer of The Press who, upon our arrival, asks his usual questions about the layout of the stage and the possibility of immortalizing his subject from behind the scenes.

Questions that Joelle, Lang’s press relations manager, suggests he address directly to the artist, which almost never happens in the wonderful world of showbiz, which is full of intermediaries.

Matt Lang’s response: “I’d prefer if you always stood at least 15 feet away from me.” Moment of suspension. The singer lets confusion descend on the face of the adorable François Roy, before bursting into laughter. “Well no, come on! Are you sick? You do what you want! There’s no stress, my man.”

Let’s talk hair

But what is this bottle, with Matt Lang’s name on it? “Send it, go ahead, open it,” he tells us so that we can taste his rum (Moonlight Rum), comfortably seated on one of the sofas in his dressing room, set up on the upper floor of the Nicolet arena. He makes a point of introducing us to each member of his team, from the musical director and guitarist Étienne Joly to Martin Deschesnes, the truck driver.

With his backward cap and white sneakers, Matt doesn’t yet have the proud look of the dashing cowboy—hat, boots and dangling suspenders—who will take to the outdoor stage of the Générations festival around 9:30 p.m. tonight. Only his Longueuil haircut betrays his new country roots for now.

And even if Joelle and Vickye will later admit that they “work hard” so that their client and friend adopts another hair style, they readily admit that Matt Lang is running on the top and long in the back is more in tune with the real Mathieu Langevin than the one with the ideal son-in-law hair who appeared on the cover of Don’t run away (2015), his only album released under his baptismal name, a few months after his participation in The voice.

“I didn’t really own up to that album. I would show up in bars and people wouldn’t know the songs, so I would always end up playing covers,” he recalls. “When Étienne [son bras droit] and I decided to go to Nashville [où il a enregistré son premier disque sous le nom Matt Lang, en 2018]it started with the fun we wanted to have. For too long, I wanted to please others.

Give to give

Clarification: Matt has stopped trying to follow the advice of the false scholars in the popular music world who told him that there was no better way to go bankrupt than to play country music, in English. But he has never stopped wanting to please those thanks to whom he is finally tasting his little ass dream, who has been playing guitar since he was 14 and who early on included Merle Haggard classics in his repertoire, at the request of his late paternal grandfather, Gaétan.

To please the world? Our host shows on his phone a photo sent by the older sister of a young admirer named Charles, who woke up one morning with the idea of ​​reproducing the cover ofAll Night Longerhis most recent (and excellent) album. To which Matt was quick to write that if their parents were okay with it, he would be happy to shake hands with Charles and his siblings.

The astonished look of young Charles. His smile. In the entrance to the Nicolet arena, the kid answers his favorite’s questions laconically, not out of nonchalance, but because all the energy in his little body serves to light up his eyes, which shine like bolos.

Matt asks them all—Charles’s two sisters, his brother, his father, his stepmother—what size T-shirts they’re wearing and sends his wrestler-like tour manager, the gentle Domenic Fuoco, to get what they need. He’ll check with one of the event organizers to make sure the whole family gets a seat right in front of the stage.

Is it like this every night? “Not all the time, but I try to give as much as I can,” explains the 33-year-old. “I’ve met artists in my life who disappointed me, and I always reminded myself not to become that. In any case, what I just did didn’t cost me anything and it was fun.”

“My son is starting to notice when I’m not home,” says the father of a 14-month-old girl and a 2 1/2-year-old boy. “He asks me, ‘Dad, when are you coming back?’ That really gets to me. So when there are kids at the show, I definitely see my kids a little bit.”

All for rock

A particularly kilometre-heavy portion of the summer for Maniwaki’s darling: on July 5, he played at Lac-au-Saumon in the Bas-Saint-Laurent, on the 7th at Alma in Lac-Saint-Jean, before participating in the Liquored Up Tour of Canadian veteran Aaron Pritchett at the Calgary Stampede on the 10th. Then back to Amos in Abitibi on the 12th and to Buckingham in Outaouais on the 13th.

“It was definitely rock’n’roll as a stretch,” admits the man who recently received a golden ticket (50,000 tickets sold), “but you won’t hear me complaining here tonight, because I can live off my music and that’s not nothing.”

While specifying that she sometimes has to bring back down to earth the two booted feet of a Matt gifted for ideas of grandeur, Vickye Morin emphasizes that her refusal to present shows in a reduced format will have cemented with the owners of venues in Quebec, then in Canada, her reputation as a performer who gives his audience value for money.

Matt Lang is accompanied every evening by no fewer than six musicians, which, along with the Kiss-style firecrackers and the projections, contributes to an atmosphere that is more akin to an Éric Lapointe show than a Patrick Norman one.

He does, however, insist that his elbows aren’t as muscular as his latest album suggests, which could send you into an alcoholic coma if you took a sip every time the bon vivant mentions the beer, whiskey, wine or margaritas he downs. Sorry to break the magic: it’s usually water that’s in his red glass.

One last sip

The only hitch in this salutary temperance: the traditional and generous sip of Jameson brand liquid courage that the entire team – including that evening your valiant journalist, not shying away from any torture – swallows in one gulp before going up into the spotlight.

It’s up to Matt’s dad, Denis, to deliver the pep talk. Owner of an IT services company, Den Lang also clearly specializes in party and attends his son’s shows as often as possible. “Hey, gang, I wanted to congratulate you on your golden ticket! I’m well, well proud of you guys.”

What makes a good show, according to Matt Lang? “We pretty much just play good shows,” he says. “I’m not saying that to brag. What I mean is, every night, I keep in mind that well people in front of me took part of their savings to be there. So I do everything so that they leave with good memories.

This will certainly be the case for young Charles who, as Matt promised, has inherited a place near the stage with his family and in whose eyes the singer is no ordinary guy.

Matt Lang’s tour continues. He will be at the International Balloon Festival in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu on August 11 and at the Lasso Festival in Montreal on August 17.

Visit the artist’s website