JP “Le Pad” Tremblay: green and tender joual

JP “Le Pad” Tremblay, bush poet behind the Quebec folk sale collective Redneck Bluegrass Project (QRBP), goes it alone for the first time in his career with the absurdly titled rrrik tffhu (onomatopoeia of a sputum).

This album, more “relaxed, introspective and personal”, highlights one of the sharpest pencils of the song keb. “I amassed a lot of tunes that fit less with the band”, explains the singer, joined in Saint-Nazaire, in Lac-Saint-Jean, where he is “happy owner” of a farmhouse for three years.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and thereby the suspension of QRBP concerts, has finally authorized JP Tremblay to set in motion his solo project. He gave the director’s cap to his brother-in-law, Marc Déry. “We’ve been jamming together for a while, and I’m going to bretter in his studio when I go to Montreal,” he explains.

Their collaboration on rrrik tffhu imposed itself quite naturally. “We started working on this at home, chopping wood, walking and talking. Then we got to the music, a bit like a Miyagi in Karate kid », Says Tremblay, immediately a little discouraged by his own comparison.

For three months, the duo locked themselves in a wooden chalet “with a cathedral roof” on the edge of a lake. “We used to kid in the mornings and evenings, we tried lots of things and we checked what was coming out. It gave something trippy, really not sanitized. ”

The festive flights of accordion, violin or mandolin of QRBP give way to nuances of guitars; alternately – or at the same time – acoustic, electric, gypsy, slide or resonator. “I spoiled myself! ”

More than ever, JP’s “playful” voice and lyrics shine with all their nuances. The festive and alcoholic slices of life are not entirely evacuated, but more personal themes are revealed: agriculture (Gentleman Farmer, Agricultural Revolution), overwork (I’m running after what) or illness, put into words on the magnificent and dreary Mountain. “We swallow and then we act as if nothing had happened / Even if around the facade we screw the iron in the wound. ”

“My mother was diagnosed with ALS [sclérose latérale amyotrophique] most recently, says Tremblay. It is an esti of a disease of the mustard which attacks the nervous system and which melts the muscles. It’s incredibly ugly. I am super close to my mother, and this one was my valve. ”

That nothing “laziness”

On a few occasions, the songwriter enjoys promoting the almost lost art of doing nothing. “I would have a hundred thousand business to do if I do nothing”, he sings on Wine cellar. Allow us, listening to his texts, to cry out for fraud. We submit to him that we guess a lot of work under an apparent nonchalance.

Touch ! Some parts, like Fat afternoon or the “brassensienne” French, took 15 or 20 years of fine-tuning. “Working on my lyrics, playing and composing music, it seems like I’ve never seen it as a book, he pleads, however. I do not count it in my cowardice. ”

His influences? “Fred Fortin, Richard Desjardins, Plume…” The list cuts short: “I don’t listen to a lot of music, I’m afraid of influencing myself,” says the man who lived in China for six years. I don’t even have a sound kit to listen to my master. I have to borrow a chariot to listen to it. It is at this point. ”

In the coming months, “Le Pad” will offer a few solo concerts – including two at Club Soda on December 21 and 22 – before joining the QRBP scenic adventure. François Gaudreault will accompany him on double bass and Pascal Beaulieu, director of the three most recent QRBP albums, on guitar slide.

“It’s pressure, and I can’t wait to see how it’s going to be received. It will be more seated, more relaxed. We came up with something fun. We can also take out a few medleys from the band if it’s missing too much [au public]. I am ready for all situations. ”

Listen rrrik tffhu

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