Santa Teresa Festival | Men I Trust, around the world

The group from Quebec Men I Trust is touring all over the world. After Oceania and Asia, and before Europe, the members of the formation will stop at the Santa Teresa festival, where they are headlining. Interview (by email) with Emmanuelle Proulx, Dragos Chiriac and Jessy Caron, before their performance in Sainte-Thérèse, May 14.

You’ve been on the road for quite a while. How’s it going ? Do you feel that your relationship to concerts has changed a lot since your debut, almost 10 years ago?

The last two tours in Asia, in March and May, went really well! It’s amazing to see so many people have so much interest in our music. The scale of the shows has evolved a lot since our beginnings. We started touring in small empty venues with four musicians. We were crammed with our humble gear into a rusty 1998 Dodge Caravan. We have always felt privileged, and this aspect has not changed today with larger and much fuller rooms. Lately we try to offer versions of our songs livewhich go beyond the studio-recorded versions, to better adapt the intimacy of our music to larger venues, while remaining true to the spirit of the originals.

The Men I Trust sound is very identifiable, even if it evolves too. With your last try, Untourable Albumwhich direction did you want to take?

We recorded our Untourable Album during the pandemic. We didn’t expect to be able to play the music from the album on tour. With that in mind, we made music that was a bit darker. We believe it is the process of composing and recording that gives cohesion [à notre musique] ; the fact that it’s always the three of us who write the songs, the fact that we’ve known each other for twenty years, the mixture of so many styles, that’s all that keeps us from sounding monotonous or, opposite, “fruit cake”.

You work with a small team, even if your success may push you to have a big label and all that goes with it. Why decide to keep things between you?

For us, it’s really important to be able to release our music when it’s ready. It allows us to experience the novelty of our songs practically at the same time as the listeners who discover it. Being independent is a choice born out of necessity and a spirit that we ended up completely adopting over time. We started in 2014, and two years and two albums later, there was still no record company that wanted to represent our band. We had contacted a few labels, but no one saw any interest or potential in our music.

Does it help your creative freedom?

Over time, we learned to do everything ourselves and took a liking to it. We have now put together a good team to help us with the turnover of our non-label group. Owning our masters, and keeping all of our royalties, was a big advantage that allowed us to focus on making music full time from around 2018. Paradoxically, if we had given half of our royalties to a record company, the same transition might have taken us longer to make. It is important to be able to generate an income. Everyone has financial obligations. Staying independent makes sense and works well for us. Today, we are being approached by a lot of record companies, but we don’t really see the advantage.

Tell me about your experience at Jimmy Fallon late last year. This is something that does not happen to many Quebecers. How did that happen ?

It was truly surreal! You always feel a bit like the brown duck with a broken leg in such “big” setups, even if the film set was smaller than on television. All the people were very nice and we were able to say hello to Jimmy Fallon. We were a little stressed at the slightly irrational idea of ​​potentially making a major mistake on television in front of the great musicians of The Roots, but everything went well in the end. We had just come back from a tour in Eastern Europe, which ended in Vilnius, and we were all a bit jet lag. We took a day to practice our song with Joey Badass, which allowed us to lower the stress level. Joey a big gentle, very nice and very charming. One of the members of The Roots later came to see us perform in New York with his daughter. All in all, it was a very pure and wholesome experience.

You are one of those artists who are more successful outside than at home. Is this something you imagined? How did it happen, do you think?

It’s a matter of chance, and it happened very gradually. Basically, we go where we are invited. The United States has a very large population base and many large cities separated by relatively short distances. It’s a pretty country where the car tour is really good! At the moment, our top countries for streams are the US, UK, Mexico, Canada and Indonesia.

This does not mean that you do not have a large public that is also present in Quebec. You will find them in Santa Teresa soon. Is it important for you to always come home?

We are always very happy to be able to play in Quebec. It really is one of the most beautiful places in the world and coming back to sleep at home after a show is a big bonus! We are really happy to be able to play Santa Teresa, in headline and more! It’s rare that we can play among our musician friends, it will feel like a big party.

What can we expect next? You just pulled out the single Ring of Pastis this the beginning of a new era?

We plan to release a song or two again this year. Then, in 2024, we will take more time at home to work on a new album. We have several ideas on the direction we want to take, but prefer to keep the surprise for now!

The Santa Teresa Festival will take place from May 12 to 14.