The busiest rockers in town are back with their most successful recording project to date: Set Your Pussy Free, a new album from NOBRO – which includes members of Shirley and Comment debord – brings the quartet’s punk sound into 2023 thanks to modern guitar tones, fine and muscular production and songs as festive as they are militant. Group conversation about old people dudes wearing oversized toques, Karolane’s 50 guitar pedals, the American dream and its nightmare.
At the NOBRO studio, where we had an appointment, Sarah Dion and Lisandre Bourdages were already waiting for us, with faces in their faces. “We’ll take pictures too, right?” » asks drummer Sarah, screwing a cymbal onto her stand. Lisandre, on percussion and keyboards, had forgotten for the photo, she who had just returned from a rehearsal with the orchestra of the next ADISQ gala, otherwise she would have brought a change of clothes.
Karolane Carbonneau, guitarist, then arrives at the time fixed for our meeting, then Kathryn McCaughey, bassist and singer, a few minutes late. “Since the last time the four of us were here, a new war has broken out,” Kathryn points out. This is a reality that everyone must deal with. However, immersed in chaos and suffering, we try to make music to be able to pay our rent, and there is something completely absurd in all that. »
Sarah Dion then makes us relive the scene: “We were in the vantouring the United States, rolling to our next showwhen we listened to a podcast who explained to us what had just happened”, i.e. the annulment of the decree Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed women’s right to abortion for half a century. It was in the summer of 2022, and in the van“we kept crying saying to ourselves: “What the fuck?” In the evening, at the concert, Kathryn gave a little speech which ended with her shouting: “Set your pussy free!“Everyone in the room went crazy — and that’s now the title of our album.”
This music is our way of escaping reality for a moment and shedding a little light
Kathryn, also a lyricist for NOBRO, summarizes: “As a group, we first share common values, and secondly, this same sense of humor which allows us to overcome obstacles. What we’re doing here, this music, is our way of escaping reality for a moment and shedding a little light. »
A polite sound
Set Your Pussy Free is the punk outlet we so desperately need with all the rain and missiles falling these days. Eleven fires packed in barely 30 minutes — “ Straight to the point! » as Karolane says — during which the musicians polish the punk of their previous mini-album, Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar (February 2022), less to try to reach a wider audience (“Although if that happens, so much the better!” says Sarah) than to deploy the whole range of musical influences that make them trip. “People like to present us as a punk group, but we have so many more influences,” breathes Lisandre, who even explains how rap percolated into the sound of Cash In On My Cachet : “We imagined music as a loop that repeats, like a sample. »
“Yeah, we wanted to touch on more styles,” confirms Karolane. On the last record, we remained in the assumed punk-rock “in your face”, while on the new one, there are even a few songs more smooth », at least on the second half of the album. The Ramones influence appears most clearly on early songs, such as Let’s Do Drugs or the hilarious Delete Delete Delete. “Our goal, too, was that this new album would sound better than the previous one. »
And for that, they sought out veteran director David Schiffman, who has worked with Anti-Flag, The Strumbellas, The OBGMs and, more recently, the Toronto punk band PUP, thanks to whom NOBRO came into contact with the American . “We went to Toronto to meet him and work on a song, to see if the vibe between us was good, says Kathryn. He is like a old-school dude, with his recording principles to which he adheres fiercely to be certain of being able to put exactly the essence of a group on record. »And what are these principles? “Everyone plays at the same time, live, in the studio, so that we can feel the chemistry between us. All the dynamics of the songs are worked together, directly in the studio. And everything must be recorded on magnetic tape. »
What they did, with Schiffman, here in Montreal. “He’s hard to please, with his family man look wearing a toque that’s too big for him,” adds Kathryn. They have paid themselves a luxury, Lisandre continues: “Usually, we record an album or a EP in six days, max; this time, we spent three weeks recording everything — plus five days of pre-production here, in our little studio, with Dave, brainstorming ideas together. »
United States objective
You can hear it, these songs are raw, but the sound is refined, Kathryn’s voice wickedly scratchy, Karolane’s guitars shining brightly. “Karolane had so many pedals — there’s this photo we took where you see her sitting on the floor, surrounded by pedals,” says Lisandre. “That’s what I wanted, to try lots of timbres, to find the best for the right song,” replies the guitarist, who praises the sound of her JHS PackRat Distortion pedal, through which, she assures, we can hear half a century of perfection in the way of confusing the sound of an electric guitar.
And after having made the best album of its career, what next for the group? The Shirleys have just finished their concert tour; How debord still has a busy schedule; NOBRO will hit the road at the start of 2024, supported by a new management team, which includes a turner in Europe and one in the United States. “The States, that’s the goal! » Sarah says.