Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Agoraphobic News, Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin revealed that the band have been writing new material. On top of that, he also revealed that the group are planning to release a new live album as well.

Langevin said the following about writing new material during the coronavirus pandemic:

“The problem we encountered was that Chewy [guitarist Daniel Mongrain] lives a few miles away from Montreal. And the roads are blocked these days and he can’t really travel to Montreal and we can’t really travel to where he lives and so on. So we are doing a demo, sharing files in a Dropbox folder. I just downloaded a drum machine app for Android, and I’m using it to demo the drums, because, obviously, I can’t play at home or record at all. But we are moving forward with writing new material, which is great.”

He continued after being asked how many new songs the band have:

“We have just chunks of songs, but many of them. And maybe some of them will be collected together eventually. Before everything started with this coronavirus, we already had made a bunch of recording sessions at our studio. So we have some material to pull from — improvisations, riffs that Chewy started and we all joined then. But there is also material written separately by everybody that we share, so we are slowly gonna build an album this year. among ourselves. We are slowly gonna build up an album this year. But before that, there will be a live album coming out.”

On another note, Langevin, who is also a graphic design artist, also discussed how the pandemic is affecting touring, which is usually the main source of income for artists:

“I’ve been scared of that for many, many years, but it’s still a surreal situation right now. Even though that we should have been prepared [for] it, it’s something that will change this whole planet, for sure… For me, it seems like life as usual, it will definitely crush the VOIVOD revenues in terms of touring. And also, eventually, it will have an impact on my art as well, in the sense that if the bands stop touring, [I’m not] gonna draw t-shirts anymore. Like [the] ‘voivod’ [character created by Away], I’m gonna have to adapt to the situation very quickly, make the best of it.”

He also added the following when asked if he is concerned about Voivod staying off the road for awhile:

“Yes, I’m very afraid of that. We had some great, great festivals lined up in Quebec this summer, and then we had a world tour starting in September for the live album. And everything is up in the air right now. So I’m gonna seize the opportunity to put together the books that I’m gonna release eventually.”

Langevin went on to offer more information on his upcoming books:

“There is one book that’s art on the road. And the other book is art that I do for other people, like commissioned artwork, over the years. And I have another book that is all art that I do at home for myself. So that’s three books together. And I also have some kind of a comic book in the works, and this will probably be the first one coming out… I’m aiming at publishing it this year for the first book, which is more comic book-oriented. It’s not that many pages — maybe 30. And then I’m gonna move to the book about all the art that I do on the road. But this one is longer to put together, because I have thousands of drawings, because I draw a lot on the road.”

[via Blabbermouth]