Arto Lehtinen and Timo Hanhirova from Metal Rules spoke with VOIVOD drummer/visionary Michel "Away" Langevin recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Rules: Do you think there’s a new interest and attention from the metal people for VoiVod nowadays? More than 10 years ago?

Away: "Oh yeah. The past– I mean, it’s true that Jason brought a lot of attention towards the band. And last year when we started there was already an interest building up with the last couple of albums. And last year when we started playing festivals with Blacky (Jean-Yves Thériault; bass) the word spread really quickly about VoiVod playing the old catalogue, and now we’re getting a lot of offers to play more festivals. So next year I want to do even more than this year. This year we are doing maybe thirty festivals or so."

Metal Rules: What’s is the status of Jason Newsted (ex-METALLICA) at the moment ?

Away: "The thing is, Jason has a very strong connection with Piggy as a musician. They really got along. I’m not sure that Jason would be interested in working with the band without Piggy being in the band. But it’s hard to tell. Right now we’re doing this thing with Blacky, next year it might be another thing. Like I said, I see VoiVid as a big collective. But I would much prefer for Voidvod to be stable, but it’s been a chaotic band all the way through; it’s really not elements I can control because members leave. I’ve never kicked anybody out; they leave, so we have to find somebody else, then we have a clash, then somebody passes away. We switched record labels almost for every album. It’s quite a crazy career that I have."

Metal Rules: What about the new music?

Away: "It’s starting thinking. Many, many, many people ask me - or tell me – 'Please write more music.' Next year, 2010, it will be the fifth anniversary of Piggy’s unfortunate departure. Time heals, maybe I’ll be ready to try something with Dan (Mongrain - guitar, also MARTYR). My dream – I don’t know if I told you in Sweden – I dream of having an album with everybody involved, like Eric (Forrest - ex-vocalist, also E-FORCE), Jason, Snake, Blacky, Dan; that’s my dream. It’s just a dream right now, but I hope to make it happen in 2010. That would be great. "

Read the entire interview here.