The Upcoming VOIVOD Album Will Be Followed By Three More!
November 2, 2005, 19 years ago
Special Report By David Perri
Less than two months after Denis “Piggy” D’Amour’s sad and all too premature death, BW&BK; exclusively spoke to Voivod’s drummer, Michel “Away” Langevin. While Away was eager to converse, the undeniable fact remains that he has lost his best friend. That said, Away’s voice lights up when he begins discussing Voivod’s new music. Yes, indeed, there will be another record from the Voivod camp. But that’s not all. Away, dropping a bombshell, relays the good news. The upcoming Voivod album will be followed be three (!) more.
“We’ve been working on 23 songs since 2003,” he reveals to BW&BK.; “We’ve been writing since we finished Ozzfest ‘03. We’re going to release the material, but it’s going to be split up into Tome 1 and Tome 2. The music will cover all bases. There are rockers, prog songs, heavier songs and then there’s even material that sounds like The Outer Limits. When Piggy died, I inherited his musical archives. He recorded the entire new album on his laptop with ProTools. We’ll finish putting it all together in December, and then it will be mixed in early January. So the record should be out next year. Aside from that, I’ve also found enough material on Piggy’s laptop to fill another few albums, so there will be four new Voivod records in total. There’s many years of work to be done until they all get put together. Piggy was so prolific. He was also the master of saving and backing up all his work (laughs). He would just record all day. He’d put on his headphones and just play. Even in his last lucid hours, he was writing and recording with an acoustic guitar. I haven’t been able to listen to those recordings in their entirety yet. It’s very emotional for me. The very last recordings are about an hour long and on acoustic guitar. They’re quite dark.”Away says the new record will probably be recorded in Voivod’s hometown of Montreal. The followup to 2003's Voivod will be issued by The End Records sometime in 2006.
"We’re really proud of the album we did with (bassist) Jason (Newsted - ex-METALLICA)," Away finishes. "It was like we were a new band, so we weren’t sure what people would think. But it worked out, and some tracks on the record even became classics, like ‘The Multiverse’. We’re proud of that album, but we think the new one will be even better.”
Watch for BW&BK;'s exclusive chat with Voivod in BW&BK; #93, out in stores later this month!
