Ruth Lowe Ill Never Smile Again

Information technology's because of a guy everyone called Fern that Louis Cyr, aka Ludwig Wax, was infected past a virus commonly known as rock'n'gyre. "His real name is Pierre Ferland," says Cyr, about the person who made him want to devote his life to shaking his moneymaker, on his knees, onstage, with a Mexican wrestling mask on his caput, night later night. Fifty-fifty if it means ending up alone, like all of his peers. In other words, becoming, one day, the singer for Nombre, and i of Québec's most flamboyant rock singers – half acrobat, half daredevil.

Flashback to Québec City in the early '90s. "Fern DJ'd at Midnight on Tuesday nights," says Cyr, "and he'd founded an amazing band called Kaopectak aslope Gourmet Délice [bass actor for Secrétaires Volantes, Caféïne and Nombre, founder of Blow the Fuse Records, and at present business development managing director for Bonsound]. They did covers of obscure punk and rock songs. Fern was a very at-home dude, but on phase… WOAH! Nosotros imagine all kinds of things about rock stars, but Fern was truly the first person I saw get onstage, go into a trance, and return to their normal life afterwards. I said to myself, 'I want to do that, likewise.'"

In 1996, "in some basement in Cap-Rouge," he recorded Fun Bomb!, the just anthology past Demolition, his offset band. I evidence him the album encompass from my end of the videoconference call. "Wait inside!" says Cyr. "Do you lot encounter who produced the anthology?" And what I can clearly come across is that information technology was produced past Stéphane Papillon, with whom Cyr recently re-united in Drogue, Québec's new super-grouping, the other members of which are guitar hero Jean-Sébastien Chouinard, bassist Fred Fortin, and drummer Pierre Fortin (of Gros Mené and Galaxie).

"At the stop of my Cégep, the two bands that fabricated it to the finals of Cégeps en spectacle were Papillon'due south band and Jean-Philippe's [Dynamite Roy, guitarist for Secrétaires Volantes and Nombre, and Drogue'south lyricist]. Papillon sang 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' and it was the offset time I heard a Stooges song."

Rock "funabulist," adolescent on the loose, charismatic, and near probable a bit masochistic, as Ludwig Wax, Cyr became a Québécois Iggy Popular, never hesitating to wrap his microphone cord around his neck, to climb everywhere, to catapult himself into the crowd and to do the ophidian on the flooring, a modus operandi he adopted right from the get-go with Sabotage, and which would guide him to the third and ultimate Nombre, Vile et fantastique (2009).

"C'est-tu l'aube, c'est-tu l'aube, c'est-tu l'aube, c'est-tu l'aube ou le crépuscule ? /Un jour je me bats, y'en dix autres où je capitule" ("Is information technology dawn, is it dawn, is it dawn, is information technology dawn or is it dusk? /One day I fight, there are 10 other where I capitulate") he howls on "L'aube ou le crepuscule," the galvanizing commencement single from Drogue'south first EP.

"I consider Jean-Philippe Roy to be i of the most important songwriters of the punk rock Francophonie," says Louis almost his longtime friend, whom we could qualify as semi-retired from the rock scene. "In that vocal, Jean-Philippe is wondering if our feet are inside or exterior of our catafalque. How are we supposed to react to aging? Nosotros're all effectually 50 years old at present."

What's Cyr'due south mental attitude with regards to his own age? Permit's start with a list of injuries: Ludwig Wax has "kneecaps typical of someone who besides often decided to jump really high and land on their knees like a moron," he says. He has back problems, also linked to his stunts, and a shoulder that makes him miserable since he dislocated it during a Demolition show in Japan during a G8 Summit in 2000.

"My mental attitude towards aging?" He gives an unequivocal answer. accompanied by a booming laugh: "I decided join Drogue!" (Editor's annotation: The line in French is "J'ai décidé de jouer dans Drogue," a wordplay all-time translated as, "I decided to play with drugs.")

Although Stéphane Papillon and Jean-Sébastien Chouinard tricked him into joining the band – he met them thinking he was only going to collaborate on a single song for Papillon'due south solo anthology – the vocalizer, now that he's got the bug once more, is dying to get onstage and "feel the air moving considering of the amps." As hard to believe as it is, a sure virus (more unsafe than the rock 1) has meant that the members of Drogue have never all been together in the same room. That as well explains why Cyr is the only band fellow member – disguised as a human billboard(!) – featured in the video for De la poudre aux yeux, a tribute to Guy 50'Écuyer'southward graphic symbol in André Forcier'southward film Au clair de la lune (1983).

"I want to go one with the music when I'm onstage," says Cyr. "I want to be stabbed by the sound waves of the drums, guitars, and bass. I know not everyone enjoys loud music, but I do. Information technology makes a lot of musical styles more interesting. Whenever I listen to music or sing, I go to a point where I feel it should exist even louder."

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Source: https://www.socanmagazine.ca/features/how-the-song-happened-ruth-lowes-ill-never-smile-again/

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