Montreal, QC-based 4-piece pop band, The Kommenden was founded by Guillaume Etter and Sarah Armiento and made their debut on January 21, 2019. Their first single ‘Romance Disguised as Friendship” was released alongside an accompanying film noir-y music video featuring local artists and friends from the Montreal scene.
The video was shot and directed by Guillaume Etter and stars Maryse Bernard (from project Maryze & Seaborne) and Malika (from project Casomado) and was shot in the Diving Bell Social Club.
Check out the video below and find out more about this brand new band in our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Hello Bonjour my name is Guillaume Fabien Claude Etter. I am a foreign poet, I started playing Bach’s organ suites at age 7 and I slice brains for a living. I sing and do guitar gimmicks in a band called the Kommenden (the ‘up-and-coming’). We are not German at all.
Tell us a bit about your music and writing style.
I shamelessly indulge in old and new pop music (John Lennon, Andre 3000, Drake). Music should be ear-candy and catchy, but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take your songs seriously you know? I’d like to believe that we take the indie genre a bit beyond, by adding a few new elements of noise and implicitly dirty lyrics to songs that your grandma could easily handbang to. In short, we are just Arcade Fire but better.
Do you have any upcoming shows? For someone who has yet to see you live, how would you explain your live performance?
We just started so we don’t have any shows scheduled yet (we are just releasing our first single January 21st to say hi-what’s-up-hey-there-we-are-it’s-us) but we will definitely play a couple of shows in Montreal before the summer, then invade the West (because why not). You should expect a few things from our show:
- Tickets are 20% cheaper than most indie shows because we are nice people
- We kinda look alike so expect a lot of people asking whether we are siblings (and expect confusion)
- We actually are nothing like Arcade Fire (breaking news)
- You can’t buy our music physically but you can buy us physical beers. Also, we are open to cloth swapping if you really want that wearable band collectable
- We play short sets because there’s nothing worse than a never-ending show
- I’m really into free-form everything, so expect the unexpected (eg waking up the next day without one of your kidneys, or Arcade Fire covers)
- Sometimes I break stuff which gives us a bad reputation. But really I’m just clumsy.
If you were asked to suggest only one of your songs for someone to hear, which would it be?
That would be ‘Romance disguised as friendship’. It’s literally our only release so far so it makes the decision much easier.
Canadian Beats is all about Canadian music, so who are your current favourite Canadian bands/ artists?
The list long but lemme drop a few names for ya [to be read with a really distasteful & failed Italian accent]. I like Men I Trust. It’s a good mix of postpunk, dance, and they keep it simple and upbeat. I’m still puzzled by the lyrics. I’m convinced a lot of their songs are about threesomes but I probably misunderstood, as often). But hey, nothing wrong with confusion. Oh and they are amazing musicians too, go see them live if you can. Lyonz is great too, I love Terrell’s voice and flow. He’s a wholesome person too, God-like level. Daniel Romano is a singer/songwriter who performed an interesting transition from Country to Glam Rock. If you want to dig into more complex artistic realms I really recommend Johnny de Courcy. Beautiful person (inside and outside). As an artist, deep, talented, tragic, and forever misunderstood. Also bakes the best bread in the Great Toronto Area. Don’t miss NOBRO if they play any show near you. Your ears will bleed (in a good way).