Montreal, QC-based francophone punk-rock band, Gros Soleil has released their debut album, Occulture Populaire via Indica Records. The album delivers 9 songs with cranky guitars, fast pace rhythm, and high pitch delivery from lead vocal Dominic Lamoureux. In advance of the release, they had unveiled 2 singles, “Cercle de sel” and “Dans une fusée“, but now you can hear them all below. Check it out, and find out more about the band via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
We’re 4 guys, playing ”fist in the air/feet stompin”’ rock, who aren’t afraid to be inspired by different generation and style of music, from boogie blues to classic rock, from 70s and 80s punk to grunge, metal, post-rock, stoner rock, everything that have authentic energy and intentions. We’re passionate and making the kind of music we’d like to hear, not just surfin any ”a la mode” wave 😉 We’ve been in numerous different bands, since the early 2000s.
Tell us a bit about your music and writing style.
We like to call it ”audio pop art” ;). We often start a jam by saying: ” we should try to do a song like WEEZER” so we kinda analyze their chorus, verses, bridges, and vocal melody/arrangement as a starting point, and the jam can go in various directions but the blueprint, the backbone was that ”Like Weezer or like a Stooges song” starting point. For the lyrics, Dominic the singer writes with a global idea, often with a first or second-degree social criticism. Sebastien on the lead guitar sprinkles some insane and willingly cheesy solo, so it can be fun to whistle along haha and Christian on bass just groove his soul with a punkish attack. Voila!
Do you have any upcoming shows? For someone who has yet to see you live, how would you explain your live performance?
We don’t have a show until 3 to 4 months, my brother (the singer) is having an operation, he has to recover. Meanwhile will surely jam and write other songs and being back on attack for summer festivals etc, just follow our Facebook to know. Our live performances are blood, sweat, and no tears haha. Energic, intense, fun, sometimes/often faster than the album version because we are on fire, too happy to be there having fun between us and the public, its contagious!
If you were asked to suggest only one of your songs for someone to hear, which would it be?
CERCLE DE SEL. Its short, sweet, energetic, melodic. It resumes pretty well the different sides of the album/band.
Canadian Beats is all about Canadian music, so who are your current favourite Canadian bands/ artists?
BLACK MOUNTAIN, SADIES, TRICKY WOO, SLOAN, DEATH FROM ABOVE, MSTRKRFT, ALEXISONFIRE, THE DEARS, DANKO JONES, ERIC’S TRIP, MALAJUBE, AVEC PAS D’CASQUE, BLEU NUIT, JONATHAN PERSONNE, DOUBLE DATE WITH DEATH.