Introduce yourself… (Where are you from, what band do you play in etc..)
E: My name is Eric and I play guitar and try to sing in Boar God. I am originally from Aylmer, Quebec near Ottawa, but I have been living in Montreal for 13 years now.

S: I’m Sabrina, I was born and raised in Montréal, Québec, and my first instrument was an Ibanez electric guitar I got from my grandfather (which I still have)! I have been in a number of different projects of different genres like metal, rock, garage, shoegaze, and punk; my last project was an all-female punk band called RatchetKill! I'm a versatile musician and I play bass because the bass player has both a rhythmic and a melodic role in a band. Together with the drummer, it is our job to make people dance! 

R: I’m René and I play the drums for Boar God. I also happen to play washboard and percussions for other folk-oriented projects.

Why do you play music?

E: I play music because I had song ideas in my head that I had to get out. Plus playing music is a good exercise for the mind and body.

S: To feed my creative needs. 

R: Because it’s fun and I believe that I’m pretty good at what I do, at least enough to keep on doing it regularly. Playing live music in the last 3 years also made me meet a shit ton of people (many of who became friends), travel all over the province, discover many underground venues, festivals, and scenes, and helped me gain a lot of confidence, whether it’s with my playing or my social interactions.

What was a major influence on you as an Artist/Band?
E: Swans were my initial influence to want to play music and start a band, Killing Joke was my influence to learn to play guitar and the Australian band feedtime were my inspiration to actually start writing songs.

S: There are too many great artists in this world to highlight only a few.
Esya Hassan and the band NOV3L are a couple I keep my eye on these days.

R: For Boar God, I think we all find common ground in bands like Sonic Youth, Slowdive, and Husker Du.
I don’t write melodies or harmonies, but I do contribute to the writing by bringing ideas for rhythms and dynamics. In that regard, I am mostly influenced by prog, post-rock, and world music.
As the drummers that inspire me a lot, it would be Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree, King Crimson), Aaron Harris (ISIS), Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden), Thomas Hedlund (Cult of Luna), Jason Roeder (Sleep, Neurosis) and Joey LaCaze (Eyehategod).

What's your ideal festival line-up?
E: No idea.

S: Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands always has some amazing lineups, filled with exclusivities and surprising choices. It’s mostly a metal festival (especially doom/sludge friendly) but they cover a lot of musical ground, but’s not rare to see post-rock, shoegaze, industrial, dark-ambient, prog, psych-rock, noise, neo-folk, and other « out of the left-field » bands.

Do you prefer the recording process or performing live?

E: Not sure. On one hand, I love the more concentrated and deliberate process of recording; experimenting with studio techniques and overdubs is a lot of fun for me. On the other hand, I love playing live for the spontaneous experience and also for social reasons: getting to meet and play with other bands and seeing and hearing people respond to your music. It makes me feel that I am doing something right.

S: Live performance. I really love to play outside of formal spaces like our jam space or studio. The only time I have enjoyed playing in a recording setting was when we did the recordings for the EP in the family chalet of Eric’s parents last winter. 

R: Both are great for different reasons.
I love playing live for the adrenaline, the parties, the recognition, the new friends, the road trips.
I don’t have many recording experiences, but it always ends up being fun moments, just doing our thing on the instruments for a bit and then just chilling and having a good laugh, drinking a few drinks. We recorded the last EP in a chalet in Tremblant during winter and it was a great experience, we had a lot of fun!

What would be a dream collaboration?

E: Absolutely no clue. I don’t really think about that, too busy focusing on our own music!

S: I don’t have a particular person or band that I dream to play with. But, I would really love to play with one person or a group that can do atmospheric sounds with their DIY instruments. 

R: I don’t think about anyone at the moment...

Describe a favorite album.

E: Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth. It pretty much represents everything that I want to accomplish musically; the sounds, the songwriting, the atmosphere, .etc.

S: Song Machine by Gorillaz, because it’s a major collaboration between so many awesome artists from different genres. Peter Hook and Elton John to name a few.

R: I would say Still Life by Opeth. Not a band that I’ve been listening to that much in recent years, but for a long time, I would listen to this album over and over. It was a gateway drug for extreme metal, progressive and experimental rock. This album just totally opened my mind and left me hungry for more creative music.
This album can go from brutal death metal riffs to quiet jazzy chords and ethereal acoustic passages in a coin flip.

What's your favorite local haunt?

E: Casa Del Popolo, NDQ, and various parks like Parc Laurier.

S: Farine Five Roses in Montreal. 

R: Well, both my favorite places closed this year (L’Escalier and Coop Katacombes) so I don’t know. I guess that I’ll go to Turbo Haus and Casa Del Popolo more frequently if they get through the tough times. I already liked these two venues, but for some reason have not hanged often there. Quai des Brumes is also a favorite of mine. I played the Verre Bouteille recently, I highly recommend it. It’s a really good small venue with quality equipment and good microbrewed beer.

What's your strangest experience while performing live?

E: “Strange” is not quite the word, but I once played in a band in which we were kicked off stage after 4 songs; we were playing at a bar in Sault-Ste. Marie in front of a bunch of (hostile) middle-aged folks who were expecting standard bar band fare, but we were more of a weirdo garage band (which sounded sorta/kinda like the Modern Lovers). There were technical issues, we played badly and it was a pretty disheartening/humiliating experience.

S: I don’t remember having a strange experience during a live performance. People who come to see Boar God are usually calmer than the ones that went to see my past bands.

R: I don’t know, live performances have mostly been great and pretty normal. I was once opening for a show at Club Soda with a former band of mine. The crowd was chilling a bit outside the venue after the headliner’s set, and the doorman of the neighboring bar was kinda pissed at the people hanging out close to the terrasse so he called the cops. He could have patiently waited half an hour for the crowd to leave naturally, but instead, we end up with an army of policemen trying to move something like 50 punks by using force and it ended up with a riot and dumpster fires all over St-Catherine street. Needless to say, it was pretty memorable.

What are some of your favorite aspects of being a musician in Montreal?

E: Freedom to be weird, and having an enthusiastic audience for that kind of music. The diversity of the scene is also a big plus.

S: Compared to other major cities, I think that in Montreal we are very lucky that people come out and show their support for emerging artists (in all artistic disciplines). It is a very multicultural and open-minded city. Like I said earlier, no matter what you create, there will always be an audience for your art. We’re also lucky to have such a big number of different kind of venues, that offer an outlet/stage for everything. 

R: The endless inspiration. There is always live music every night, tons of free festivals in the summer and a wide variety of stylistic scenes.

Has the current COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine influenced your creative process?

E: The pandemic has definitely made the songwriting process way slower for sure. I’ve got a bunch of songs/riffs in the back burner that I am way behind on writing lyrics for, mainly because the pandemic has made me focus on other creative pursuits (my illustration and filmmaking work).

S: In the beginning, it was a bit confusing because we were not able to be more than 2 people in the same room. We are 3 and we need to practice our new songs from the Ep for a live stream. So it was me playing sometimes with Eric (guitarist) but never with René (drummer). After that, we took a little break and now we are actually working on new songs!

R: Not that much on my part. It mostly sucks for live music.

If you weren’t playing music in Montreal where would you be?

E: Making crazy art in a shack in the woods.

S: Exploring the world. 

R: I don’t know, I really like it here. I’d like to move out of Montreal someday to the countryside, but I’m having too much fun right now laying with my bands in Mtl, so I don’t know, only time will tell...

Any sage advice for young musicians?

E: Practice, practice, practice. Also, learn the rules before you break them.

S: Don’t stay in a project where you don’t feel valued and doesn’t make you happy. 

R: It’s kind of generic and cheesy but kinda true: Do what you want to do, don’t alter your sound to try to please the industry, it most likely won’t work anyway. You can do commercially appealing music if that’s already what you like too, I see no problem in this, but don’t impose a sound you don’t like on your project just to please others.

Dig in to Boar God’s latest album Near Extinction below!