Peanut Butter Sunday is: catchy pop-punk melodies, engaging personalities, infectious energy and, above all, a great desire to have fun. All with Acadian sauce. La Presse spoke to the founding members of the Baie-Sainte-Marie group before their appearance at the Francos on June 17.
To describe his band’s pop-punk, Normand Pothier, guitarist and co-founder of Peanut Butter Sunday, jokingly uses the term “fake punk”. He and his acolytes know very well that they are not proposing a musical revolution with their music. “It’s fake punk since day one,” says Normand. It’s not Serge Gainsbourg, French song, but it’s really fun music, with a lot of tempo and it’s a bit aggressive. »
This style is what the musicians have “always wanted to do”, says Normand, in a telephone interview, also in the company of the singer, guitarist and co-founder of the group, Michael Saulnier. When the latter, during the pandemic, moved to Normand, the two childhood friends first started working on Michael’s solo project.
Like Blink-182, Sum 41 or Green Day (in short, music from their childhood game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater!), the quartet makes their amps vibrate with overdriven guitars, with chords that we could not qualify as very complex, but which have the merit of being always catchy. On a still frantic tempo, Peanut Butter Sunday (let’s call it PBS) offers nostalgic moments for those who experienced the pop punk wave of the early 2000s.
Our call is delightfully chaotic. We quickly understand that the members of PBS do not take themselves seriously, in their music as in life. When asked to tell us about his musical journey, Michael goes on to say: “I started playing the guitar around the age of 5. Then I played drums too. Around 16, I started writing songs, but just in English. Around 2019, I started writing in French and since then, I write and sing exclusively in French… And I play guitar in French! »
This French of their own, this colorful Acadian dialect, is one of the things that give their musical offering such a catchy hue. For them, it was unthinkable to do otherwise. “If we hadn’t sung like we talk, the world would have been able to tell, we would have had people who would have found us phony,” says Normand.
So in the texts, of which Michael writes half and Normand the other, the singer does not change anything in his French. And that’s good. On the piece Mes chums, he tells us for example: “My buddies are so stupid / They make the pancake / But they do their best to stay fuckin’ stupid. / They ride their bike / They go on hikes / They go to Belliveau’s Cove to fly a fuckin’ kite. »
Peanut Butter Sunday is a proud representative of Baie-Sainte-Marie, Nova Scotia, where “there is a piano or a guitar in literally every house,” according to Michael. There also where the culture is very musical, so much so that the two friends have the impression of having simply followed a path already partly traced. Normand always wanted to do this: “I was watching live concert DVDs thinking, ‘One day, that’s going to be me!’ “ Michael, he, rational and realistic, admits not having believed that he would one day make a job of it. “It was like a crumb in my head, but I didn’t think it was realistic,” he said. But what do you know! »
Singing in French notably allowed musicians to register for Les Francouvertes during the most recent edition, a huge springboard, although they have already started to build a reputation.
The foursome was a crowd favorite, finishing first after the first round. Things were more difficult in the semi-finals and the group did not make it to the final. “I find it hilarious, because it’s extremely rare, it hasn’t happened for a long time that a band has the first place for the preliminaries, but does not make it to the finals”, laughs Michael.
Normand joins him, in an infectious giggle. Obviously, the two musicians prefer to focus on the positive of their experience (the meetings and the opportunity to go on stage), rather than on this “fucking weird” defeat.
Peanut Butter Sunday has his sights set on the future. Nova Scotians are already recording new “tunes”. Because that’s where their music takes on its full meaning, they can’t wait to get on stage, at the Francos and wherever they’re welcomed. “We’re here to have a good time,” Michael said. Every show is like our last because you never know what’s going to happen, if people are going to like it or if we’ll have any other show. So, you make the best of it! »