If Karelle Tremblay rediscovered her love of acting after practically ending her acting career, it’s thanks to… music.
“I needed to control my narrative, to express who I was, which I was not capable of doing as an actress,” confides Karelle Tremblay, sitting on the floor of her living room.
The artist received us in his spacious Scandinavian-inspired apartment, where the few decorative elements were limited to a few posters and books stacked on the floor.
At the start of the pandemic, the actress announced the start of her musical career with the release of a first song, Blender, which was to be the initial track of a forthcoming album.
Except that the extract was never followed up and the announced opus seemed dead in the bud. Well, until now. Now the author-composer presents her first successful musical project, Goodbye Karelle, with the release of an album, Hugh Greene
So why the long silence between Blender and this first full album?
By rushing her exit, the actress was mainly motivated by the desire to “win back [her] ex”. (“In the end, we didn’t come back together and I’m really good,” our interlocutor insists.)
In reality, the singer-songwriter did not have an album. Songs, yes. But a tone, a vision, no. This is what the producer Jean-Philippe Levac, who signed the production of the opus, made him realize.
“He kept saying to me, ‘What do you mean? What is your project? “I didn’t have a name, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” says the actress.
The click came later, when they created the piece Moonroad, which well encapsulates the sound of the opus: a muffled voice reminiscent of Leonard Cohen, superimposed on folk and rock arrangements à la Mitski or Japanese. Breakfast.
“I remember we were in the studio and we were like: this is the tone of this song. We redid all the songs we had based on this reference,” relates the artist.
“Artists have a great need to be understood and to express themselves,” notes Karelle in an amused tone, aware of the irony of this statement launched in the middle of an interview about the release of her album.
During the pandemic, the actress considered stopping the game. After spending half her life reciting the texts of others, the artist felt the need to tell her story in her own words. And to do it through an album.
“Music has been in my life more than acting. When he was young, my father had a band with my mother. I have also always written,” relates Karelle Tremblay. (His father also makes a brief appearance in the piece Sneakers.)
The lyrics of the album are also a collection of texts written by the actress over the years. What are they talking about? Of heartache, obviously, but also of interpersonal relationships and gender identity, a recurring theme of the opus.
In the Moonroad music video, the actress plays a knight who has his sweetheart stolen by a taller, more tattooed guy. “I wouldn’t know how to become the man she sees in me,” sings Karelle on the short track Interlude.
“Gender identity is a very complex thing. All my life, I will surely ask myself these questions,” confides the artist, who confides that he does not completely identify with the feminine gender.
Those who watched the first episode of the new season of STAT will have recognized her in the role of a diabetic patient. So does this mean that the actress has returned to acting?
“When you do something for so long, you eventually lose yourself. In my head, I had to say to myself: it’s completely over, I never want to tour again. There, I’m spinning and I’m feeling good,” answers Karelle Tremblay.
And the actress wouldn’t have been able to miss such an opportunity… “I love STAT! I was so happy when I got the call! »
Between gaming and music, the artist feels he has found the right balance.
“Shooting is something I know how to do. I’m in my element, I need this. It values me a lot. And the creative side, being able to express myself, I need that too. »