At the time, Guillaume Beauregard had a rather modest conception of what success was. “I remember that I worked in a ski resort and that I spent all my shifts listening to CISM [the radio of the University of Montreal],” says the man whose group, Vulgaires Machins, had not yet performed often. ventured out of Granby. “Intravenous Pedophilia [from the Marmottes’ first album] played a lot, and for me, at that time, touring at CISM was what success was. »
Around twenty years after the dissolution of the group, the mark left by the Marmottes Aplaties in the great little history of seriously unserious music continues to be confirmed. After putting their discography back into circulation in 2018 (on vinyl and online), the trio formed by singer and guitarist Bruno Lamoureux, bassist Sébastien Goyette and drummer Martin Lussier restarts the engine of its car, time to impress all these puppets with some shows in Montreal, Quebec and Alma.
“As they were a step ahead of us, they made us want to play in the same leagues as them,” continues Beauregard. They had so many great hooks, crazy flippancy and ridiculous lyrics. In show, they created a kind of magic. »
Founded in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu by three high school friends who were barely 15 years old when they recorded their first demo cassette (Truck, 1994), the Marmottes Aplaties sent the signal, with their contagious effrontery, their saving impertinence and the immediacy of their melodies, that anyone with access to a guitar or drums could follow suit.
“Les Marmottes is the kind of band that made you want to play music,” says actor (and drummer) Marc-André Grondin, one of the group’s most enthusiastic apostles. In November 2018, the Ecrapoutis mammals offered him the surprise of a visit to the set of En direct de l’univers, one of those incredible moments that France Beaudoin’s show provokes.
As introverted as he is, Olivier Niquet was for a time the singer of a basement band called Out of Range, which performed certain skate punk anthems from NOFX, Lagwagon and No Use for a Name. “And when the Marmottes arrived, it was refreshing to hear that music, but in my language,” recalls the man in whose cortex each word of the album 1001 songs to enhance your meals (1996) remains printed. Including The Boy Scouts, A Golfer’s Revenge and… Intravenous Pedophilia.
Now aged 45, Bruno Lamoureux works as an artistic director in a publishing house, Sébastien Goyette in a secondary school and Martin Lussier, as a professor in the department of social and public communication at UQAM. He is also perhaps the only professor at UQAM to have already organized a spaghetti wrestling match (during the launch of the Marmottes’ second album, Episode Bloody, in 1999).
It’s on Bloody Episode that we find Détruire, the group’s signature song, whose video parodying the Godzilla films has probably been broadcast as often on MusiquePlus as that of I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys. A hymn to the constructive power of destruction, propelled by one of the most menacing and electrifying bass lines in the history of Quebec rock.
“MusiquePlus has allowed us to reach an audience that we could never have dreamed of, everywhere in the province,” thinks Martin Lussier, now a member, with Sébastien, of the group Le Dernier Assaut, while Bruno recently set up the group Cornette. “That’s what ensured that when we arrived in Saguenay, the theaters were full, even if we had no radio coverage. »
However, Les Marmottes were far from imagining that one of their songs would one day be part of the Bell Center playlist, as has been the case since 2019 with the Canadian version of Détruire.
The fruit of a long lobbying campaign by Marc-André Grondin, carried out on Twitter. “I have a friend who works at Groupe CH,” he says, “and who told me that one day, Geoff Molson came into her office and asked her: “What are these, Flattened Marmots? There are lots of people talking about this on Twitter. ” She went to find the video for Détruire on YouTube and watched it with Geoff Molson. I have never had as much influence as I did that time. »
” Lunchbox. I never understood anything about the lyrics, but the chorus is the best hook in the group. »
” Destroy. Even if it’s called “destroy”, there is something positive in this tune. No matter how I feel, it will energize me. It’s so simple, but it works. It’s a bit like the Quebec equivalent of Surfin’Bird. »
“Fine steps, because the phrase “fine steps are mean”, is genius. »
