Chad Bowar: How did Kosmos come to be?
Michel “Away” Langevin: We were a bunch of friends getting together every Thursday night listening to krautrock music, an obscure branch of progressive rock in the ‘70s. We were all members of other bands in Montreal, and it was our break every week to listen to this experimental stuff. One of the guys in the band, Phil, started buying very obscure vinyl from the ‘70s on the internet. After a while we thought, why not try to write this type of music? It would be interesting. This was a fun project in the sense that we didn’t expect anything out of it. We spent about a year writing and a couple of months recording and mixing. I sent it to The End Records, who signed Voivod, and they responded very quickly and signed us for three albums, even though it’s mostly instrumental. It took us by surprise. Now we are writing more stuff. It’s pretty exciting, actually because the style is very free and there are no limits at all. It can sound like Deep Purple at times with the organ and the riffage, but it can be very avant-garde in other spots.
Fans of what other bands do you think would like Kosmos?
People that are into German progressive rock from the ‘70s like Faust, Can, Amon Duul II, Nectar and Birth Control. They were a group of bands playing progressive rock with a touch of avant-garde. It was very experimental. Anybody into that type of music would love it. Also, on the forums of the Voivod website, the song that was posted on our MySpace was very well received. There are a lot of keyboards, but there are still guitars. So I think the people listening to Voivod won’t have any problem liking it.
In the liner notes, you are listed as drums and sounds. What exactly are “sounds?”
Over the years I’ve collected a whole bunch of sounds that I use once in a while to do interludes on albums and stuff like that. For a couple of tracks on the Kosmos album I took out my old faithful Akai sampler from the closet. It’s vintage ‘80s gear. The sounds are stored on discs. It was fun to discover my bank of samples from the industrial days. I did a put a few sounds from there on the album.
Most of the songs on the album are instrumentals. Did you consider having a full time vocalist for the band?
We didn’t think in terms of having a vocal, so we spent time writing complex songs to make sure it wouldn’t be boring without vocals. It can get boring if the song is straightforward. After a while we wanted to do a cover of a song by Gong, “Much Too Old,” so we invited an older punk rocker Xavier Cafeine who is very well known in Quebec. He’s a friend and we invited him to sing on that song. There was another song we thought needed something, so we invited a famous beatnik here in Montreal so he could ramble on top of the song. It’s in slang and very Quebec oriented language. There are four core members of Kosmos, but it’s also a collective. There were a lot of guests on the album. There will be even more on the next one.
Is Kosmos a studio band, or do you planning on doing some touring and live gigs?
We did play a couple of shows in Montreal. We were invited by a couple of bands to open for them. It went really well. It’s hard for us to book anything because two members are in very popular bands here in Montreal. They are touring constantly. We hope to play shows outside of Montreal eventually.
What’s the latest with Voivod? Have you began putting together an album with the rest of Piggy’s songs?
Yes, we have 13 songs left that we will be recording in the fall. We are waiting for Jason’s (Newsted) injury to heal 100 percent. He injured his shoulder and had to have surgery. So in the fall we’re going to be recording the final stuff. It’s still out of the sessions we did in 2004, so it’s pretty reminiscent of Katorz.
In the meantime I’m very busy reissuing the Noise catalog that is now on Century: Rrröööaaarrr, Killing Technology and Dimension Hatröss. They are going to be remastered and re-released with a bonus DVD of the Voivod archives from the ‘80s. We had the Iron Gang back then, a mail order where we would sell cassettes and stuff like that. Quite often people sent me VHS tapes and cassettes of shows we played and photos. . For Rrröööaaarrr I found the first show in the U.S. with Venom in 1985 on VHS and also a very early show in January 1984 in Quebec and also a high school show in ’84. I just wrapped it up and I’m working on Killing Technology and Dimension Hatröss. Later on next year we’re going to work on Nothingface, Angel Rat and The Outer Limits.
Are there any release dates set yet?
Rrröööaaarrr is going to come out for Christmas, and early next year Killing Technology and Dimension Hatröss will be released on Century Media. The others will be released on The End. There is one record that is still in limbo, Nothingface. It’s in legal limbo, but I’m going to sort that out very soon. Then we’ve got to take care of the material from the ‘90s as a trio with Eric Forrest. They should come out as a box set also with a DVD. It’s time consuming, but it’s worth it.
We’re also working on a DVD with the Jason Newsted lineup from 2001 and on. We have a lot of footage. It’s going to be interesting.
Will we see Voivod on tour again?
Once we are done with the next album in early 2008 we hope to do some kind of farewell tour to pay tribute to Piggy’s music. Andreas Kisser (Sepultura) already agreed to help us if we need to play Katorz and the next album live. That’s something we’ve been hoping to achieve. There’s nothing confirmed, but we hope to do some sort of tribute to Piggy live eventually.
