Population II - Shoot For The Stars
Population II isn’t the easiest band to categorize, but that’s a big part of their appeal. In a world full of assembly line personalities and cookie-cutter pop music, it’s increasingly important to be reminded that true individuality is still out there.
A mainstay of the Montreal psych-rock scene for a few years, the band went through some minor lineup changes since initially forming in 2016. The trio’s current (and likely permanent) lineup consists of Sebastien Provençal (bass), Pierre-Luc (Pepe) Gratton (drums, vocals), and Tristan Lacombe (guitar, keys). Upon self-releasing an eponymous EP early on, the band’s popularity quickly rose and their first proper album, 2020’s Á la Ô Terre, was released on the Osees' frontman John Dwyer's legendary label Castle Face Records. I recently met up with Tristan on a lovely afternoon at Brasserie Beaubien to talk about the band’s quick rise and what comes next.
“I met Seb in high school, that was almost 12 years ago. We started playing together, and we never stopped. We had our first version of the band, we were already called Population II, in 2016 with Thierry David on drums. We had our first EP, instrumental stuff, that we did in 2017. It was two 20 minute songs!” Tristan laughs, recalling the project. “After that we parted ways with Thierry. Seb and I still wanted to play music together but we thought it’s not Population II without Thierry. We got Pepe, a high school friend also, but way younger than us. We knew he was drumming and singing, so we just thought ‘hey let’s give it a try’. That was great because he added vocals, he added song structure.
“Our sound since then has just been more mature. We still like chaos, this thing where the song might go anywhere, but we like to control it. We’re doing shorter songs where everything is really concise, but it’s still super prog-y because it goes everywhere. The new songs are more funky but at the same time more punk. It’s cool.”
The 70’s artists the band looks to for influence had it in spades. From the punk-before-punk-was-a-sound of the early CBGB’s scene, to pioneering krautrock bands, to former Blue Cheer guitarist Randy Holden [who’s 1970 album Population II the band named themselves after, naturally]. They synthesize all the elements of their favourite music and come up with something completely original.
“I kind of like the duality of mixing prog and punk. When punk first came out it was like ‘Oh, fuck prog, we don’t like those guys, that’s bullshit’ and we’re making basically prog but in a punk way! And it’s interesting, recently Keith Levene [founding member of The Clash, Public Image Ltd] died and I was reading up on him. It turns out he was a guitar tech for Steve Howe on a couple of Yes tours. I thought, ‘that makes sense’, the first two PIL albums sound like a guy who likes Steve Howe. Those weird chord structures, super bright, sharp, that vibe. Keith Levene is one of my heroes so I was super happy to read that.”
After parting ways with David in 2017 the band was at a crossroads.
“Basically we had formed a band [with new drummer Gratton] and at first we really didn’t know what it was. But we had some shows booked for the summer and we weren’t going to cancel everything. We had Pepe, so we kind of reworked some stuff from the EP. We did the songs, but we added vocals and stuff. From that point on, that was the new sound. It was so cool. Pepe was not as controlled as Thierry at first, not quite as precise. But the fact that he was super bombastic, super intense, and at the same time singing, that’s where we found the sound. After that, we wanted to mark the fact that the band was going in another direction, so we self recorded a little EP. We decided to do a lathe cut, everything paid from our pocket, and we released that. We did maybe a hundred copies I think, maybe fifty. All that we could afford. We did some shows, the EP sold, and at this point we said ‘okay we’re ready for a full length album’.
Photo by Didier Pigeon-Perreault
“We were working with engineer Sam Gemme, even the EP we recorded on our own in our rehearsal space, he kind of remixed it, and we were always working with him. We asked him about producers. We wanted to have a producer for our first album, just someone to be there, a different brain. Someone to say if we sucked, or if it’s good. And we got Emmanuel Ethier, he used to be in Chocolat, he produced some Jimmy Hunt albums. Good guy. We recorded the album, this is like 2018 or something, we were kind of lost. We thought nobody was going to want to release it. We thought we would just pay for it ourselves and do a pressing, and that’s it. And then Emmanuel told us at the end of the recording ‘Hey guys, this is good. I know some people, I’ll send them the album’. We were talking about labels we like, one of them was Castle Face. He said ‘oh you know I did a couple of shows with the Osees years ago and I still have John’s contact. He just sent him the whole album and an hour later John had listened to the entire thing and said ‘yeah, I’m releasing this. I like this.’ I remember that day I just flipped out. At first we thought it was a joke. He’s one of my teenage heroes. He still is. And then we had a ton of projects we wanted to do with them. Tour with them, go everywhere. And then the pandemic happened. So nothing happened. We basically never toured Á la Ô Terre.”
Obviously the pandemic threw a wrench into everyone’s plans, completely halting all touring. It proved fatal to many bands. Fortunately Population II survived. With the album's intended late 2019 release date having been pushed back to October 2020, it ended up coming out smack dab in the middle of the first wave of lockdowns and paranoia. Not exactly the ideal climate for any new release, but playing live was out of the question for a while.
“At first they had asked if we wanted to wait and release the album when all of it was over. We thought about it and then said ‘no, we just want to get it out’. So we released it in October 2020 and did some live streams, which was…fine. The M for Montreal stream was great because we had sets and everything. The one at the SAT was crazy too, with the dome! We played that one before the album was released, kind of out of nowhere. Nobody knew we were releasing the album on Castle Face and then John just shared it on all his social media and said ‘Hey I don’t think you can do better than watching Population II shredding in a dome!’. So we released it kind of thinking maybe nothing would come out of this album.”
Unfortunately, as the pandemic continued to wreak havoc on the music industry, many smaller labels were simply unable to survive. Castle Face Records, a tiny label run by a small handful of hard working people, were forced to slow their operations. This meant that the band had to look elsewhere for future releases. It’s especially unfortunate given their artist-first style of running the business.
“It was so cool to work with them. There was no contract involved. Handshake deal. They don’t take any royalties. Basically we did a record and we split the profits on the record. It was cool. I think it’s the most artist friendly thing you can have. But sometimes it could be cool to have some more people to help out. There’s a ton of different ways to release your music. That was one of them. We had a good experience with them.”
Population II wasted no time in finding a new home for their music, quickly signing with famed Montrel label Bonsound.
“The first time we talked to Bonsound was actually for Á La Ô Terre. We wanted to do a joint thing where we could have a label here that could help with PR a bit more. Basically the album got released only on Castle Face and I think it’s known a bit more on the west coast than in Montreal. So we started talking to Bonsound, but the first time we didn’t really get exactly what we wanted and the album was already going to the pressing plant with Castle Face. So we decided to just go that way. But we didn’t forget about Bonsound. Eventually we made friends with all the people there, they were going to all the same shows as us, so for the next album we decided to have a good talk. We started talking again at the end of 2022 and we just publicized the deal a couple months ago now, I can’t remember the date.”
With a brand new deal freshly signed, Population II wasted no time getting back to the studio to put some new music down.
“We’re putting out one song right now. Something we really wanted to release. We’ve been playing this one live for almost two years. It’s a nice banger. It’s called Beau Baptême. It’s a kind of groovy, funky track, but sometimes it explodes. Pepe wrote some great lyrics about Blank Page Syndrome, or writer’s block. It's about the fact that sometimes he can write a song in about five minutes and it comes out great, and sometimes it can take months. He talks about getting an idea in his head, meditating and just throwing it down really quickly. He wrote the song really quickly and I think it’s super good, super pure. It came out at the end of May. Hugo Jeanson from Bonsound did a nice cover for the single. Simple and super impactful.”
Population II are just gearing up for what’s sure to be a busy Summer/Fall schedule, and Tristan assures me that live dates will be announced soon. You do not want to miss an opportunity to see this band live on stage.
It’s always interesting to find out what kinds of bands inspire one another in the local scene so before we finished up I asked Tristan for his thoughts on some local musicians he finds particularly inspiring.
“One band I really like is Yoo Doo Right. We played a show together in 2019 but we didn’t know the guys that well. Last year we rented a house with them in Austin for SXSW and had an amazing time. I was going to say they’re the loudest band in the city but maybe they're the loudest band in the world! It’s fucking crazy. It’s super loud, it’s an experience, but it’s also well rounded. It’s very polished, not really harsh. A lot of people tell them that they’re post-rock and I don’t think they like that term that much. It’s mostly instrumental, sometimes there’s vocals. It’s kind of krautrock, kind of psych-rock. But you can still hear the fact that they love Godspeed, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, stuff like that. You see them and it’s like an airplane taking off in front of your face! Hugo Jeanson from Bonsound has a nice electro project, called Salon Privé. Very abrasive electro. He uses samples really well. And cymbals with odd beats, it’s really neat. They just opened for Martin Rev at Le Ritz! My friend Marco plays drums in a band called PNOOM. They’re really great. They’re getting a bit more known because they’re playing a lot of shows. It’s kind of punk and 90’s style shoegaze but really loud and intense. They have the Can-inspired name and they often get into nice instrumental jams. Another buddy, Alex Fournier, has a project called Blood Skin. Actually he just changed the name to Alix Fernz. It's cool. He makes all of his stuff alone, electro-punk kind of thing. Vincent Lemay and his band Efy Hecks. He has a new thing now called Vicent Paul. It’s going to be more of a solo thing, so he’s doing both.”
“When we started we played a lot at L’Esco and I’ll always be grateful to have played there. Bar Le Ritz is getting really solid shows lately. Turbo Haüs is cool for sure. It’s cool that Sergio [from Turbo Haüs] is willing to help out touring bands so much. La Sala Rosa has been so good to us. These are the ones in the city that we’ve played a lot and we really like. I’m forgetting some for sure.”
Tristan has also recently begun to play with a few other musicians, and put his screen printing skills, well-honed after years as a professional printer at local shop In Print, to use for local effects pedal company Mile End Effects run by Yoo Doo Right Guitarist Justin Cober. As busy as he may be right now it looks like he’ll have plenty more on his plate very soon. As Population II begins to tour in earnest their reputation and popularity are bound to grow. Onward and upward. À la hauteur. Population II, shoot for the stars.
For more Population II, check out Bonsound.