Photo by Julien Lapperière

Meghan Oak: Capturing Her Own Light

Story by Élise Jetté | Thursday April 27th, 2023

Each lunar phase is represented in turn on Meghan Oak’s new EP, Dans la lune, with a release date of April 28, 2023. When it’s full, the moon shines over us, using all the light from the Sun to reveal itself to the world; similarly, Oak is embracing this moment in her life, allowing herself to shine brightly. (Editor’s Note: while literally meaning “in the moon,” the EP title is also a French colloquialism meaning “having one’s head in the clouds.”)

Meghan Oak“It might come across as pretentious,” says the singer-songwriter, “but it took me a long time to admit it, after a lengthy process: I deserve to be in the spotlight.” Just as the Moon follows its cycles, Oak awaited her turn, doubting herself a lot, but is ready now to take flight. Her first EP, Étrangère (2020) and her stint on Star Académie (2021) fed her strong case of impostor syndrome – which she’s now shed completely.

“Yoga saved me, and allowed me to get off anti-depressants,” she admits, after having completed a training as a teacher of the discipline. Yoga, which led her to a kind of spirituality, transported her away from negative energy, and gave her the strength to get through both the pandemic, and an arduous romantic break-up.

“When I released Étrangère, all I had was a college education in communications,” says Oak. “People heard about me on social media, and I was struggling to understand why I was getting so much attention, despite having no musical training – and being from a family where my dad was an electrician, and my mom a social worker.”

The artist endlessly questioned what gave her the permission to “stand in the light” that being a singer afforded her. “I asked myself what I had to share that was so incredible that it was me on that close-up photo,” she says. “Then, I had an epiphany: I’m not putting Meghan Oak in the spotlight! I’m using music to bring people along as we both elevate ourselves.” This explains why she feels as one with pop music, a genre she categorically refuses to relegate to the status of “banal.” She touches on universal subjects: love, environment, feeling unaccepted. “Having a career as a singer doesn’t revolve around me, it’s about giving back,” she says.

In 2022, Oak was one of 25 artists selected to participate in SOCAN Foundation’s TD Incubator for Creative Entrepreneurship. “For nearly three months, I had access to industry pros – managers, PR people, radio trackers, etc. – and what I enjoyed the most was having the chance to meet three mentors who’ve guided me through my career,” she says.

Oak maintains that, as an independent artist, not all aspects of the industry have the same level of difficulty. “I’m my own booking agent, manager, content creator, and so on,” she says. “Artist entrepreneurs deserve as much spotlight and support as artists with a record label,” she adds. The Orchard’s Karine Lafleur, Pop Montréal’s Daniel Seligman, and Universal’s Guillaume Moffet all offered her tips and assistance to help her carry on her business with assurance. “They quickly pointed out the importance of meetings that aren’t directly about the art,” she explains, adding that she was relieved by their helpful advice.

Meghan Oak, Avant Que Le Ciel Ne Tombe

Click on the image to play the Meghan Oak video “Avant que le ciel ne tombe”

Fully invested, she’s adamant about seeing all the possibilities. “When the moon is full, I’m obsessed with its light, and fourteen days later, when it’s the new moon, we’re in complete darkness – and it’s okay, because we know the light will be back,” says Oak, who gives herself all the leeway she needs to accept her dark moments and enjoy her brighter days.

With the same philosophy, she shines a light on the people who’ve helped her. “There’s not a single song on my EP that I did alone,” she says. Laurence Castera, Amélie Larocque, and DVinyle are part of her creative inner sanctum. Her producer, Ken Presse, co-wrote and co-produced most of Dans la lune.

She’s also thankful for all the shared spaces that gave her an opportunity to make contacts who carried her forward as an independent artist. “It was at the Foyer’s song camp, at Pilou’s BEAM, that I was introduced to DVinyle and Tommy Lunaire,” Oak remembers. “The subject we were tasked with writing a song together was ‘Don’t Look Up.” and it was an incredibly rich collaboration. The result was ‘Avant que le ciel ne tombe.’”

When she writes with someone else in a duo format, Oak starts by having a deep conversation with her co-writers, ensuring that the length travelled on the inner musical path also helps everyone involved move forward. “I always ask the others how they’re feeling,” says Oak. “What do they want to say today? What’s the emotion at the heart of the song? And then we go!

“I’ve never worked as hard as this on an event,” says Oak about her record launch, and the live shows that will follow. “We’re going to unabashedly celebrate Francophone pop, and travel through all the phases of the moon.”

Dans la lune is launched at Montréal’s Le Ministère on April 26, 2023, and Oak is at the SOCAN Gala on May 7, 2023, to share her experience during the Incubator for Creative Entrepreneurship.

SOCAN Classics: “Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin” (1969)

Story by Philippe Rezzonico | Wednesday May 3rd, 2023

On May 7, 2023, Jean-Pierre Ferland will receive the Cultural Impact award at the Gala SOCAN, at La Tohu, in Montréal, for his song “Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin.” We invite you to take a look behind the scenes of the creation of this iconic song for a whole generation of Quebecers.

Bell Centre, May 9, 2003. Two-thirds of the way through a Ginette Reno concert, Jean-Pierre Ferland steps on stage to duet with the evening’s star on “Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin” (“A little higher, a little further”). The concert was part of a series that celebrated Reno’s decades-spanning (‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s) career and hits, and Ferland’s appearance took on the air of a major event in and of itself.

As I sat in seat 5, row M of section 123, I thought to myself that the surprise guest could also show up during the next night’s concert, where her hits of the ‘70s would be performed. It is, after all, during that decade that the singer made Ferland’s classic song hers. But there was no chronological mistake, since the song was indeed written in the sixties.

The song, a true monument in the “Chanson Québécoise” catalog, has, it turns out, quite an uncommon story. It’s a song that was a hit twice, with two different titles, and many, many singers, and its very meaning has evolved with time.

“I wanted this song to be an anthem for hope. A song is the reflection of the songwriter’s mood.”

How does a homegrown hit come to be? Sometimes, they’re born on foreign soil. “It was composed and written in a small hotel room in Paris’ eighth arrondissement,” Ferland recalls.

Jean-Pierre FerlandBack in 1969, the singer-songwriter was signed with Barclay Records. “Un peu plus loin” was its original title. It would become the title song of the upcoming 1969 album, which also contained “Les femmes de 30 ans” and “Qu’êtes-vous devenues?”

It would also be featured on the greatest hits compilation launched three years later – Les grands succès Barclay de Jean-Pierre Ferland – but it wasn’t released as a 45 rpm single, and was overshadowed by Ferland’s other hits at the time. “Je reviens chez nous,” the 45 launched in June of 1968, became a huge hit and his signature song. Then came the album Jaune, in December 1970, which firmly established Ferland’s output in the ‘70s.

The artist, however, has a different explanation for the the lack of initial success for “Un peu plus loin.”

“The song didn’t get to have much of a solo career,” he says. “When I first recorded it, it was with a large orchestra. But that didn’t work. When we started singing it in a more pop, and sometimes even rock, way – after re-recording it in 1972 – that’s when people started noticing it.”

In the meantime, it had also found its way onstage. Renée Claude, who’d been singing Ferland’s songs since 1962’s “Feuille de gui,” frequently sang “Un peu plus loin” during her shows. But the song’s true renaissance would come during the 1975 St. Jean-Baptiste Day (Quebec’s “National Holiday”) celebrations in Montreal.

On June 24th – which also happens to be Ferland’s birthday – of that year, he was the star of a free concert on Mount Royal that also featured Ginette Reno, Renée Claude, Emmanuelle, and many more.

“Ginette was just back from her foray in the U.S.,” remembers Ferland, who the previous year had recorded the duet “T’es mon amour, t’es ma maîtresse” with her. “She felt like her trip was somewhat of a failure. She’s the one who asked to sing “Un peu plus loin.” She thought it was ‘a good song for (her) comeback.’ I asked Renée Claude if she minded letting Ginette sing it. Renée was incredibly generous to agree and the rest, as they say, is history.”

The rest, in this case, is a mythical interpretation of “Un peu plus loin” by Ginette Reno in front of hundreds of thousands of people. That night’s rendition became epochal, and is still flabbergasting to this day.

That is also the exact moment where Ferland’s song took on a whole different meaning, where it transformed into something else in the collective mind. What was, at first, a song about broken love, became a whole people’s anthem for hope and emancipation in a tense political context.

“Contrary to popular belief, it was a song about breaking up,” confirms Ferland. “I’d just lived through a painful breakup and it was my own personal way of finding solace. But I also didn’t want it to be overly sad. I wanted it to feel like a hymn to hope. One story ends and you move on. A song is the reflection of the songwriter’s mood. Yet, a song can have several layers of meaning: revolutionary song, love song, dream song…”

Ironically, Ferland never thought “Un peu plus loin” would become a hit, but that was before he sang it alongside stellar signers such as Reno, Mireille Mathieu and Céline Dion.

“I never thought it could become a hit. No more than ‘Le petit roi,’ for that matter. But I knew all along, however, that ‘Je reviens chez nous’ would be a huge hit.”

Nowadays, the song is known as « Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin. » It’s been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Goes to show a song can, through time and popular recognition, not only become a major pop song but even change titles.

Photo by Marc-Étienne Mongrain

Hippie Hourrah: A Willingness to Get Lost

Story by Olivier Boisvert-Magnen | Wednesday April 19th, 2023

Hippie Hourrah“Have you ever felt ready to get lost?”

That question stands out among a slew of others, spoken theatrically, by a narrator with an otherworldly voice, on “Revenons au début,” the opening track on Hippie Hourrah’s sophomore album, Exposition individuelle.

It’s a kind of forewarning about what we’re about to experience; namely, a high-flying psychedelic rock experience, ushering us into the codified and somewhat tightly self-contained universe of the Montréal trio.

“That’s one way of seeing it,” says the aforementioned narrator, Ralph Elawani, who’s also the co-author of the album’s lyrics.

The thing is, from Hippie Hourrah’s perspective, that question belongs to a much more widely-ranging concept, articulated around the work of Québec visual artist Jacques Hurtubise – which permeates the themes, song titles, and visuals of the album. That intro, as well as two other interludes on Exposition individuelle, act as counterpoints to that haughty concept of homage to Hurtubise, an icon of Québec’s visual arts scene. Then you understand that intro is addressed to the artist, and not to mere listeners. Elawani pretends to be a pedant journalist asking a string of nonsensical questions to Hurtubise, who remains silent, stunned by this barrage of useless queries and utterly empty thoughts.

“It’s a journalist enraptured by the sound of his own voice,” says Elawani, before going on to explain the genesis of the idea. “Cédric [Marinelli, the band’s singer] and I started working together during a writing retreat. We looked at Jacques’ exhibition catalogue, which has some interviews [with journalists]. We started looking closer at the interviews, and realized that the same questions came up again and again. When a journalist asks, ‘What’s your writing process?’ for example, there’s a good chance they’ve come unprepared…”

“So… As a matter of fact, what is your writing process?” this journalist immediately asks, with a thick helping of irony.

“For real, though, the process is boring,” Marinelli says, with a smile in his voice. “What’s interesting is the guiding principle. Alix Lepage [the percussionist who plays with the band on this album] is related to Jacques Hurtubise. We had access to Jacques’ notebooks, and he sent me all the books, with pictures of every single one of his paintings. We cherry-picked a few titles from that, as well as the ideas that resonated the most with us.”

“The album is articulated around Jacques, but it’s not about him. It’s a gateway towards something else,” says Elawani, who can – unofficially, at least – be considered the fourth member of the band, alongside Marinelli, guitarist Gabriel Lambert, and drummer Miles Dupire-Gagnon.

Hippie Hourrah, Video

Click on the image to play the Hippie Hourrah video “Pinceau au tombeau”

Beyond references to his paintings’ titles, Exposition individuelle evokes Hurtubise’s aesthetics. The painter went through several artistic phases, but he’s widely known for his brightly-coloured abstract forms.

Abstraction, colours, and liveliness are in full force on the new Hippie Hourrah album. We’re swimming in psychedelic rock, but not only that. There are tinges of pop, yéyé, and folk, too. “We’re not fundamentally dogmatic. And we’re not 20 anymore… Our horizons have expanded. That allows us to work with a really wide palette,” says Lambert, who came up in another indie rock band from Montréal, Elephant Stone, alongside Miles Dupire-Gagnon.

“Our minds open up as we grow older. We’re not purists,” says Marinelli, who came up in a relatively purist garage-rock band, The Marinellis. “When I reached out to these guys after the Marinellis’ long hiatus – which is ongoing – I wanted to do something just for the fun of doing it. Not thinking about it, just letting go. I became open to the idea of not saying ‘no’ right out of the gate… Monsieur Marinelli has become a mature man!”

In other words, Hippie Hourrah’s path runs parallel to Hurtubise’s output. Beyond stylistic considerations, the painter (who died in 2014) stood out for paintings that were at once impulsive and rigorous, two characteristics that also define Hippie Hourrah’s music. The project’s roots in spontaneity is backed by a level of thoroughness. The combination has opened many interesting doors since the release of their self-titled debut album in 2021, in both Québec and France. There, they completed a mini tour in December of 2022, including a performance at the prestigious Trans Musicales de Rennes.

Exposition individuelle – a project that’s much more concise and self-contained than its predecessor – is a mirror of the band’s live experiences. “We had experience onstage, and we needed songs that were faster and more pop,” says Marinelli. “We needed to create songs that would make our music more intense and catchy. We needed songs with a beginning and an end. To achieve that, I went back to the way I wrote songs with the Marinellis.”

In short, Hippie Hourrah evolves by going back to its essence. And that’s the kind of paradox that one can achieve when one is truly ready to dive into, or (as it were) get lost in, creating the songs.