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Rock, funk, jazz, world beat, orchestral and film; I’ve been exposed to many different kinds of music, and it has been my single greatest passion since early childhood.
When I was studying Psychology at Collège Ahuntsic, The NFB (National Film Board of Canada) launched a competition called Animathon, whose object was to create a cartoon animation inspired by a soundtrack given to all participating groups. What drew me to participate was my already growing interest in multimedia. My role was to imagine a story that would fit the soundtrack and to give indications to the graphic artists. I was very pleased with the result, which contributed to my team winning the competition. While in CEGEP, I also co-hosted a radio show, which was voted best program by students for two consecutive terms.
It is at the age of 14 that I received my first guitar as a gift. From then on, I had only one goal: writing music and starting a band. Two years later, I participated to my first show as the lead guitarist in a band called Grey Edge. The show was at The Rising Sun, a bar on Ste-Catherine Street, Montreal. A few years later, I became the lead singer of my band, while still being the lead guitarist. The band, re-branded Wideside, was a Pop Rock band. We recorded a demo, Killer Trax, which was well received by the Canadian press, and broadcasted on independent radio stations across the country. The band gave more than a hundred shows, mixing cover songs and original music for more than three years. As my compositions grew closer to progressive music, Wideside eventually became Heaven’s Cry.
In 1990, the bass player of the Quebec-based, international band Voivod left the band. They were signed on MCA Records (now Universal) and had been extremely successful on MTV with their cover of an old Pink Floyd song, Astronomy Domine. As they knew me from the Montreal scene, they asked me to join as a bass player. As a result, for about three years, I played two different parts in two different bands, one as a guitar player/singer and the other as a bass player. When Angel Rat, Voivod's sixth album, came out in 1991, I played in the video for Clouds In My House, which lead to a short Canadian tour. The following year, we worked on songs and recorded the pre-production of Voivod's seventh album at Studio Victor in Montreal.
Voivod - The Outer LimitsRecording The Outer Limits in 1992 gave me the opportunity to work in some of the most prestigious studios in Los Angeles, USA. The tracks were recorded at the Music Grinder and mixed at The Record Plant, using what was at the time a new technology, an automated soundboard with moving faders. Also, because the drummer had recorded on a drum pad, we were able to use drum samples on the album.
I left the band at the beginning of 1993 to focus on my career with Heaven’s Cry. Towards the middle of the year, Voivod was left without a bass player so I joined them again for one last tour across Canada and the United States.
Heaven’s Cry launched its first demo in 1993 (see Heaven’s Cry Press kit) and recorded its first album in 1996 at Hypnotic Studios in Toronto.
In 1997, I began to play with Alcoholica, a Metallica tribute band that remains very successful in Canada to this day and has been supporting many of my music projects financially. I developed a real passion for computer recording and new technologies. In 1998, I built a small studio at home, from where I have worked on many music and sound projects since. After overcoming certain difficulties between our management and our record company over the first album, Heaven’s Cry recorded its second album in 2001 on a Dutch label, DVS Records. I engineered and produced most of Primal Power Addiction in my own studio. We recorded the drums with the assistance of a well-known Quebec producer, Pierre Rémillard (La Chicane, Dany Bédar, Anonymus, etc.), at the Z-Sound studio in St-Zénon and I benefited from the expertise of Christian Joli, Alcoholica guitarist, for the final mix.
Heaven’s Cry travelled across the Atlantic Ocean in October 2002 to undertake a European tour. I have been working since then on many musical projects, playing weekend shows with Alcoholica and working as a freelancer in computers and web-oriented programming. I have learned how to use the Unix FreeBSD operating system and an Apache server, and became initiated with PHP programming.
Because of my strong interest in multimedia, I set on to working on music and sound effects demos for 3D animations, video games, and cinematic. The creative aspect of sound design combines some of my greatest passions: computers and new technologies, studio recording and sound effects mixing, as well as contextual music writing. I am armed with a strong desire to learn, and an ambition to become both a better sound engineer and composer.