Apparatus

In a slap to the face of that old adage: “don’t give up your day job,” Apparatus is living their musical dreams late into the night and setting up their professional careers by day.
Apparatus – which includes Melanie Laquerre on vocals and acoustic guitar, Jason Poulin on lead guitar, Hank Bielanski on bass, and Sam King on drums – released RISEN, its first studio album on May 26.
Laquerre and Poulin, who are also married, had been jamming together for years. Scouting for band members, they went as far as holding auditions for drummers and bass players. “I’ll never forget the time we met the drummer who played with an upside down turkey pot. Suffice to say we were a little discouraged,” Laquerre recalls.
Eventually, they happened on Bielanski and King. During their first jam session, they connected instantly. “The chemistry ignited as we started to jam regularly. Before long were writing new material and playing live shows. It was great.”
Bielanski, an instrumentation technologist in Whitby, happened upon the name after seeing the word apparatus in a book he was reading. It made him think of his band mates. The name captures their essence.
“It’s everything, Mel’s intense voice, Jay’s ripping guitar, Sam’s balls-out drumming, and me abusing my bass guitar. Apparatus is when we all get together, and play our parts with all our different and similar influences blending. It’s bringing the best out of each other.”
“Apparatus mean a tool, an instrument, a group with the same ideas. And that is what we are. Together, we write music and our goal is to inspire others with that music,” says Laquerre.
Laquerre, who designs everything from business cards to magazines in Laurentian University’s creative services department, also writes Apparatus’ lyrics and is a rare female fronting a metal band. She is also designing the album’s artwork and website.
She believes Apparatus needs to publish its work, even though it makes for some long nights and weekends recording in the home studio. “The whole album is self-produced,” says Poulin who engineered and mixed the album.
Bielanski enjoys his career but it’s a day job that he leaves at the office. It’s hard to make a living just playing music, he says. “It might mean playing music you don’t like just to pay the bills. Then it becomes no fun. This way you get to play the type of music you want. The fulfillment of making music that drives you will not be in jeopardy.”
Music fuels Laquerre unlike anything else. “I feel alive and in the moment when I play and sing and write a really great lyric,” she says. “My mind and soul are one. They are focused and inspired and thriving. Music is my passion, my constant, my healing. It is the voice of my soul.”
Bio written by Laura E. Young