Mute

Quebec City’s technical punk band Mute are no stranger to hard work and dedication. Forming in 1998, the band has spent the last fourteen years honing their craft and touring the world. Touring across North America with the likes of Strung Out and Rise Against and heading overseas countless times for festivals and other touring opportunities, the band has chiselled away and slowly developped a name for themselves.

All that hard work paid off as they played the biggest show of their career opening for Alkaline Trio and The Offspring on the Plains D’Abraham for the Festival D’Ete. The hometown crowd was there early and broke into a whirlwind of activity the moment the band stepped on stage. Circle pits and crowd surfers appeared out of nowhere and the air filled with a steady stream of dust being spat up from the ground.

We spoke with Alex Trépanier and Étienne Dionne before they took the stage, talking about the festival, the crowd and their decision to cover Mr. Big‘s To Be With You.

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Bobby: Today we’re at the Festival D’Ete, how are you guys feeling? You ready for it?

Étienne:  Really excited – it’s our biggest show ever, for sure.

Alex: Biggest show yet.

Étienne: Yeah *laughs*

Bobby: It’s a pretty eclectic festival, going from Lionel Ritchie to Skrillex to tonight with Offspring, Alkaline Trio and you guys. How do you think a festival like this works with such a wide variety of bands?

Étienne: I think people here in Quebec City just want to hear good music, whatever the style is. The weather’s nice, so they just come out every night.

Alex: They like to go out and just enjoy whatever’s playing. I don’t think the precise genre of music really matters. It matters for some, but for the general population, I think they’re happy with whatever they get.

Bobby: It’s more of a night out – just go and half fun with friends.

Alex: Yeah, you could say that.

Étienne: As soon as you get your pass, you just want to see as many shows as you can.

Bobby: And it’s such a good deal. What is it, sixty dollars for the entire eleven days?

Étienne: Fifty-five I think. It’s cheap, super cheap.

Alex: It’s probably the best deal ever if you want to see a lot of big shows.

Étienne: Yeah, for ten days.

Bobby: The festival basically takes over the whole city of Quebec. Do you think the fact that it does take over so many areas of the city also adds to the atmosphere of the festival?

Alex: Yeah, probably. It’s like kind of a carnival. I suppose lots of people just go out to have fun even if they don’t go to see shows. They just walk down the streets and just enjoy the atmosphere.

Étienne: Yeah, the city is pretty busy this time of year.

Bobby: You guys are from Quebec City, so is it weird seeing your hometown overrun with all this mass amount of people every day?

Étienne: I think it’s cool.

Bobby: You guys are one of the smaller bands on the bill, opening for Alkaline Trio and Offspring. Is that at all daunting for you? Looking out at, like you said, it’s your biggest show. 50,000 people or whatever.

Étienne: Even more. I don’t know how many people are going to show up tonight but it’s a big show for sure. And for us, it’s cool to play here and to play in front of our people. It’s going to be an amazing night.

Alex: I don’t think we’re that really intimidated if that’s what the question was. We try to treat it as a normal show, a regular show – and do the same thing that we’ve done before. Do what works best and not worry … or try not to worry about the big occasion. So yeah, just business as usual as much as possible.

Bobby: You guys have played a lot of festivals. I know you just did a European tour right?

Étienne: Yeah, we did a few of them, yeah.

Bobby: So how do the festivals in Europe compare to the Festival D’Ete?

Étienne: I don’t know. We’ll see. I say first that it’s bigger. It’s the biggest that we’ve played. Besides that, it’s well organized. This, right here, their backstage is really nice *laughs*.

Alex: I guess the biggest difference is that most, if not all of them, the festivals that we’ve played before were a genre festival. Like kind of punk or hardcore festivals. Whereas here it’s all over, all across the board like you said. So it’s really, really, really big and I guess that’s the main difference.

Bobby: Lately there’s been a lot of punk specific festivals. You’ve got The Fest in Gainesville, Punk Rock Bowling, Fun Fun Fun Fest

Étienne: Groezrock in Belgium.

Bobby: Yeah, Groezrock and Punksprings in Japan.  Why do you think suddenly there’s all these punk festivals coming up?

Étienne: I don’t know – I’d say that there are people interested in them.

Alex: Yeah, I guess there’s probably a demand for it because it wouldn’t work if people didn’t want to go to such festivals. So there has to be a demand for it and people just like festivals in generals – pay a low fee and just see lots of bands.

Bobby: With so many festivals out there though, how does a festival stand out in the crowd?

Étienne: That’s a good question. I’d say the weather, it helps a lot. Like the last eight days have been really good for this festival – and besides that, a festival can be really precise. Like you said before, a punk festival or a hardcore festival; or, like this one, it’s just so broad so it can get as many people as it can get.

Bobby: To talk a bit more Mute specifically – on Tuesday you guys released a video for your cover of Mr. Big’s “To be With You.” That’s a kind of odd cover choice, what made you pick that song?

Étienne: It came naturally.

Alex: I guess I was the one who originally suggested that we do it because I used to play the riff in like sound check and we thought it was funny and then we went into recording the album that we released last year. We thought it would be a good idea to get bonus tracks for foreign releases. Bands usually make cover tracks for those, so we were just like “let’s record a couple of these.” And this one, I guess it’s a well known song. Maybe not for really younger people, but I guess it’s well known enough and it was easy to arrange and that’s important to us because our own stuff is kind of complicated so we try not to bother with difficult cover songs. It’s just catchy you know. It just felt natural, it came together really well so we just decided to do it. But in the end, we didn’t have any foreign releases so we decided to include it in our regular album because we thought it would give the album a boost. In terms of people knowing the song and maybe getting into us that way rather than our original songs.

Étienne: And the timing was just right with the festival. Releasing this video right now was just perfect for this festival.

Bobby: Yeah, because I know you guys are doing a promotion where you had people share the video and then you were giving away tickets to tonight’s show.

Étienne: Exactly.

Bobby: In a few days you had thousands of views.

Étienne: It’s been a week now and it’s at twenty-five thousand views I think.

Bobby: Were you pleased with the response?

Étienne: Of course.

Alex: That’s a lot more than our previous video which was a lot more than the previous video, so I guess we’re moving in the right direction. So that’s pleasing.

Étienne: And in the nineties, when we started listening to punk rock – all the bands were recording cover songs from kind of a well known songs. Like I remember Brown Eyed Girl from Lagwagon.

Alex: California Dreaming from High Standard.

Bobby: And then you also had, at the turn of the century – you had Fearless Records and the Punk Goes Pop compilation. So it did kind of become a staple of bands covering songs from outside the genre.

Alex: Yeah, we thought like what’s the use of doing a cover song if it’s the same genre of what we play? What’s the use of doing it the same way as it’s been done before? We could add a few twists in there, but it would be essentially the same and we didn’t want to waste time on that.

Étienne: Just add a few BPMs.

Bobby:  The record, like you said, was released last year but was just released on Creator-Destructor in the US and then  Effervescence in vinyl. Were you glad to be able to get the vinyl treatment?

Alex: For sure.

Étienne: It’s super nice product. We’ve got like four different colours, limited colours. We just got it a few weeks ago and are super stoked on it.

Bobby: Are you guys big vinyl fans?

Étienne: Not really *laughs* But I’m a graphic designer so I like everything that’s big.

Bobby: That’s one thing with the vinyl, you did get the nice artwork and chance to show it.

Étienne: And since I do all the graphic design part, I enjoy doing that.

Bobby: At the same time, vinyl has been making a comeback. Like you look at Paper + Plastick and their mass amounts of exclusive vinyls. Why do you think vinyl is suddenly coming back? Especially in the punk scene?

Alex: It’s probably because, I guess it has something to do with- it’s weird to say it, but downloading. People, I guess, if they want to drop money on music, they’d rather pay for a nicer product than the CD. So yeah, that’s right. The vinyl is much more appealing as an object to people. It doesn’t really change the music on it although some people will tell you that it sounds better…

Étienne: Say it sounds warmer.

Alex: Or different or that they like it more but it’s probably that people want to get more for their money I guess.

Bobby: You guys formed in 1998 and all this time you guys have been staunchly DIY. What’s the biggest obstacle you guys have had to overcome in being DIY?

Étienne: I’d say being recognized.

Alex: Yeah, I’d say getting your name out there. Just that. Getting people interested in your music is really harder than you would think. Even if you’re like the best band in the world.

Étienne: There’s so many bands out there.

Alex:  It’s really hard to convince a random stranger that it’s worth his time or her time to listen to your band. It takes a lot of time. I think that would be the biggest obstacle to overcome.

Bobby: Even with that, you’ve been able to get on a lot of great tours. I remember seeing you open for Strung Out a few years ago in Edmonton, you’ve toured with Rise Against – how are you able to land all those gigs?

Étienne: I’d say luck *laughs*.

Alex: Yeah, I guess luck plays a part. You get to know people after years of playing in a band and I guess we’ve been able to convince a bunch of people that we’re good enough and we’re worth helping. That’s how we get those shows.

Bobby: My last question is a random one. Last night I was wandering around the city and I ran into a guy called Paul from the band Never More Than Less. And he told me to ask you guys about the Greek family in Mississauga.

Étienne: *laughs* Oh yeah. They’re not Greek.

Alex: They’re not Greek. They’re Ukrainian, I don’t think they’d be pleased to know that they were referred to as Greek.

Étienne: *laughing* Probably not huh?

Alex: Although it’s probably better… they really hate being called Polish, so I guess Greek is in between.  Yeah, these guys… we met them in 2005. It’s been quite a while and Matt, the guy that we know best in the family, he plays in a band called IVS. Check those guys out if you can and he offered us shelter in his house which we kindly refer to as the Ukrainian Castle.

Étienne: It’s around Toronto, it’s in Mississauga – so every time we go to Toronto, we stay there for at least a few days. We party with them…

Alex: We’re really well treated.

Étienne: They cook us food, we drink with the whole family. It’s an amazing place.

Alex: They’re just fantastic people and it’s one of the things that we love about going on tour: meeting wonderful people and connecting with these people. They’ve been great. We only have great things to say about him. Except for his hair.

Étienne: Oooooh!!

Alex: Alright. That’s all I’m going to say.