In anticipation of tonight’s show with Pinyin Pals and People Person at L’Alilizé, I decided that it was finally time I get to know up and coming band Young Lungs, whose name has been floating around my social networking circles incessantly as of late. Who the f*@$ are these guys? On Sunday, May 27th, I sat down with Young Lungs at Cagibi and got to talking with them about their musical influences, Marvel Comics, and their latest projects.
Young Lungs is a dynamic (and hilarious) trio made up of Justin Ross (Guitar, Vocals), Guillaume Carroll (Bass, Vocals) and Gervais Robinson (Drums, Vocals). They describe their sound as “all-over the place” and genre-defying: closest to a sort of indie-surf punk (with occasional screaming) and some noise rock elements. Justin, Guillaume, and Gervais have been playing music together for over nine years. They’ve played together in various incarnations and recently, they decided to rebaptize their project “Young Lungs” and take it as far as possible: “Kill or be killed …. from prey to predator to apex predator”. They recently released a 7” Vinyl of their track “Blood on the Streets” for which they also recently shot a music video with Montreal filmmaker and photographer Louis Lazaris.
When I sat down with these dudes, they had just come back from playing a show in New York and playing a couple shows out east in Matane and Rimouski. Their show in Rimouski was freezing and wild. “Anything goes in Rimouski” said Gervais, “seems like there are no laws in those towns.” Justin recounted being very surprised when a kid got “tea-bagged” during the show: “The guy barely even reacted, like ‘Awh, not again’.”
Songwriting for the band is “usually really collaborative. Most of the songs come out of jams or someone comes up with an idea and then we finish it together as a band” says Guillaume. Their musical influences are quite diverse, from the Pixies to Talking Heads all the way to the Foo Fighters.
Current obsessions include Vinyl for Justin and Guillaume, who is on an elusive quest to find The Fever. The quirkiest thing that has come out of Vinyl hunting for Justin so far is a 2$ Moog plays the Beatles Vinyl. The first ever recordings of Moog playing on the now famous synthesizers. As for Gervais, his current obsession is listening to Protest Hero: “Their new album is awesome and I’m getting pumped to see them in August.”
When asked which Avenger they would be, Guillaume gave props to the Hulk whom he felt stole the show although Justin felt the Hulk to be “an unpredictable cat”. Young Lungs seemed way more enthused with the idea of being X-men, citing themselves as “X-men guys”. Guillaume chose Gambit without hesitation (and I gave him mental props for doing so, since Gambit is hands down the best). Gervais would be Wolverine because he feels he can pull of the look. As for Justin, he said that if he was to have powers he would want to have telekinetic powers “move shit with his mind” and “revolutionize everything”. I couldn’t help but imagine him as Jean Grey, it might be a good look.
This question spawned a twenty minute discussion of the 90’s X-men cartoon and the extent of its epicness and character complexity. The conversation naturally moved on to Captain Planet and the Planeteers. “Don’t you think it’s kind of sick that Captain Planet just abducted all those kids though?” Justin brought up, “ ‘Come help me defend the environment!’, ‘Who are you?’, ‘I dunno but I’ve got blue skin and a green mullet, you can trust me. Here are these magical rings!’” When I proposed the Young Lung album cover be the guys as the Planeteers, Gervais said he would be most probably Captain Planet, citing his mullet as proof. As for Justin, he said “alright, just as long as I’m not that kid with the Heart ring.”
So now we know a lot about Young Lungs, mostly that Ma-Ti was not their favourite planeteer (I mean, who really liked Heart anyways). One more bit of information about the guys for the road: Young Lungs’ favourite place for a beer in Montreal: “Brutopia. The Maple Cream. We go there for the trivia hosted by comedian Asaf Gerchak,” said Justin, “we take that shit seriously.”
Catch them tonight at L’Alizé (900 Ontario East). Doors at 8:00. $5 Cover.
