Quite frankly I don’t believe that Tough Luck should be examined as a whole (in terms of musical genres), but rather as a collection of songs that draw from various influences. There are touches of 70s glam rock, punk, power pop and southern rock, 60s garage rock, 50s R&B and rock’n’roll, 40s boogie-woogie… So, you know… I guess I’d describe it as a “glitter rhythm and punk” effort… Then again, I’m not too good with labeling my own shit. I’m sure you’d do a much better job at it 😉

About 4 years

Our influences are as numerous as they are scattered… Some of the guys like 80s hard rock, heavy metal and other types of mustache music that I know nothing about. Personally, I like 3 chords, light-hearted love songs, tear-jerking outcries and obscure rock’n’roll moronities… Anything that moves and grooves, you know? One thing we all agree upon is that it’s gotta be soulful, it’s gotta have that swing, and it’s gotta sound like us. I guess my role as the leader of the gang is to take that harder edge from the other guys and make it snap, crackle and pop so that at the end of the day, every song’s a groover. I really focus on a song as a song, and not as a part of a concept or anything like that. How our album ended up sounding like an album (with a common thread and a continuation in the themes) really beats me! I still don’t know how we pulled it off…

There is a main writer: me. Now is probably a good time to introduce myself. I’m Hugo and I’m the singer. I also play rhythm guitar on the album. That being said, I’m not alone in this band, and I cannot overstate the importance of the role that the other guys have played in the writing process of this album. I like the idea of working really hard in the beginning of a project on elaborating an aesthetic and a sound that gathers (or at least tries to) a common side of every member’s personality. Once you’ve built that core, then you can start slacking and drinking, and still the songs will come pouring like it’s the monsoon.

About the writing process now… So I come up with the words, the chords and the vocal melody and I show it to the guys, and I guide them roughly towards a certain way of approaching the song. Once I see that everyone understands how the song should be approached, it’s really not mine anymore… As long as we all respect the song, I’m happy. Sometimes one of the guys will come up with something brilliant I haven’t even thought of. This is proof to me that the song lives and that it can speak, and that is always a good start. Oh, and this all has to happen in this crappy (but cheap) room we use as a jam space, and as quickly as possible. If too much effort or talking is required to get there you probably oughta let this one slide until the time is right.

As far as the process for recording the songs is concerned, we really focused on how that “core” should sound by jamming 3 times a week and by trying to build it with raw-live-off-the-floor energy. Even there, we still got to the studio unprepared and had to deal with a bunch of last minute freak-outs, but we pulled through gracefully (in my own opinion). How we managed to do that is beyond me as well. I believe in my heart that rock’n’roll is about sensibility, and that’s not something you can prepare or train. I guess that what I really mean is that rock’n’roll is about laziness (haha).

We had absolutely no idea things were gonna freeze like that… We figured we’d release the album a bit later than expected (May instead of April), but still in time for the summer. We thought we’d be out of this shitshow by then… we were wrong. I guess that’s why we’re musicians and not global medical analysists… analysisticians?… analysts? (haha)

Oh hell ya! If there’s anything good about this pandemic, it’s that it pushed me to write new material. We’ve got about 10 new songs now that we can’t wait to share with y’all!

The label we’re affiliated with for distribution (ALIENSNATCH! Records) suggested to take them out. They were initially supposed to be on the album. I agree with you that they add a certain depth to the band’s repertoire as they are slower songs. We might reissue the album including the 2 singles one day…

Blue Jay is a wonderful guy. We love working with him. He comes from a jazz background and everything he added on the album came out naturally. We hope to work with him on future recordings.

Thank you! We love working with old-school material like tape machines and 60s transistor soundboards because they force you to commit to decisions. The entire album was recorded on analog devices and I guess it gives it this naturally compressed and warm sound which we now consider “classic”. I don’t want to get into the details of analog recording because it bores the daylights out of me, but I can say it also made the recording and mixing process a whole lot faster because we’d rarely go back to fix mistakes (mistakes are a crucial part of the Dangereens’ sound) and because we didn’t need to colour the sound with a bunch of VST’s or anything like that. During the mix, it was mostly a matter of making certain things shine a bit more and leave other things in the background and Ryan Battistuzzi made a phenomenal job at that.

About my preferred numbers, usually, my favorite song is the last one I wrote. Having let some time pass now, I’d say my favorite ones are Microwave Boogie for the story-telling type of lyrics and the general delivery of the band, Love Jive for the pedal steel arrangements and guitar works, and Hearse Driving Blonde for the simple, uplifting vibe. Tomorrow I might say something else though.

Yes, the EP marks a different era. As a matter of fact, we were another band back then, literally. We were 4, Yan, who plays piano on the record, was our drummer, and we had another bass player, Miles. After Yan and Miles left, they were replaced with Olivier (actual drummer) and Jordan (actual bass player). As I was saying before I like to write/compose for the band I have. These new cats have different artistic orientations and tastes, and I feel it is my duty to represent that in the songs, you know?

About the cover songs, it’s very simple… We initially booked 2 days of studio to record the 14 rhythm tracks (the 12 Tough Luck songs + Lucky In Love and Holy Water). Thing is, we were so hot on the 1st day, we ended up canning 12 of them, leaving only 2 for the second day. I then decided we’d use the remaining time to record live-off-the-floor performances, 50s style. Break Up was already part of our live set and High Blood Pressure is just a song I love so I showed it to the guys on the day of the recording and off we went! 

When the pandemic hit us, we had just come back from a 3 days mini-tour in the US. We played Brooklyn, Manhattan and Boston. All three shows went incredibly well and we made awesome friends (shouts to Muck and The Mires who rocked our socks off)! Man, were we riding high…  Also, we were planning a Europe end of summer tour so you can bet your bottom dollar we’ll come around as soon as borders open!

We made the one for Streets of Doom (it’s on our Youtube channel, Dangereens Official) and another one that should be out anytime soon! I can’t tell you for which song though 😉

 

Aww, now you’re gonna make me blush (haha)! I don’t know about rock’n’roll dominating the charts, but it doesn’t really matter to us anyway… The way I see it, this band is all about good times, and good times never go out of style (although we all may feel that way these days). All those bands you’ve mentioned are definitely up there in our spiritual altar, but we also listen to more recent stuff. To me, a good song is a good song. It doesn’t matter if it’s rock’n’roll or new age, you know? When I write a song, I think of the melody and rhythm first, then I lay words on it. The fact that they end up sounding the way they do is because of the way we naturally approach music as a band. Rockin’ and rollin’ is part of our daily routine.

About the recording process, we start by recording the rhythm (drums, bass and guitars) tracks altogether, then we do overdubs for vocals and other instruments (saxophone, trumpet, piano, organ, strings, etc.). In my opinion, the more elements you record simultaneously, the better it sounds. Giving that we were working with a 16 tracks tape machine and in a small basement room, it would’ve been impossible to achieve recording everything all at once, but at least we got to work off of our live rhythm tracks, without using a click. Saying that our songs sound like they’re live takes is possibly the best compliment you could’ve given me!  A song is like a picture, you know? It’s about capturing that unique moment in time. You can always take a snap of some willow tree by a lake, then photoshop Kate Moss kissing you on the cheek underneath it later, but eventually someone will figure out that shit’s not sitting right…

It sucks because I can’t tell you much about the future since we are in the midst of negotiations and I don’t want to jinx it, but we’ve got BIG plans… All I can say is you’re gonna see a lot more of us in 2021 going forward!

To get a physical copy of our album, you can go through ALIENSNATCH! Records‘ Bandcamp page. They’re also available through Green Noise Records for North America. Otherwise, if you’re in Montreal, hit us on Facebook and we’ll come and deliver it to you. We have black and clear red vinyl. They look and sound amazing! As for digital, you can find us on all platforms (Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc.) or buy a digital copy via Bandcamp.

So there you have it, The Dangereens ladies and Gentlemen now hit up some of the links and check out the music.  Thanks to Hugo for being so generous with his time.