Letting Yourself Grow: An Interview with GreyGold
For Montreal-based band GreyGold, they have dedicated this year to releasing powerful singles one by one with accompanying music videos. The songs are a lead up to an EP, titled Sad Hope, but are focused on giving each single the attention it deserves.
According to bassist Stephane Roy, they always start with a riff. That is how their first single, “Waterfall” came to fruition - a specific guitar pattern heard at the beginning of the song. Lead guitarist Alexandre Blais came up with the idea, and the band tried tweaking it for nearly three months before drummer and vocalist Michael Trudel found the vocal melody.
“This song popped out of the crowd for its catchy chorus,” Roy said. “We wanted to present our new material by starting with a bang that we were really proud of.”
Roy joked that “Waterfall” is the first song that they didn’t rewrite 10 times, but mentioned that while recording at Montreal studio Freq Shop the owner and producer, Derek Orsi, proposed an idea to change up the rhythm of the chorus.
“We used to swing a lot on the guitar parts there,” he said. “He told us to square it, simplify it, to make Jake's vocal parts pop. And it did!”
The song is about overcoming fears and letting yourself grow, and that theme blends into the music video for “Waterfall”. The video is the first of a series where lead vocalist Jacob St-Cyr Labbé is the main character who is trapped in another dimension by a mysterious shaman. Blais, who is a video producer, spearheaded the project with a bold, science fiction storyline that carries throughout Sad Hope.
The second single, “By Myself”, is one of the earliest songs written for this project. It once again started with a guitar riff from Blais and lyrics from Trudel. While working on it, they felt that something was missing and shelved it until after the release of their first EP.
“The creative space and slow creative pacing gave the conditions for the song to find its identity [and] its place within the new material,” Roy said.
“By Myself” is about confrontation and holding someone accountable for their actions. The theme felt perfect for this EP and for this music video, where St-Cyr Labbé wanders the forest of the alternate dimension while a search party looks into his real-world disappearance.
St-Cyr Labbé, Roy, Trudel, Blais and rhythm guitarist Alexandre Raymond have a much bigger story to tell with the rest of the tracks of Sad Hope, and the first two singles have left their audience wanting more.
Roy joked that “Waterfall” is the first song that they didn’t rewrite 10 times, but mentioned that while recording at Montreal studio Freq Shop the owner and producer, Derek Orsi, proposed an idea to change up the rhythm of the chorus.
“We used to swing a lot on the guitar parts there,” he said. “He told us to square it, simplify it, to make Jake's vocal parts pop. And it did!”
The song is about overcoming fears and letting yourself grow, and that theme blends into the music video for “Waterfall”. The video is the first of a series where lead vocalist Jacob St-Cyr Labbé is the main character who is trapped in another dimension by a mysterious shaman. Blais, who is a video producer, spearheaded the project with a bold, science fiction storyline that carries throughout Sad Hope.
The second single, “By Myself”, is one of the earliest songs written for this project. It once again started with a guitar riff from Blais and lyrics from Trudel. While working on it, they felt that something was missing and shelved it until after the release of their first EP.
“The creative space and slow creative pacing gave the conditions for the song to find its identity [and] its place within the new material,” Roy said.
“By Myself” is about confrontation and holding someone accountable for their actions. The theme felt perfect for this EP and for this music video, where St-Cyr Labbé wanders the forest of the alternate dimension while a search party looks into his real-world disappearance.
St-Cyr Labbé, Roy, Trudel, Blais and rhythm guitarist Alexandre Raymond have a much bigger story to tell with the rest of the tracks of Sad Hope, and the first two singles have left their audience wanting more.
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