VOIVOD’s DANIEL MONGRAIN: ‘It’s A Hard Blow, Having A Hundred Shows Canceled’

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During a recent appearance on "Vox&Hops", the podcast hosted by Matt McGachy, frontman of extreme metal band CRYPTOPSY, VOIVOD guitarist Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain spoke about how he is dealing with the coronavirus crisis. He said (see video below): "It's a hard blow, having a hundred shows canceled. It's a year of salary, really. It's a hard thing. But you adapt or you die. That's the way to survive. You have to find another way. Being creative is something that we all have as artists, so we have to make things another way, trying to keep in the game but in a different way. Writing. For me, it was a lot of teaching, composing. "I don't need personally to be surrounded with people all the time," he continued. "We tour a lot. We go to clubs so many times in a year — we see a lot of people — so being a whole summer at my place, it's kind of a luxury in the sense that it's been maybe 15 years that I didn't [get to experience] spring, summer, then fall [at home]. That's pretty amazing, man. So I miss playing, I miss touring, but I enjoy being home at the same time." VOIVOD recently released a new three-track 12-inch vinyl and digital EP titled "The End Of Dormancy" via Century Media Records. The EP is centered around a special "Metal Section" version of the title track (off VOIVOD's latest album, "The Wake") with added trumpets, saxophone and trombones. The complementary songs on this release are exclusive live versions of "The End Of Dormancy (Metal Section)" and the group's classic "The Unknown Knows", recorded at Montreal Jazz Fest 2019. "The End Of Dormancy" EP comes with artwork by drummer Michel "Away" Langevin and is available on 180-fram 12-inch vinyl. In March 2019, VOIVOD was honored with a Juno Award (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Award) in the "Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year" category. VOIVOD won the award for "The Wake", which was released in September 2018 via Century Media Records. The disc was recorded and mixed by Francis Perron at RadicArt Recording Studio in Canada. The album's artwork was once again created by Away.