Les Psycho Riders Interview: SXSW 2010

Les Psycho Riders have been a Quebec rock band for over a decade now, but have recently made inroads since their inception with their brand of rock-meets-punk, guitar-driven tunes.

The group released 'Le Gouffre aux Chimeres' in 2007 and 'Les Derniers Jours' in 2009 but lead singer Maxime Villeneuve is already looking ahead to putting out their next studio album in 2011.

Spinner talked to Villeneuve about the group's history and their love of Turbonegro and Coldplay.

How did the band form?

It formed in 1999 in our hometown of Alma, which is five hours north of Montreal. We were pretty much old friends playing in a basement and so we kept playing and got better, so now it is what it is.

How would you describe your sound?

I would say we like to do '70s punk rock. I believe we play rock but if we had to define it I would say punk-ish rock on speed.

Who are some of your musical influences?

I would say now it's a band like Turbonegro from Norway, probably one of our favorite bands coming out of Scandinavia. I would say Turbonegro mixed with '70s rock like Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Actually our music is often compared to them [Turbonegro] -- we do the same hard solo kind of stuff. We're big fans of them.

How did you decide on the band name?

Actually we were pretty young, we had to do a show and we didn't have any name and we picked that one. Honestly we don't even like it anymore but we're stuck with it. I think it's fine, it's just another band name. I don't remember [how we decided upon it]. It was like 10 years ago.

Are you looking forward to be playing SXSW?

We're really eager to go there. We're brought there by Bande a Part, it's a French division of CBC for alternative bands. They're doing a broadcast of the showcase through the internet -- so they invited us there and we're really happy to go down there and [they] pretty much pay for everything, so that's not too bad. It will be our first time taking a plane to play rock and roll so it's really great when at some point in your life you can take a plane and everything is paid for. We're really happy about that. There's like almost 2,000 bands playing all the time. It will be lots of fun but it will be pretty hard on the liver.

What's in your festival survival kit?

I would say you need to be close to a bar, and hopefully you don't need any plastic glasses for beer. You would need earplugs and probably some money. I think that's about it.

What would you say is your musical guilty pleasure?

The other guys in the band won't be proud of me but I kind of like Coldplay. (Laughs) It's just because I think if that band was not that big everybody would think that they're really good. But because they're so huge, they're snubbed by the hipster scene. But I think they're a good band.

The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?

I would say the Beatles. Probably not everybody in my band would agree with me but I would say the Beatles. It's because of the songs and the creativity.

What's the craziest thing you've experienced on tour?

Once we were pretty far in small-town Quebec and our guitarist walked off a high beam and broke his leg. So we had to go to the hospital but we were already partying and we didn't want to stop because his leg was broken. So we packed our backpacks full of beer and drank it in the hospital parking lot while he was in the hospital. It's probably the dumbest thing that we've done but it was fun.