Kickstarter campaign launched for statue of VOIVOD’s PIGGY

Kickstarter campaign launched for statue of VOIVOD's PIGGY

01-06-2022

A new Kickstarter campaign has been launched to erect a statue of late VOIVOD guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour in the band’s original hometown.

The eight-foot-tall (2.5 meter) aluminum sculpture is being created by artist Fred Laforge and will be installed in the Jonquière borough of the city of Saguenay in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Québec, Canada. It is located on the Saguenay River, near the borough of Chicoutimi.

D’Amour died August 26, 2005 in a Montreal hospital from complications of advanced colon cancer. The funeral services were held on September 1, 2005 in Jonquière and were capped off by a symbolic guitar-burning, with the remnants of the guitar being placed in the Sable river.

Only hours before he slipped into a coma due to complications from colon cancer, D’Amour gave VOIVOD drummer Michel “Away” Langevin instructions to go to the guitarist’s personal computer and lift the final guitar tracks Piggy had been working on for a new CD. With enough material recorded for two albums, 10 songs made their way on to 2006’s “Katorz”, with the remaining cuts surfacing on 2009’s “Infini”.

When D’Amour died in 2005 from cancer, it seemed VOIVOD was very much a memory. Then three years later, the Canadian metal innovators surprised most by coming out of retirement to play the first Heavy MTL festival with a new-old lineup: original member Jean-Yves Thériault (a.k.a. Blacky) was back behind his blower bass and MARTYR‘s Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain was playing guitar.

At first what was assumed would only be a one-off soon grew to become a return to live action for the band. The next summer saw the band play almost every European metal fest and support DOWN on a cross-Canada tour and things just kept building from there. The metal world soon discovered that if there was one guitarist who could replace Piggy properly it was Mongrain, who proved show after show that he was up for the job.

D’Amour‘s unconventional brand of guitar playing was a staple of VOIVOD‘s sound, but Mongrain, a lifelong fan of the band, has injected his own personality into VOIVOD while retaining some of the hallmarks from D’Amour‘s playing.

VOIVOD‘s latest studio album, “Synchro Anarchy”, came out in February via Century Media Records. The follow-up to 2018’s “The Wake” was produced by Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio and features cover artwork created by Langevin.

Dit bericht op Instagram bekijken

Een bericht gedeeld door Voivod (@voivodofficial)

Langevin commented: “On April 21st, 2021, an animated video for the song ‘Nothingface’ popped up online. The video was done by Pierre Menetrier on an Amiga computer in 1991, which I thought was beyond cool. The spectacular imagery and visual effects were just perfect for a VOIVOD song. After wrapping up the recording and mixing of the ‘Synchro Anarchy’ album, we all agreed on ‘Planet Eaters’ as the first single/video. We thought the song had a vintage ‘Nothingface’/‘Hatröss’ vibe, so I immediately contacted Pierre and asked him if he could make a video for the song. Once again, the result is just mind-blowing. You just can’t get more Voivodian than that!”

“Synchro Anarchy” track listing:
01. Paranormalium
02. Synchro Anarchy
03. Planet Eaters
04. Mind Clock
05. Sleeves Off
06. Holographic Thinking
07. The World Today
08. Quest For Nothing
09. Memory Failure

Langevin comments: “We are eager to present our latest work, a real collaborative effort. The new album represents countless hours of writing, demoing, recording, mixing and so on. The band and Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio gave their very best to make it happen under unusual circumstances, which led us to call it ‘Synchro Anarchy’. We feel that the sound and music are 100% VOIVOD, and we hope everyone will enjoy it as much as we had fun making it. We certainly can’t wait to play it live.”

Social media