interview with Outlying
Have any of you played in other bands? Yes! I played in a band called Strigampire (they are still active), our bass player played in Ancestral Curse and another called End Is Near (both no longer exist), and our drummer played in various bands in France.
How is it that you started playing music? I started playing music very young, I was 6 or 7 years old. When I was a kid, I watched people playing guitar on TV and thought it was really cool, so I wanted to play guitar too. My parents got me a couple of toy guitars until they gave in, and bought me a real one hahaha!
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? My name is Fred A. Dubeau, I do vocals and play guitar and I'm 30 years old. Our bass player is J-D Poirier, and I believe he's 33 years old, and our drummer is Martin Reithler and he's 30 years old.
Have you had other previous members? Yes, many! I'm the only remaining member of the original line-up, but we've had a stable line-up for 5 years now.
Did you make music even when you were young? I do, but I'm not sure about the other guys, I think they started playing music when they were teenagers…
Where are you from? I'm from Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada, and so is J-D. Martin is from suburban Paris in France, but has been living in Quebec for the last five years on work/study visas. He's trying to get permanent residency and citizenship right now.
What year did the band form? We started around 2003-2004, when I was in high school!
What's your style of genre? We are usually considered to be a melodic death metal band.
What inspires you? For the lyrics, most of the times, it's about personal struggles and social issues. Lyrics are pretty important to me, and I like to base the vibe of the music around what the lyrics are about. Musically wise, I like a lot of stuff. A good part of the musical influences is metal, but I also get a lot of influences from rock (70s 80s, prog, alternative...), pop, film scores and other stuff.
How often and where do you reherse? We don't rehearse together as much as we should unfortunately, but when we have a show coming, we try to rehearse once or twice a week. We rent a place here in downtown Trois-Rivieres close to my apartment.
How have you developed since you started with the music? We have definitely sticked to what the original sound was about, but we definitely expanded beyond that. We try to bring more impact and to be more effective with our songwriting.
Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Well, to a great degree it has something to do with music, so it has an impact on the band because of it, but I'm an audio tech, and I work with graphic design. The other guys are into gaming, which I used to be into as well!
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? A booking agency helping us would be cool, because musicians are not necessarily the best bookers. I think people specialized in booking are great because of that.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? We are not actively looking for a label, but like I said about booking agencies, it's great to have people specialized in booking, promoting, financing and all that stuff, because we are not that good at it, but also we have to be careful at the deals labels might be wanting us to sign, because you want a fair deal.
What made you decide to make this music? Well I guess we got into metal in our teenage years, so we got hooked by that style and wanted to play it!
What are your songs about? Like I said it's mostly about personal and social issues, and we try to base our music around that.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? I do most of the songwriting, but the other guys are contributing with riffs and arrangements. I also write most of the lyrics, but our drummer Martin also writes some of them.
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Unlike a lot of metal bands, most of the times I write the lyrics before the instrumental is finished. This is because, like I said, I like to compose the music around what the lyrics are about, and get the atmosphere of the song supporting them.
Do you compose in a certain inviroment? I like to have a cozy place to write, so I decorated our rehearsal room and my living room with big drapes and carpets to get me in the mood.
Have you done any covers live? Back in our high school days, we played many covers, but in recent years, we made a Rihanna cover just for fun! There is a video of it on Youtube.
What language do you sing in? Pretty much all of our lyrics are in English.
What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? On very bad gigs we had like 2-3 people there haha! Then we had a hundred or so on a music festival. To be honest, some of the most fun gigs are when there are like 40-60 people in a small bar, there is a unique energy about these shows.
What ages are most of your concert attendants? Well it's been from people in their teenage years to people over 50! But I guess most of them are like between 20 and 40.
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We try to vary, but some songs are staples of our set, and we play them most of time.
Do you have a regular place you play live often? Yeah! There is a venue here in Trois-Rivieres where we play pretty regularly.
What was your first gig like? Oh boy, it was probably a high school talent show, where we had some of our friends there watching us.
What was your latest gig? It was here in Trois-Rivieres, with one of the major Quebec metal band, a band named The Agonist!
Have you had to cancel a gig? Yes, sometimes a band member was not available at the last minute, but we try to do everything we can to not cancel gigs.
Where have you played live this year? We did not play live a lot this year, and we played pretty much only gigs that were close to our city.
Where do you plan to gig the comming year? Well, we are busy writing some new stuff again, but it would be cool to travel a little, and play in many places in Quebec and further away.
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We started selling merch around 2008-2009, and we have CDs, T-shirts and stickers for sale.
Where can people buy your merchandise? You can buy our merch on www.outlying.ca, but our new album is not there yet, but you can still order it if you e-mail us on [email protected].
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? Well, we have fans from pretty poor countries, so I don't mind if people download instead of buying, because the word still gets spread.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Digital technology definitely devalued music, but it also made it a lot cheaper to create. I record my band, and some other bands, with my relatively cheap setup, which was not possible decades ago.
What do you think of my work? It's great really! It's good to see people interested in underground bands and asking for interviews!
How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? Every interview is good, that is why I want to do it, and why I want to answer every question of it!
Do you have any role models or idols? Of course! Many musicians, producers and people that have nothing to do with music.
Why do you think that they exist? Because we need people to look up to! We should learn from people who are better than we are.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? I find inspiration from both really. It's good to hear what's new and what has been done.
What have been your biggest obstacles? There are a lot of metal bands around here and around the world, some good, some bad, so it's hard to promote our stuff and to shine through. We also had problems with line-up changes, and with Canada Immigration Dept. to get our new drummer into the country.
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Being in a band takes a lot of time and money, so if you don't feel the need to create, if you don't get a great buzz from playing with loud amps and playing live, even in front of few people in a crappy bar, it's probably not for you. If you're always thinking about getting money, fame, women or whatnot, you should find something else to do with your life.
How do you get psyched for a gig? I jump around a little, do push-ups, drink a beer or two, and get warmed up on guitar.
Do you have any new material? We released an album called 'Frameworks For Repression' last year. We are working on a third album right now.
What are your web sites? Our website is www.outlying.ca.
How can people reach you? On [email protected] or our Facebook page.
What are your plans for the future? Keep on doing what we do! Playing shows, releasing records and videos…
Do you have something to add? Not really! Thanks for the interview!
