Oktoplut, Montreal’s premier stoner rock duo, take The Chowlist

Local anti-hero duo Oktoplut are gaining popularity as Montreal’s favorite punk-stoner-rock band, and are set to make their debut at the massive Francofolies festival this Monday night.

Oktoplut is buddies Mathieu “Mathias” Forcier (Prevenge, Nuance Noire, The Complainers) on guitars, vocals and effects doodads, and Laurence “Larry” Fréchette (The Sober Dawn, Nuance Noire) on drums and lead vocals. And for two skinny guys from Montreal, they know how to rock out like nobody’s business.

Citing influences such as Nirvana, Solids, Metz, and Torche, they take it up a notch by writing in French. Larry’s vocals are at once fervid and bleak, coupled with Mathieu’s layers of guitar sounds that generate loud, calculated raw rock. They released their first full-length album Pansements in 2014 to year to rave reviews.

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Since Oktoplut’s beginnings as a side project (the band’s name is the product of an inebriated evening in a hotel room mis-translating James Bond film titles), they’ve been playing intimate shows and making their way through the festival circuit throughout the province, garnering two Gamiq nominations in 2014 along the way.

BFM stole a full ten minutes out of both members of Oktoplut as they prepared for their set supporting another Montreal rock duo, Rouge Pompier, to chat them up about the Francofolies gig, the anglo / franco scene divide, the importance of “nono,” and more. 

BFM: What’s the difference in the vibe between playing the festival circuit versus playing intimate shows?

Larry: Normally, we’re relegated to an “aftershow band” slot. 1 or 2 in the morning, where our friends ask us how late we’ll play, and we’ll have to tell them, “Well, it really depends on your daily routine… could be really early or late depending on how you look at it.”

Mathieu: This is our first time playing a real big festival. And even then, we’re still playing an 11 o’clock slot on a Monday night…

Larry: …we’ll be able to tell you what it’s like on Tuesday.

How did Oktoplut get to where it is today?

Larry: We would have been nowhere without experience from being in previous bands, Slam Disques, our 5 friends who came to support us at l’Esco… and a lot of other venues we’ve played… and the fans (who came later!), the band Torche, and band practices. Our incredible talent at being nono (foolish), because being nono is probably the base for everything we ever did with this band. We’re taking the nono thing very seriously.

What is the best part of playing with each other?

Mathieu: We share the same brain. We pretty much have the same cultural references and we’re so fucking good at playing Catch Phrase together. Our girlfriends no longer want to play against us.

Larry: The best part of playing with each other is that we only have each other. We’ve been playing with each other for ten years and now, musically, we’re really connected. Mathias is the sane part of our Siamese twin relationship (haha!).

Having both been involved in various projects, what do you notice is the biggest difference between anglo and franco bands in Montreal?

Mathieu: I feel that the two worlds don’t really intermingle. It’s a little weird, as if there were two separate and different scenes going on in the same city. Having been previously in Prevenge and also Larry filled in as the drummer for Dig It Up, we’ve made quite a number of connections with the said anglophone scene. We noticed a difference in the crowd for instance if we play at Turbo Haus versus playing at L’Esco.

Otherwise, between bands themselves, we bond exactly the same way. Personally, I listen to a lot of heavy beats and the large majority are anglophone. There aren’t many francophone bands that dare to play heavy music in French and I applaud the ones who do.

Larry: I can’t recall an anglo band that sings in French (but you know, we all played in franco bands that sing in English).

The song themes are often quite dark… why is that?

Larry: Dark themes are inspiring if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s nothing like nuances or ambiguities in a song. Ça la rend meilleure!

You released the “Pansements” full-length in 2014 on Slam Disques and people love it. And recently the atmospheric narrative “La sorcière de roche” on vinyl which is also excellent… When can we expect a new album?

Mathieu: We’ll probably have a new full length album in 2017. We might call it “Apparaître” [à paraître] but the joke will be lost in English.

Larry: …or you can actually be disappointed when it doesn’t come out then.

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Now the fun part: name the world’s five best duos according to Oktoplut.
Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, Ding et Dong, Yin and Yang, Pinky and the Brain, Beauty and the Beast.

Five best spots to urinate:

• In a jug of windshield washer fluid when we don’t want so stop while on the road.
• Behind a tree of the dog park in Parc Lafontaine.
• At l’UQAM.
• In any urinal that has a hockey net with a puck to aim at.
• In one’s pants after a great joke.

Five best pizza toppings:

Poutine, spaghetti, Frank’s RedHot Buffalo Wing sauce, blue cheese, banana peppers.

The five most memorable episodes of the Simpsons:

• The one with the lemon tree (“Lemon of Troy”)
• “Marge vs the Monorail”
• The one where Lisa needs braces (“Last exit to Springfield”)
• Springfield film festival (“A Star is Burns”)
• “Mr. Plow”

Special mentions

• “Flaming Moe’s”
• The pool one (“Bart of Darkness”)
• “A Streetcar named Marge”

Oktoplut’s five worst songs ever:

• Cut me some slack (Paul McNirvana)
• Do Do Do Da Da Da (The Police)
• Obladi Oblada (YES THE BEATLES!!!!)
• Le bleu du ciel (Mario Pelchat)
• Le Jingle de Métro (Dan Bigras)

Oktoplut plays Francofolies on June 13, 2016 at 11pm at the Scène Ford stage (free show). Oktoplut released their latest EP “La Socière de la Roche” earlier this year on Slam Disques. Get more of their music on http://oktoplut.bandcamp.com

Montreal’s Francofolies is the world’s largest annual festival celebrating local Quebec Francophone music and artists, as well as ones from the francophony of the four corners of the world. The festival runs this year from June 9 to 18, 2016. www.francofolies.com