Voivod drummer Michel "Away" Langevin tells Agoraphobic News the band is still working on the follow-up to their 2018 record The Wake despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Langevin said guitarist Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain can't get to the rest of the band due to pandemic-related road blockages, so they're compiling riffs online.
"The problem we encountered was that Chewy lives a few miles away from Montreal. And the roads are blocked these days and he can't really travel to Montreal and we can't really travel to where he lives and so on. So we are doing a demo, sharing files in a Dropbox folder. I just downloaded a drum machine app for Android, and I'm using it to demo the drums, because, obviously, I can't play at home or record at all. But we are moving forward with writing new material, which is great."
Langevin also talked a little bit about the damage Voivod is incurring due to not being able to tour. Langevin adds Voivod had a world tour lined up for this September that might not happen. The tour would support Voivod's coming live album due out this fall.
"Yes, I'm very afraid of that. We had some great, great festivals lined up in Quebec this summer, and then we had a world tour starting in September for the live album. And everything is up in the air right now. So I'm gonna seize the opportunity to put together the books that I'm gonna release eventually."
