Voivod won't let challenges derail them

Voivod drummer Michel ‘Away’ Langevin says the band won’t allow the challenges they’ve faced to derail them.

Langevin says that despite suffering a number of blows that would have signalled the end for many bands, Voivod keep coming back and he is confident they will still be around for years to come.

A car crash in 1998 left singer/bassist Eric Forrest seriously injured and he later tried to sue the band. They later split for a while. Those incidents, and the death of guitarist Denis ‘Piggy’ D’Amour in 2005, threatened to derail the band’s progress.

Langevin tells Stormbringer: “There were a couple of times where Voivod didn’t exist, like when we had the accident in 98 and when we split up the band in 2001, and when Piggy passed away.

“And every time we’re wondering if we lost momentum, and then we get back together and our friends show up. I think right now Voivod has jumped into the ‘classic thrash metal’ category. We will always be invited at festivals, and we will always do club tours. So we can rely on that. We really wanna do that as long as we can.”

Voivod’s current lineup released Target Earth in 2013 and earlier this year put out a new track, We Are Connected. Langevin adds that they plan to put out a string of 7-inch records – including one with Napalm Death – before compiling the tracks for an upcoming album.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.