En Fer bills itself as Montreal’s iron psych warlords collective, and after listening to their tunes, you know they take no prisoners. Formed in 2017, the five local scene veterans play a menacing psych/noise rock that they call Gros Rock that can both pummel and entrance listeners.
The Third Eye recently wrote about En Fer’s latest EP, La Collision, which provided the gnarly cosmic rock riffs we always crave. The EP also had fascinating thematic elements based on the long-refuted theory of collision between Pluto and Neptune’s satellite Triton, mainly advanced in the early Sixties by astrophysicist M.M. Woolfson.
We caught up with En Fer to learn more about these mysterious psych warlords from Montreal. They were kind enough to show us mercy and answer our questions. Check out the interview below with Martin from En Fer, where he discusses what Gros Rock means to them, their new EP, and much more.
Interview with En Fer
Third Eye: Thanks for doing this interview! Can you introduce yourself and the band?
Martin (En Fer): I am Martin Sasseville, member of En Fer from Montréal, Québec, Canada. I am in this band along with my fellow bandmates Charly Buss, Michel Meunier, Reüel Ordoñez and Alex Pelchat.
All the members of the band have been active in the Montréal underground for decades, many starting from the 80s, I think Reüel’s project Maggot Breeder (now a full band including Charly) started around 1984, making it the oldest trace of musical activity from one of us. I am mostly known as a solo noise artist under the name Wapstan, though I committed some other projects occasionally through the years. So, we all played in different bands/projects in different styles through the years and we converged at some point under the sign of the Iron…
Worth mentioning…. In French, En Fer presented in 2 words means “of iron/in iron” while the common form of the term is in one word, “enfer”, and means hell… That is pretty metal, but we are performing an improvised noisy form of psychedelic rock we call GROS ROCK…
Third Eye: En Fer was formed in 2017, so you guys have honed your sound for a while now. What do you think has changed about the group and its sound since 2017?
Martin: Well, at first, when we started the band in 2017, we just met up, played and had fun. We never really had a discussion on the whole musical direction of the band, it became apparent at some point that we had our zone, and we followed this path ever since…
Nothing complicated as a formula, we meet at our bunker and play… What changed was that some elements were adjusted, but I think it is more of personal decisions in terms of adjustments. We had some rare discussions on how to play, but we ended up with a non-written rule of never criticizing what the other dudes are doing. This is their band too and if they feel they want to play like this today, fine… And maybe on the spot it sounded like something you don’t like but that may sound good on the recordings of the session or when done in another context…
That is the heart of the ethos of improv rock I think, live the present as a collective musical discussion with the other musicians in the room. I think what changed the most is that after all these years the “esprit de corps” became stronger, I think we have become better as a group and that we merge more organically now. Contrary to common beliefs, improv is a difficult approach, it requires some sort of discipline, notably a total trust towards the other people you are playing with and over the years, I guess we came with this feeling of trust as a collective.
I think when there were all the restrictions with COVID that made us stop playing for a while, it cemented the band as we realized that the most important thing around the band is when we are performing together in our bunker. Sometimes we even do sessions that end up mostly getting outside in the street drinking beer and hanging out. You know, we are basically friends…
We also play some of our songs sometimes. For example, we played the opening part of the Bakal Na Pinagmulan EP live lately and we jammed Devenir une planète from La Collision a couple of times as it is a very fun song to play. But we mostly focus on improv in our sessions…
We also experiment more with how we record our sessions as we learned from the COVID period to record almost everything. Back then we were asked to contribute to comps and to do stuff for some labels and we did few because we couldn’t play, and we had very few good unused recordings in our archives. So, when we got back full speed, we recorded almost everything and that had a significant impact… And in a sense, we are more and more comfortable with the sound we have. We love this raw sound…
It is funny that the recent review of Vital Weekly for the split with Disensemble pointed that our sound was a “darker bastard version of Krautrock, or, perhaps, just recorded this way to make it sound dirtier.” Frans is a wise man; he heard that it was a purposely worked raw sound… Although the mastering work of our friend Dominic Jasmin on these recordings and on La Collision (both from the same sessions) was intended to “save” bad sounding recordings recorded with a bad digital recorder that we liked a lot… But I gave Dominic examples of some very raw noise rock albums as how I would like the jams to sound like… And I bought a better device since… And if we work with Dominic again, we hope so, he is a great sound engineer and external contributions are interesting at some point, it will be under better conditions…
Third Eye: En Fer calls its style of improvised rock “Gros Rock,” which was the title of your 2023 record. How would you describe “Gros Rock,” and how may it differ from other instrumental, improvised hard rock?
Martin: Our appropriation of the term GROS ROCK (big rock) started as a joke. Basically, this term was used here in Québec in the 70s to classify classic hard rock like Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk or local rock gods Offenbach and Corbeau… Long story short, during a discussion about the use of this term, someone came up and said that we should say that we play GROS ROCK… And in a sense, it accommodates us to use this vague term instead of any other terms to define our music.
To answer your question, I think the strictly improvised approach of the band and our noisy and raw sound is what defines us the most, well, that is notably what is often mentioned in reviews of our recordings… And we all know that it is a very niche thing, especially in rock music. Not something original, our influences in this are old, just that it doesn’t appeal to everyone… And I always felt that whatever term we or other people would use to categorize our music it would draw some impressions that we are not part of this “scene” due to these aspects, especially the improv thing.
Even the term “psychedelic” … Anybody can claim to be psychedelic and I’m fine with this, but it is a vague term… We had some episodes of being in contact with people in the psychedelic and/or so-called “experimental” rock scenes that we thought would be cool to work with but that gave us some attitude in the end, mostly regarding the improv aspect… You know, the “but you’re a jam band” … Of course, we are, so? And some contacted us first, you know, to make this funnier… I think, mostly in the beginning, some of these episodes were in part related to the very heavy metal name and logo directly inspired by the cult 80s French metal mag Enfer (IE Tom Araya’s t-shirt on the back cover of the Hell Awaits album) by our friend Christian Dubé…
In the end, we are conscious that we play music that doesn’t appeal to everyone, even artists, press and labels we like… We played with bands from many genres since we started, from free jazz to death metal as well as harsh noise and punk, etc. If you are in for the GROS ROCK, you are our friend, whatever your kind of jam… If you don’t dig the GROS ROCK, do your stuff without us and have fun… (We hope you have fun, otherwise, you know…) So, we always use the term psychedelic as we deeply are a psychedelic band, and maybe some other terms here and there, but we mostly use GROS ROCK to classify our sound for these reasons…
And we used this term from the beginning, so it is a big part of the identity of the band. Our friends Magicien d’Os even made a joke on this on their first album, naming one track “Rock de taille moyenne” (Medium-sized rock). It contributed to the “mystique” of the term.
Regarding the GROS ROCK album… We talked a lot for a while about an album that had to be called GROS ROCK, especially in the pre-COVID times. Originally, it was supposed to be the follow-up to the 2019 eponymous debut album. At some point, I think we even had the ambition of a double album with tons of guests, etc. That ambitious plan was abandoned at some point but the idea of releasing an album named GROS ROCK stayed as a romantic goal…
And, in 2023, we ended up with a collection of recordings that became the album GROS ROCK. We thought it was time to do the GROS ROCK album and do whatever we want after. There’s a rock singer here in Quebec named Michel Pagliaro that talks about his next album since like 1987, we didn’t want the GROS ROCK album to become that kind of thing. So, we worked on a lot of tracks extracted from these sessions, played them in various order to find the good order, removed some that didn’t fit in the whole album and Charly ended up doing a very cool mastering job. I am very happy that his mastering work on this to keep the raw aspect of our recordings and make it sound very well was recognized in some reviews of the album.
I also took a lot of time to develop the visual and the concept of the album as we promised this GROS ROCK album for so long. It is when I started with all the science themes and the retrofuturistic imagery. Before, we didn’t have significant central concepts, and we mostly used visuals from friends for the albums. I wanted to take this aspect more, notably to not be dependent on other people for this and as I think I developed my collage technique more with time. I spent weeks to do the collages used for the album and I think it fits the music very well. I am proud of the layout of the CD jacket. I think I made the CD jacket I always dreamed to do…
In a sense, the statement of the GROS ROCK album was to define our approach in most aspects, just like we use this term to define our specific sound since the beginning of the band…
Third Eye: The EP La Collision I recently covered had some heavy thematic elements about cosmology and other cool stuff. Where else does the band draw inspiration? What are some of your interests outside of music?
Martin: Well, I guess it is taken as a way to swim in the space/cosmic traditional concepts and visuals of psych rock without looking cliché. I think the science thing in La Collision was more obvious than in GROS ROCK in which the science-related concept was there but formally never explained.
The concepts developed in these releases are notably related to the history of the exploration of the solar system after the discovery of Neptune in 1846, especially hypotheses that were refuted with new discoveries or that were never confirmed… For example, the hypothesis that inspired La Collision, that Pluto became a (dwarf) planet and that Neptune’s moon Triton is the only satellite in the solar with an inverted orbit was due to them colliding millions of years ago was refuted in part when Pluto’s moon Charon was discovered in the 70s…
Generally speaking, concept-wise, first, I try to develop that atmosphere with my collage to show you that you are in a zone away… The concepts like the science thing or whatever else come after to support the art…
I assembled a load of very interesting astronomical concepts that were long ago refuted or kinda weird for potential use and I also do a lot of research in old texts to get quotes where ”iron” (“Fer”) is mentioned. I have a good body of material to develop concepts in the future. But this approach is just an artistic one, it is not very scientific, actual astronomers would laugh at us… Especially with the inclusions of mythical creatures, humans and/or dinosaurs in the visual…
Visually, I am influenced by old school sci-fi novel covers and by those books from the 60’s or 70’s about what the year 2000 or the future in general would look like with all these optimistic visions of the future we had when we were kids. Will sound cliché here but I am also very influenced by art for rock album covers of artists like Frank Frazetta and by many other artists like Barney Bubble on the classic Hawkwind albums and more metal artists like Dan Seagrave…
I ended up with this retrofuturistic vibe for my collages and it slowly became some sort of the trademark look of the band, but I also try to do different things not to get stuck in only one direction. The art for the recent split with Disensemble is a good experiment in this vein. I also love what I did with my friend Vincent AKA Tétano-Cutané for the split, like a collage and painting collaboration. Vincent is a very amazing visual artist, and the result is very cool, some people even said it was my best art for an En Fer release… All credits to Vincent then…
Third Eye: From what I’ve gathered, Montreal has a great experimental music scene. What is the Montreal scene like right now? And what excites you about it most?
Martin: Montréal was a very welcoming city for me as a young experimental music artist when I moved here. As far as I am concerned, in terms of experimental music, Montréal has a very open scene, and I think everyone interested in more out of zone music can find his way… A lot has changed since I moved here 20 years ago, I don’t want to be nostalgic or pessimistic, I guess it still has a cool vibe, I am just older now and can’t enjoy the city’s vibe as I used to.
Not sure where to start with the current state of the scene in Montreal. Listening to CKUT is a good way to hear cool stuff from Montréal. They always were very supportive with us, our (not named GROS ROCK) second album, Thêdêf Tïmbâl, possibly our most radio-friendly album, at least the one that had the most radio airplay so far, even topped #2 in their charts in early 2022…
Also worth mentioning is that Alex is involved for years in a great series of concerts named Mardi Spaghetti. This series is always fun to attend, always a great occasion to witness unique meetings of local and/or international artists. If you come to Montreal, I definitely recommend attending one of these concerts. They are very open, and they let most people interested in playing do it, no snob stuff. They even let me play the series a couple of times, you see… This series is at Casa del Popolo. This venue has been the backbone of our local scene for so long. I had my first gig in Montréal there in 2004 and played my most recent one there a couple of weeks ago. I love this place… Venues come and go, but there will always be the Casa del Popolo… Well, I hope so…
Third Eye: Give us some music recommendations. What are a few newer bands you’re loving now that we might not know about?
Martin: Where to start… I think I usually base my discoveries of new music by following labels… And the one I follow the most avidly in terms of new jams is the great Psychedelic Source Records from Hungary. I have been following them for years and every new release is such an impressive one. I think they created a mystical aura around them. I follow the work of this label with devotion, and I see more and more people getting into their stuff, well deserved…
I love to follow other labels in a similar manner like Stoned to Death from Czechia, We, Here and Now! From Ontario and our friend DDD’s label Cuchabata here in Montréal. I love when these labels have new releases, always good stuff… Speaking of Cuchabata, I think we can recommend most of their releases, but I think it is worth pointing the Feu Tétanos – Vincent Latulippe est pas assez peace album… We just released a split with the experimental counterpart of Feu Tétanos, Tétano Cutané, and I think his last year’s album deserves being played by everyone. Great outsider lo-fi grunge release…
And there are other good bands around us. Let’s go with the namedrop session… First, let’s talk about our friend Eric Quach AKA thisquietarmy who recently had a bunch of very great projects with cool musicians, including Pangea de Futura featuring Reüel and Charly who just released an album on Sub-Rosa. The aforementioned Magicien d’Os apparently have a killer new album coming, I just wanted to mention it here to publicly raise the expectations… Our buddy Felix who was in Panopticon Eyelids with Michel (and also a big inspiration for me on the art of collage) has a new band called GI Jinx, they put out a song on Bandcamp recently, great stuff… Reüel is also in the Psychic Racoons with his significant other Debby and their old friend Jonah who’s also in the mighty Warkrusher, both are killer jams… Finally, Fokyoushima, our pals from my homeland up North in Saguenay Lac-St-Jean have a new EP, check it out…
The other label I recommend a lot is Micro Label Do It Youssef !, a label that I followed for a while and who ended up co-producing the new EP La Collision with us and another label Degelite (also releasing incredible stuff worth checking out!) I am very happy to have a release on this label now. I totally recommend you their series of Amazigh (Berbers from Morocco) traditional music releases, great stuff. Their other releases are also a very good sampling of what is going on in France right now… I especially recommend the mamiedaragon “Pas De” album, it played a lot in the last year at my place… Insane stuff… Some sort of prog punk the French way.
Speaking of French prog… I bought a lot of reissues of classic French psych and prog in the last few years, especially stuff from the Replica and Souffle Continu labels. Bands like Lard Free, Âme Son, NYL, Moving Gelatine Plates, Red Noise and, of course, the mighty Gong, all great inspirations for me. But there was one release I wanted to get reissued for years, Cheval Fou, a very underground psych band that never properly released stuff when they were active in the 70s and were rediscovered in the late 90s. I discovered them on an MP3 blog back in the 2000s and it sounded like my idea of a psych band and I kept on being zoned by this ever since. So, I played their recordings on YouTube for years wishing that someday it would be reissued and, boom, that great label Disques plusqueréel reissued it earlier this year… Very influential to me… The sound is very raw, I think it had an impact on how I like psych music that sounds raw…
The other recent reissues that are playing a lot in my house lately are those of the demos of Czech metal legends Master’s Hammer, especially Finished & The Mass. I am into the extreme part of the metal deal, especially the old stuff, which is also in part responsible for my interest in raw recorded music… But basically, the only metal I am listening to lately are these demos of Master’s Hammer that were reissued last year. I do think this is the ultimate metal…
Also, we played a lot of stuff like Judas Priest, Accept and Agent Steel lately after our sessions…
Third Eye: Last question – What’s next for En Fer? What are some short- and long-term goals for the musical project?
Martin: We should be working on the follow-up to the GROS ROCK album soon…
We might have more split releases someday; this is a format I love a lot, and it is a good opportunity to work with people we appreciate. We had some discussions with very cool people, but nothing concretes for now…
We currently have a couple of releases that were supposed to be released last spring but were delayed a live album (our first) recorded last year in my hometown of Chicoutimi and an EP named Tholins (another cool scientific concept) that was delayed as the label that was to release it went on hiatus. Both might be released someday…
We are also working with our friends Dead Bush on a collaboration for a while, having a lot of recordings with them. We notably recorded a very cool session this summer but as some members of both bands were not present, I don’t know under which name will it be released if we do release it… We played live with them at the end of our set 2 weeks ago, it is on YouTube, fun jam. Same thing as for split releases, we might do some more in the future as they are fun to do, especially live, notably because we end up playing with artists we like.
I don’t want to go further for what’s coming for us in the future… Thank you very much for the interest in En Fer…
Parting words: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” – Proverbs 27:17
Check out En Fer’s latest EP, La Collision, on Bandcamp here.
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