Nicolas Boulerice and Olivier Demers from Québec’s pioneering progressive folk band Le Vent du Nord discuss Voisinages, change, staying curious after 23 years, and what it means to be neighbourly. Interview with Juliette Barber
Le Vent du Nord is a name rooted in place, language and climate. Looking back, how does it still describe who you are today?
Nicolas Boulerice (NB): Olivier and I had been playing together for a long time, and the first album we recorded together was called Le Vent du Nord, which comes from a phrase my great-uncle Marcel used to say: “Le vent du nord est toujours fret, peu importe d’où il vient” (The north wind is always cold wherever it comes from). The title was very long, so people naturally started calling the project Le Vent du Nord. It stuck because it explained everything in just a few words. We are Nordic, we are French, and the elements – the wind, nature – are very important to us.
Your new album is called Voisinages and explores the idea of neighbours in many forms. At what point did you realise that Voisinages wasn’t just a title, but a concept that could shape the album and the live show?
Olivier Demers (OD): Voisinages is a word that describes interaction between neighbours. It’s not just geographic; it’s really the action of being neighbourly – and sometimes being a bad neighbour. It can be positive or negative. It can mean your direct neighbour, but also neighbours between countries, so culturally. It can be our neighbourhood with nature, with the First Nations, with the Acadians – people who share the same French roots in North America but evolved differently. So the word is larger than it looks.
NB: At the beginning, we didn’t know that Voisinages would become the concept of the album and the show. We usually start by working on songs and tunes – sharing ideas. At the end of the process, we look at what we’ve created, and Voisinages became a way to talk about everything that was emerging from the repertoire we had chosen.
The band is entering its third decade, and this album, your 13th, was created “in a spirit of renewed creativity and joy”. Did you approach this album differently, knowing where you are now as a group?
NB: After so many years, it’s good to be forced to think again: What is the band? What is the sound of the band? Do we still like it? For dinosaurs like us, it’s good to be back at the edge again – that kind of change brings a new perspective and new energy.
Voisinages is also your first album with André (Dédé) Gagné, who joined the group in 2024. After 20 years with the previous line-up, why did this transition feel right?
OD: Simon [Beaudry] had been on the road with us for 20 years, and he was tired. He had a new baby and wanted to be closer to his community – and he was elected mayor of his village. His leaving was understandable, and he told us with enough time to find someone new. The transition was amazing, and we’re still on really good terms with Simon.
NB: With Dédé, it didn’t take long for the band to swing together. He’s a very strong guitar player and brought new ideas and points of view. Working with five-part harmonies was new for him, so it was a challenge, but a good one, and he soon embraced the way we work.
OD: I think he realised very quickly that he had jumped into a serious project. Le Vent du Nord is demanding – of each other and of ourselves.
NB: What’s funny is that he had just moved back to Joliette, decided to stop being a carpenter and said, “I want to live from my music again.” We called him about a month later, and he was there, waiting.
In 2023 you became the first Francophone artists to receive the Songlines Music Award for the Americas with your album 20 Printemps, which was released to mark the band’s 20th anniversary. Why did that recognition feel particularly significant for you?
OD: It was the first time a French-speaking group from the Americas received this prize. For us, it was an honour to represent a living tradition and a living language that is under threat in the Americas. The album speaks about Franco–North American people and French heritage, so it meant a lot – especially for presenters to understand the role we have in representing this culture.
Le Vent du Nord is often described as progressive folk or trad, yet the band is increasingly embraced by world music and chanson communities both in Québec and internationally. How do you understand your place within that wider musical landscape?
NB: Music from Québec has never been easy to place. It’s not Celtic, it’s not French – it’s something else. Over the years, especially in the UK, Songlines played an important role in helping people understand where we belong. We’re proud that Québec is now part of the world music scene.
OD: It’s the result of a long-term relationship. Le Vent du Nord is more than just the band – we represent a living community and a living culture. That recognition (Songlines Music Award) means a lot to our people as well.
The Voisinages tour spans Québec, the US and the UK. How does performing the works in different cultural “neighbourhoods” reshape your understanding of them?
NB: Voisinages is a new show. We’re playing most of the album, but also other tunes that people love from older albums, so it’s a mix of different periods. We worked with Michel Faubert, a storyteller and singer from Québec, which was very special. At one point, he told us, “Guys – shut your mouth a little bit. Just play music.” So there’s a long stretch – about 25 minutes – with no talking at all.
OD: Michel created a medley around the idea of Voisinages – with the United States, with Canada, with First Nations, and also the smaller, more intimate neighbour relationships. We rarely do medleys, but he listened to all our albums and pulled out verses from them that spoke to that idea of neighbours, which is what we then used.
What’s interesting is being able to touch on things that can be uncomfortable without being judgmental. We don’t throw it in people’s faces. We can laugh about it. The show is like a two-hour window where people can forget their money problems, family problems, job problems – and still think a little about the world, but in a way that feels good. What’s important for us is how people feel when they leave the show.
NB: There’s a lot of energy at the end. Sometimes you understand the lyrics, sometimes you just feel the music – and that’s enough.
After more than two decades together, what keeps Le Vent du Nord moving forward?
OD: Nicolas and I will have been touring for 30 years next year, as we worked together before Le Vent du Nord. We understand more than ever how lucky we are – the fan base, the presenters we’ve worked with for decades, and our manager of almost 20 years, Geneviève Nadeau. It’s a family, and it makes everybody happy.
NB: And we still have energy. We still want to build layers of feeling – sometimes through lyrics, sometimes through music. 2026 will be a big touring year, and in a couple of years we’ll be thinking about our 25th anniversary. It feels like another chapter, not an ending.
