PASCAL HUOT OF PONY GIRL

Canadian five-piece band Pony Girl are set to release their latest record Laff It Off and vocalist and guitarist, Pascal Huot takes time out to speak with us about its underpinnings and how it compares to their previous works.

The basis of their third installment speaks very much of a time and place. Physically and geographically. It represents the location they reside in and how that locality impacts their music. And momentarily in that it summarises their current state of mind and the time in their lives right now.

The blending of the here and now, the fusion of current thoughts and formative experiences is exemplified via the city they live in, Ottawa, Ontario and how it has shaped their signature sound. Huot goes on to explain how the cultural and creative melting pot has given rise to their style. “Ottawa is a border town. There is movement. It’s touch and go. This flow of folks adds a complexity to the music scene that’s difficult to see or feel unless you know where to be. We’ve experienced iconic shows here from local and traveling acts. Community orgs like Debaser have been turning up the heat with quarterly events called ‘Pique’. We’re talking multi-disciplinary events bringing in world class talent - it’s all Multicam recorded and streamed. It makes the Boiler Room look like a children’s birthday party. For us it means that we’ve met and worked with hundreds of musicians over the last ten years. Sounds move through this area but never settle. For better or for worse. Borders are made up lines that make some people feel good about themselves and make others feel not so good. We’re just lucky and privileged to be able to move between them.” The type of fluidity Huot refers to is the ebb and flow of tangible and intangible sounds and inspirations that ultimately produce a symbiotic relationship between transient sounds and the concrete scene to which they belong.

Tapping into that scene is best explained by Huot when articulating the ways in which Pony Girl describe the methodology towards their live shows. “Our live arrangements leave space for improv, and there’s always room to jam in the set.” This is the ideal space between the boundaries of conceptual and practical limits in which to operate. The ability in replicating their sound on stage and faithfully reproducing the inherent meaning and emotion behind their work so the two marry up is an effortless process as Huot mentions because the what’s required is, “Not a whole lot! You might hear a few samples and synth patches that sound familiar and the lyrics, of course. Besides that, we like to take our live show places an album simply cannot go.” This is a trait of the band and an acknowledgement of that fact which was bestowed upon them from their earliest days as recipients of the Prix FEQ Emerging Artist Award in 2016 for their high level of innovation, musicality, exceptional performance quality and on-stage presence. A tendency that hasn’t left them as their two Capital Music Awards wins for their 2022 album ‘Enny One Wil Love You’ have proven.

Not ones to rest on their laurels, Huot humbly describes how the band wanted to push the boundaries and for that matter, themselves, on Laff It Off. “In some ways we’re a prog rock band who loves to write pop music. We wanted to bring clarity to our sound. No time changes within songs, no unnecessary odd meters but you’ll still hear a 15/4 (I swear, it’s necessary). Laff It Off is our most “as-is” record to date. What you see is what you get.” The comfortableness in that statement is mirrored by Huot’s understanding of the world as an ageing man and in relation to the time, place and sentiment the record embodies and what it is saying to the world. “It’s moody. It’s a nighttime vibe. We joke that it’s like a balloon slowly deflating. There’s this tension off the top that rolls off as the record progresses and we try to find some calm before wrapping it up. It indicates a change for us, we’re moving towards less cynicism. Blame that on being in your 30s.” Only natural then for that feeling to flow into the lyrics on the record. Both in the general creative process Pony Girl employee and that of the subject matter they tackle across the nine tracks on Laff It Off. “There’s a lot of grief in this world. We’re all grieving different things. We’re grieving the spectacle that was sold to us when we were kids. We all feel some longing for the past and “better” days that actually never existed. We, almost, all have to work everyday. These days I approach lyrics the way I approach ideas. I am just an antenna. I just have to keep my ears, mind and heart open. Words and lines constantly appear and the hard part is writing it down before it’s gone!”, says Huot.

From the elusive to the evident, on a technical level it is far easier to create music knowing precisely what equipment to use when carving out a distinctive sound as Huot elaborates. “On these last two records we mixed analog and digital gear. We printed a lot of stuff from rack effects and fun studio toys. The bed tracks were done live off the floor and either edited or kept as-is. We over dubbed lead vocals and a couple extra textures. We’re not purists. If it sounds good, it sounds good. A really fun addition to our live sound has been the addition of hardware Autotune. It’s a joy to work with, it makes you approach melody so differently. Now that I think of it, the only “rule” we have is: no computers on stage. Of course, most of our hardware equipment have tiny computers inside of them but you’ll never see laptops up there.” Blending synth, guitars, and saxophone as Pony Girl do, it is fascinating to enquire if this arrangement was one that the band always intended on or was it a natural progression that came from avenues they hadn’t planned on exploring? Something that is explained clearly by Huot. “We had sax and clarinet in the lineup for Pony Girl’s first-ever show! We can’t bring them all out on tour, however wind and string arrangements figure into a lot of Pony Girl’s studio recordings. Yolande’s (Laroche) classical training in Clarinet performance means that you’ll always hear a spaced-out clarinet during our songs (it’s got a pickup and it’s running through a space echo). We’ll also be performing with a guest horn player for a special double album release show at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on January 27 2024!”

The spaced-out clarinet of Laroche is a prime example of how the band mix instrumental and vocally driven tracks, and the sort of consideration taken in accounting for track positions on the record, the listeners’ experience and that of the overall thematic flow across the album. As Huot states, “I can tell you it’s not random! We’re all into albums and love the experience of sitting down for a 30-60 minute music trip on the turntable at home. When we’re putting together a tracklist, that’s at the top of mind. Developing an arc in both the narrative and the music that also takes account for flipping the record between Side A and B.” And with the that listening arc taken into account, so is the notion of extrasensory experience considered.

The sonic textures Pony Girl create are rich, alluring and instantaneously engaging. When conjuring such soundscapes, the presence of two things happen. Firstly, drawing upon something very specific such as an event or experience and secondly, simply tapping into a broad and conceptual space that later guides the direction and ultimately the work produced as Huot explains. ”Both of those things happen. We imagine every song is a character. They should be unique, recognizable and different from one another. These characters are sometimes informed by a particular event or person in our lives and we’ll use that as a stepping stone into a sonic world that we create together. As we continue writing together, we talk more and more about each song. What is this about? What are we saying? Nowadays, we’ll start this conversation before we even have a song! I think it’s important for us to see where we are going early on and to get everyone on board with the concept.” This inclusivity that Huot speaks of is perfectly summed up when he explains just how important music is to him. “Creating and performing music with your best friends is a high that’s unlike any drug I’ve tried.” The sum is greater than its parts and nowhere is that more pronounced then with Pony Girl and how the Canadian outfit continue to move through their years and constantly produce such rich and beautiful sounds.