by RAF KATIGBAK

François Girouard remembers clearly the time his band put on what he considers their “first real show.” That fateful night at Café l’Utopik, he and his longtime friend and fellow music-school student Fred-Érick Sauvé, and Japanese theatre students Etsuko Shimada and Mai Otsuka, donned their giant animal-head costumes, picked up their playthings (which include everything from guitar and Chapman Stick to dollar-store instruments and rocks), turned on their slide projectors and proceeded to blow everyone’s socks off with an insane mix of prog rock, punk, jazz and pop, sung in Japanese, English and French. Dynamo Coléoptera was born.

“We all felt something happened that night,” recalls Girouard. “We really realized that we had a strange experience, I’m sure the audience did, but for us, everything made sense that night. At that moment, we started to work in that direction.”

For Girouard, a drummer who studied electroacoustics, mixing and matching styles and disciplines came very naturally to the group. “If we want to do a punk song that’s loud and very distorted, but with a drum part that’s got a light, jazzy swing, if it works, that’s the way we’ll do it. All ideas are welcome.”

It seems his bandmates aren’t the only ones open to new ideas, as Dynamo’s following has been growing steadily over the last year and a half of their existence, thanks in no small part to the extended two-and-a-half-hour psych-theatre freakout sessions at their ongoing monthly residency at l’Utopik, a place the band considers a second home. “That’s where we break new songs. It’s an old apartment converted to a cafe, we’re so comfortable there now, and so there’s no pressure.”

On the secret of their growing success, Girouard confides, “We’re very visual, and the music is always keeping your ear there, it’s always calling you. You can’t just show up and talk to your friend, something always catches you. There’s a lot of movement on stage. It’s captivating.”