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Combat rockXavier Caféïne comes out swinging
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Within Montreal’s francophone rock ’n’ roll underground of the late ’90s, Xavier Caféïne had always been the one picked for mass success. Straight out of the gate, his 1997 debut Mal Eduqué Mon Amour (under the name Caféïne) had most critics picking their jaws off the ground with its merging of ’80s new wave pop, greasy garage, rock ’n’ roll’s sexy swagger and downstroked punk rock piss and vinegar. By 2000 and the release of Pornstar, cracks began to show and his continuing flirtation with English lyrics in the project Poxy clearly announced that this once-favourite horse was nearing the glue factory. In 2006 Caféïne reappeared under his full moniker and released the infectious pop record Gisèle, which made good on all the promise he held nearly a decade previous. Quebec media quickly fell in line, with Caféïne reaching regular rotation on commercial radio, logging in over 200 shows in Quebec alone and even nabbing a chair on the highly influential Sunday-evening talk show Tout le monde en parle. “That was kind of weird because mass acceptance is the last thing I expected,” says Caféïne. “I’ve always rebelled against anything that was usually accepted for mass consumption, and I was everywhere. I mean, it’s really great to be able to get exposed to all of these different kinds of people, but even I was getting sick of my own face after awhile.” With the fair amount of hoopla generated by Gisèle to build on, Caféïne could’ve seized the commercial radio dial with software-generated, pitch-corrected pabulum, but his new record, Bushido, continues to play on his pop-driven melodies and dance-punk grooves, harkening back to his early days while showing the serious growth of a solid songwriter. With a fair amount of dirt in the dense mixes, Caféïne remains very real on every track and even challenges his single-driven fans by including a cover of krautrock kings Neu! at the end of the disc. “It would’ve been really easy for me to just make the same record as Gisèle, but I’m not really that interested in repeating myself as some sort of recipe for success. I intentionally let this record be a little bit rawer and just let the songs be what they wanted to be. I hope people like it, obviously, but in the end, I really have to like it first and that, to me, is its own success.” While music still remains Caféïne’s chief obsession, over the past five years, he has made room for another passion in his life—ultimate fighting. Now well versed in mixed martial arts, with an exhausting training regime, Caféïne recently fought and won his first match. “It actually looked a lot more like Fight Club than the cages you see on TV, but for my first fight, it was perfect. To me, there are a lot of similarities between music and fighting because you get the same feelings and nervous energy before a fight as you do before playing a show. It really doesn’t matter if you win or lose in a fight, but you have to try and fight your best. That’s its own reward, and music to me is pretty much the same thing.”
WITH WINTER GLOVES AT CLUB SODA
TONIGHT, |
