by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

If you're going to adopt a stage name like Stefie Shock, you'll have to live up to the shocking part, won't you? Shock certainly did when we met for lunch at the chic resto Misto on Mont-Royal, one of his favourite eateries. Not shocking like that - despite having a tune called "All Zippers Down" on his 2000 debut Presque rien, he keeps his pants on in public. No, we're talking weird-science shocking. As he settled in to tackle his pennini, Shock's knife and fork clung to one another magnetically, freaking us both out a bit.

There you go, empirical evidence of Montrealer Shock's undeniable zap power. A decade of drumming in garage bands, noodling in his bedroom and spinning all manner of music at downtown bars led up to Presque rien. A slick mix-up of pop and rock, yéyé and chanson, folk and worldbeat, the record showcased his loose and lackadaisical look, popcrafting panache and witty wordsmithery. While well received, it hardly shook the earth.

His belated sophomore disc Le décor, however, has registered on the Richter scale. The virulently catchy hooks from his tunes "L'amour dans le désert" and "Salut Chantal" have become almost ubiquitous across the province, sticking in everyone's ears and cementing his rep as the next Jean Leloup. The next single "Un homme à la mer" will only build on that, though on this day he's as excited about the "hit platter" he has lined up for Misto's spring menu - pennini à la Stefie Shock, pasta with tuna, pesto and sun-dried tomatoes (magnetic cutlery not included).

Seven months after the release of Le décor, Shock is finally doing a three-night stand in town. Our chat, however, starts with the recent DJ set he did at a Montreal High Lights Festival soirée. Who better to hook up with Hydro-Québec than Count Shockula himself?

Mirror: You used to DJ for many years but that was a job. This was for the fun of it. What kind of stuff did you play?

Stefie Shock: I didn't know what to expect, so I'd brought funk music, dancehall, house, lots of Latin stuff - salsa, cumbia - disco and '80s stuff. So finally I played African and Brazilian hard beats and '80s stuff like "Beat the Clock" by Sparks, and that really did it on the dancefloor. I also brought some rock music, the Strokes, but it wasn't a good milieu for the Strokes. I'm in that mood lately, though.

M: Oh, yeah?

SS: Yeah, I think I've had it with Latin music. I've had too much, an overdose. I think I need a break. In the show, I do have bits of Latinesque grooves, or more Afro beats, should I say. I don't play salsa, but there are Latin accents for sure.

M: This is interesting. I've said this from the beginning, and others have said it too - you're one of the most French, the most français of the Québécois artists. The European French way of thinking is that rock, like hip hop or salsa, is from the outside - just another colour, another flavour. Whereas Quebec is really part of North America, where rock is always the base. You, you're more rock than the French, but less so than other Québécois.

SS: I can't do much about it, because I grew up with good records at home, through my parents and also through a gift from my uncle, my mother's brother. He felt like getting rid of his 45s, so he gave them to me. I didn't realize it then, but when I think about it now, I can't believe he gave them away. The songs that were in that box, that's my whole musical culture.

M: What was in there?

SS: "Honky Tonk Woman," "Whole Lotta Love," "Mother Popcorn" by James Brown - I was crazy about that one. Popcorn! Popcorn! And that beat? Chook-chack, chuh-chooka-chack-chack! I wanted to be a drummer, so I was listening to John Bonham and Clyde Stubblefield, James Brown's drummer. "Mrs. Robinson," and that next to James Brown, a folk song and a funk song. It's funny - folk and funk, both words start with an F and end with a K. So does the word fuck. Fuck-folk-funk (laughs).

Sunny, sandy centre-ville

M: See, there's you're wordplay. That's another thing that leads me to say you have a French touch, your lyrics. The wordplay, the clever inversions and rhymes - but you're not a writer. You're not constantly scribbling things down.

SS: No, I write lyrics when I have music. Without music, I have no desire or need to write things down. Some people write all the time, everyday, in a book, their emotions and things. I just keep mine in mind, and when it comes time to write, I pull them out. It's like it's in storage.

M: The video for "L'amour dans le désert" - MuchMusic picked it as francophone video clip of the year. I'm interested in the making of the video, which was shot in Mexico.

SS: We had this crazy story about putting Montreal in the desert. Like, 30 stories of sand on Montreal, and all you can see are things over 30 stories - Place Ville-Marie, Pont Jacques-Cartier - and that was 3D stuff. I had a chance to work with the best guy in 3D animation, Robin Tremblay. But we had to shoot some things, like the ocean. It's like if Montreal was in the tropics, on the Caribbean Sea, which was fun. It was kind of an answer to the song "Cartier" by Robert Charlebois. "Cartier, Cartier, si t'avais navigué/ Du côté de l'été" - so Montreal would have palm trees and the ocean and great temperatures rather than the cold and the river. Having these images, which was not possible when Charlebois wrote that song, puts Montreal on the sea, in an endless summer. So we did it, we did a lot of shots on the blue screen. But even with the blue screen, you can't simulate walking in the sand, and you can't take sand from here because that white sand is only in the Caribbean.

I see London, i see France

M: When we last spoke, after Presque rien, we talked about you maybe breaking into France. You recently played three nights in Paris, right?

SS: Four. And I'm going back in two weeks for another show.

M: It's not much to go on, but at least you got the first taste of what it is to bring your music over to France.

SS: Yeah, and after those four shows, there's been a small forum on the Internet, people chatting and giving comments on the shows. We're talking real people from Paris, real feedback, and it's been good. So I know that if my songs sell here, there's no reason they can't sell there. The only problem is those record-company bureaucrats. Bureaucrap (laughs)!

M: Tell me a bit about Dimitri Tikovoï, who's worked with you on both albums as producer. All I know is that he'd also worked with Gary Numan.

SS: Gary Numan, Placebo, John Cale from the Velvet Underground. He's worked with the big guys.

M: So, uh -

SS: Why did he work with me? (laughs) Because four years ago, I sent him a tape of 25 songs and asked, "Do you want to produce it?" He said, "Yeah," and that's it. As simple as that. If you don't ask -

M: I like how the first time, he's like, yeah, but you gotta get your ass over here to London. This time, he was happy to come to Quebec.

SS: I was happy to go there - it's not that I like London, but it was something special to record there. No, London ain't my cup of tea (laughs).

M: But why him?

SS: I had heard stuff he'd done with a female French singer named Buzy, and I was amazed by the drum sounds and the energy of his work. Very dynamic. I couldn't meet anyone here who could give me that sound I was looking for. No one I knew, anyway. My manager lent me that record and said, "Listen to this, what do you think?" I wasn't crazy about the songs, it was the production, the engineering and everything. I said, "Okay. Send him a tape." It was very - par hasard, how do you say that?

M: Stroke of luck?

SS: Yeah. Lightning strikes, you know.

At Club Soda Thursday through Saturday, March 11-13, 7pm, $21.50, all ages

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