Campus Celebrity: The Coward and the Pelican

Montreal is a city known for its vibrant and unique underground music scene. With world-renowned musicians like Leonard Cohen and Arcade Fire, it goes without question that this Canadian town is a genesis for tuneful talents. This week, Her Campus McGill sat down with The Coward and the Pelican, an indie Montreal-based band composed of six members, including three McGill students.
 
Etienne St-Louis, the band’s drummer and violinist, is also a third year McGill medical student. He told me about how he and his band mates decided to create a band and compose their own music.
 

Names of band members and the instruments they play:
Philippe St- Louis- guitar/vocals/piano
Evelyne St-Louis- piano/vocals
Simon Mercier Nguyen- flute
Carmen Boillat- Madfouny -violin
Emma Glaser- trumpet/French horn
Etienne St-Louis- drums/violin

What is the origin of the name of your band? Have you changed the band’s name before?
Well it’s kind of a long a story. In the beginning the project wasn’t what it is today. Many years ago, my brother and his best friend started messing around on the guitar. I guess when they started to look for a name to call themselves, they felt this weird pressure to be confident and knowledgeable about the music scene. It was intimidating at the time. Everything from composition to self-promotion was new to them. The Cowards was a sort of reaction to that feeling of uncertainty and self-doubt.
 
A few band members added themselves to the project from his immediate entourage of friends and family. The music was expanding creatively as Phil honed his craft and was afforded a new palette of sounds to work with. The Cowards had taken an entire different form after that, which lead to an important conversation about the band name. As we searched for alternatives, Phil’s girlfriend at the time suggested The Coward and the Pelican. As songwriters and storytellers, this name reminded us of so many fables by Jean de La Fontaine that were read to us as children. It also preserved the coward as tribute to the genesis of our project.
 
Before taking a vote, we decided to look up if the pelican was known to hold some sort of significance, and interestingly enough, it turns out the pelican has been used as a symbol of courage and self-sacrifice. In a way, the pelican and the coward balance each other out and better represent the dichotomy of strengths and weaknesses present in each of us.  Needless to say, the vote was unanimous.
 
How did the band first start off? Who formed the band and what inspired you to make music together?
My house was always very musical growing up. My siblings and I all learned different classical instruments. When we actually formed the band—more or less as it exists now—everything happened quite organically. It just seemed like a perfectly natural thing—to continue learning new instruments and making music together. As we explored composition, it became obvious that our foundations in classical training would become integral to our music. While all this was happening, a bunch of new local talent seemed to be coming up and it felt like a very exciting time to get serious about writing music and playing shows. Many bands that we love and who influenced us are Montreal-based and/or Canadian bands. Thought it wasn’t a catalyst per se, I think the effervescence of upcoming and critically acclaimed bands coming out of Montreal definitely encouraged us to pursue our love for music.
 
What genre of music do you consider your work to be?
I find this question hard to answer. “Indie” is a word that’s thrown around a lot these days—but it doesn’t really mean anything to me in terms of genre. Like if you tell me you’re going to take me to an indie music show, all I know is to expect everything and anything. You could say our music is pop rock with the peculiarity of having the support of a classical instrumentation. Our “orchestra pit,” made up of Simon (flute), Carmen (violin), and Emma (trumpet and French horn) really characterizes our sound. Our backgrounds in classical music and various experiences working in chamber music ensembles and orchestras had an undeniable influence on the music we compose.
 
Who are your musical inspirations/influences?
It’s hard to speak on behalf of the whole band on this particular question because I think the breadth of musical genres that we collectively listen to pretty much goes across the board. I think the bands I will mention, however, might give you a better idea of where we’re coming from. I’m talking amazing bands like Arcade Fire, Stars, Bell Orchestre, Patrick Watson, Wolf Parade, Land of Talk, and so many more, that we have so much respect for and really admire.
 
How do the six of you get together and compose a song? Could you briefly describe the music making process?
Phil is the most prolific composer in the sense that he is always bringing us new ideas for songs. He generates a lot of the song foundations that Evelyne and I help to flesh out with rhythm on drums and piano. Most often, he has already composed most lyrics, but sometimes the lyrics are only written afterwards. From that basic idea, we all get together to work on it in an improvisational way. Our approach is quite empiric. We try lots of things and keep what we like—that way we can continue building on and fine-tuning the song.
 
For over a year, we’ve been on a hiatus because of geographical differences; three out of six of us spent time abroad. During this time apart, we’ve all spontaneously chosen to continue the creative process on our own. A lot of us have started writing songs on the side. That time has given us the opportunity to explore a more personal composition style. This experience has brought out a lot of good things and now that we’re all back in the same city, we intend to regroup and continue working on this new material. Invariably, The Coward and the Pelican flavor gets injected into everything we develop as a group, and I expect the individual compositions that have come out of our year apart will undergo the same treatment to become true creations of this band.

What are your songs about? Any specific themes?
Love, of course. Is there anything more important? In music, love has always been and always will be a predominant theme. I think we express a lot of our experiences with the struggles of love and relationships through writing. We also have lots of lyrics that explore personal crises of faith and deal with spirituality and purpose. Lately, given our experiences with traveling, living abroad, and being far from home in strange and new environments, the themes of what is foreign and what is familiar have started to emerge. A lot of our new material focuses on where we are, where we’re from, and where we’re going—where we belong.

You write your songs in English and in French, any particular reason?
We’re all from this great city where both languages are fluently spoken. Montreal is really rich in that way and we feel privileged to have been brought up in English and French.  Sometimes it feels like we don’t function perfectly in either French or English, only in this sort of hybrid “Frenglish”. I guess it’s reflected in our lyrics. I feel some things are better expressed in English and others in French. The way our lyrics are written are sincere, and whoever writes them chooses to express their idea in whichever language best achieves that purpose. There is no specific rationale to when something will be written in French or English—often it doesn’t really feel like there’s a choice to be made. 

Where can we access to your music?
You can hear our music on YouTube (www.youtube.com/cowardandthepelican) or MySpace (www.myspace.com/thecowardandthepelican).
 
You can visit our website (www.thecowardandthepelican.com), where you’ll find links to order our two EPs: Silhouettes EP (2009) and All the Colors (2010). We had the pleasure of working with Gilles Castilloux of Treatment Room Studio in the Mile-End district of Montreal for both records.
 
Plans for the future?
We all have various plans and ambitions for our academic and professional futures, but as long as we continue to live in the same city, we’ll continue to play music together. I’m not sure how far it will take us, but all I know is I can’t wait to find out.