Well known in Mont-Tremblant for the wild concerts he and his musicians give on the night of Saint-Patrick’s Day, Marc Anderson DesRochers is launching his fourth career album this month. We met with him on a December afternoon, at the very spot where for more than 10 years he has given his concerts in celebration of the great Celtic holiday.

Marc was waiting for us in the dining room of the resto-pub Au Coin, bearing in hand a quite unusual guitar. “I’ve called this new instrument a ‘guitarola’ (guitar and mandola)”, he explains, as he shows us his guitar… on the back of which guitar-maker Jean-Guy Hache, from Boileau, has managed to graft a ukulele.

“I tune it like a mandolin, which allows me to have two instruments in one,” the musician adds. A native of Georgian Bay, Ontario, Marc arrived in Mont-Tremblant close to 20 years ago. He’s a ski instructor, and it’s here that he chose to perfect his musical art. “I wanted to be closer to Montreal. I would have liked to live in a city, but only if I could have a chalet in the north. I decided to start with the chalet,” he says, smiling.

Tender Box

It’s been seven years since Marc Anderson DesRochers released an album. On this new opus, which demonstrates clear maturity, you’ll hear a succession of folk music pieces with accents that move from country to light rock, and even sometimes to bossa nova. Seven of the ten songs Marc has written were recorded at Kells, Ireland, at Martin Quinn’s Jam Studios.

The recording was done on a musical voyage taken in fall 2018, initiated by his girlfriend Marcella Haggerty. “She organized everything. She saw that I had songs that wanted to be heard. The three other pieces were recorded at World Inside Studios, in Sainte-Agathe-Des-Monts, with Lauren Bélec,” he adds.

The gentle, poetic style of the words, which he translated himself, shows polished writing, one of Marc’s passions, and he is particularly fond of the work of a certain Leonard Cohen. The only completely French piece, called “Namur”, is truly country in style.

Marc’s barely perceptible English accent adds charm to the song, which tells a story of growing love against the background of this small settlement in the Laurentians. Will the song become the official anthem of Namur? Perhaps….

The end of live music?

Marc is no stranger to the stage. In addition to his many concerts in Mont-Tremblant and Ottawa, he spent two months in Mexico last winter to play six nights a week in an Irish pub in Puerto Vallarta. The situation we’re in now makes life tough for live culture. As a result, it’s hard to say when this musician will be performing live again.

In the meantime, listening to an album doesn’t break any of the rules we’re now living under, so it would be a shame to miss this. You can get Tender Box through b4musique.com and through Mark’s website, which will go online this month at madmusic.ca/wordpress.

Happy listening!