Track By Tracks: Backstabber - Conspiracy Theorist (2018)

Cover Art and general themes:

Even if there is no « Alien » song properly speaking, Conspiracy Theorist is deeply embedded in ancient astronauts beliefs and mythology. The composition spanned over a 3 year period, from 2015 to 2018. The Alien cover was an idea we had since 2016, we used the cover of playstation’s Area 51 game as the cover image for the pre-production tracks. So came the concept of the meet-up; In Area 51’s cover, you can see the lunar module in the Aliens eyes, So we decided to do a meeting cover; Front cover we got a grey Alien with the reflection of an astronaut in his eyes and on the back of the CD, you have the Astronaut with the reflection of the Alien on his helmet.

1. Inaugural Address/Whistle Blower:

Whistle Blower is part of the Leclerc/Jean legacy. It’s basically 2 riffs that they were jamming together so one day at a rehearsal we transformed it into a song. It’s only lately that we separated the intro from the song, giving birth to the Inaugural Address. I, as pretty much everybody, hate it when you ruin a song with an unskippable 1 minute + Intro. Lyrically, Inaugural Address is the speech that killed John F. Kennedy. JFK’s assassination is the source of the term Conspiracy Theorist, it was a no-brainer that would be the perfect intro to the album. Whistle Blower, on the other hand, is a fictional story of a whistleblower. It’s a matchup between MK Ultra’s stories and the Frantic Caller (Art Bell 97).

2. No Privacy:

No Privacy is the first song we’ve created together with the Seguin/Gagne lineup. There are many songs that I used to write on my own but what I’m aiming for is songs that we’re gonna create rehearsing together and No Privacy is one of those songs. I literally just let an improvisation riff out and we build it up into the song we know. Of course, there are some details that come afterwards such as the riff before the solo where Gagne’s drumming opened the door for a whole new riff to accompany the chorus. Lyrically, we’re talking about the potential impacts of metadata collection and analysis through quantum computing with programs such as the Sentient World Simulation (SWS).

3. Subterranean:

Subterranean is another song that we wrote together with Seguin and Gagne. It’s a drop C song that we jammed together and as soon as it was composed, we knew it was gonna be one of our great songs off the album. That’s why we decided to get it out in single and music video form. We thought it was a good preview of the coming album. Lyrically, we’re into the theory of the Hollow Earth and its entries from the Poles and certain caves & tunnels made popular by Nazi maps and Americans exploration following WWII.

4. Ink Spill:

Ink spill is one of the early songs that was written for the album. It’s the most melodic song off the album and has a little twist in the riff structure. It took a lot of time before we felt it was good enough for the album. We made some little changes lately and focussed on the vocals with guest Samuel Gosselin (Snow) for the album and the results are very great. Lyrically, we are talking about mass media and the pervasive use of propaganda in our everyday lives. This topic has gained a lot of attention in 2016, maybe that why we felt unsure about this one. We didn’t really want to have an album rooted in actuality but rather something that could make sense at any moment in time.

5. The Hum:

The Hum comes from an acoustic jam I had home. Probably a sunny Sunday morning that I woke and baked through with an acoustic jam in the living room but it ended up having a good vibe for the album and Eric really opened it up with his bass part which kinda glued the drums to the music. Guitar solo has been recorded by my younger brother Sebastien. I’ve always felt it was the perfect spot for him because he is very talented in improvisation and has a good vibe in his playing that would be better felt through a clean tone.

6. My Disclosure:

My Disclosure is the last song that we composed off the album. Another song that we created together in the rehearsing room and, just as Subterranean, an instant « oh we have something here »! It’s also a very good hint as to where we could be going for future music. Lyrically it’s very funny because since it’s the last song we wrote, I was hitting a wall as to what I should talk about in this song. I felt like I had to wrap up the whole album, I felt the need to talk about a million subject at the same time. We ended up writing it in the studio with Eric. We listened to the song and let the inspiration come out. But as soon as we got the title and general idea we knew it was gonna be a killer song. Lyrically, we’re depicting the story of a young girl that was kidnapped by deep state agents and/or aliens, we’re not sure as even our person isn’t sure if she can trust her memories and recollection of events.

7. Geo Engineering:

Geo is really the most « Deicide esque » song of the album. That’s why we didn’t have any doubts about inviting our friend Raoul Rochon (Abitabyss) to come over and lay some vocal tracks. It was composed quite early in the writing process but we never got to play it with the old lineup. Lyrically we’re into Chemtrails but also into a vast array of technologies referred to as Geo-Engineering. From controlling global temperature to keep us safe from global warming to creating tsunamis and earthquake as bioweapons, the possibilities of such technologies are as devastating as they could be helpful to humanity.

8. Banksters:

Banksters is the oldest song from the album. So old I had to go back in time, just to remember when I wrote it! Maybe late 2014 or very early 2015. Banksters is also the first spark of the Backstabber we know today, as the project was on ice until then. The Revenge demo was meant to be a time marker and then new songs written with the Leclerc/Jean lineup would be the up and coming Backstabber. Banksters was written off as a more death metal vibe than thrash, I wanted the new stuff to be more death-oriented at that time. Turns out it suits the album very well. Lyrically, we are talking about the « you know exactly what we are talking about but shouldn’t name it in case of reprisal » But yeah basically talking about money but instead of talking about the FED as we’ve seen in many documentaries, we decided to talk about the Canadian aspects of our « selling out » to private international bankers. It occurred in 1974 under the Pier-Elliot Trudeau’s liberal government and is debated in court to this day thanks to COMER against the bank of Canada.

9. Conspiracy Theorist:

Conspiracy Theorist is a song I wrote in 2012 as an acoustic jam. It stayed under the radar until 2016 when we were starting to see the album as a whole, it became very clear that it's feeling of resignation was a perfect fit as the closing statement of all this conspiracy stuff. Whenever conspiracies are real or not, whenever you believe them to be true or not, there is always that feeling of powerlessness that is lurking around, as if we didn’t have the power to change the world around us. The drums are recorded as a one take because we wanted the song to be as alive as possible. I had the middle solo composed for a long time but it’s only lately that we did the bass solo and the closing solo, recorded by my friend Sylvain Tremblay, again an improvisation that we did in the studio.