Le Kid & Les Marinellis

Story by Laura Hermiston

Plaid first told you about Le Kid & Les Marinellis when our staff did a wrap up of our Osheaga 2012 experience. We saw this band unexpectedly at a bar called L’Esco and we have since then been big fans. Le Kid and Les Marinellis are now coming to Toronto this Saturday (part of their 2012 fall tour) to play a show with three other Toronto bands at The Magpie. The only thing we really know about this band is that we really like their music, and so we did a Q&A to get to know them a little better.

Who is Le Kid and who are Les Marinellis?

Cedric aka ”Le Kid” is the singer of the band, Ralph and J-F are the two guitarists, Ben plays bass and Oli is the drummer. The band was formed four years ago by Cedric and had a few changes with the line up threw the years. The current line up has been so for the past year. Ced, Oli and J-F had a band called The Jet Five and after the band split they decided to continue to play music together and started Le Kid & Les Marinellis. So far we played a few cool gigs and festivals with great bands like The Demons Claws, The Dirtbombs, King Khan, The Sexarreenos and a lot of awesome local Montreal bands but we are looking foward to playing a lot more outside of Montreal.

Are you signed?

We are not officially signed on a label but we released a 7” a few years ago on Telephone Explosion in Toronto. Our new album Les Jolie Filles was released on the label P.Trash Records from Germany. We are the only French band on both labels which proves to us that it is possible to travel outside the province of Quebec with our music.
What is your opinion on the indie Montreal music scene?

The actual English music scene in Montreal is pretty good with great bands like UBT, Red Mass, Man Legs and a few others, however, the French garage scene is almost non-existent. That is why we think it’s important to keep singing in French! That’s what makes our band a bit different than the other local garage stuff we’re used to hearing. Also, we think the language barrier is not that much of a big deal when we play in front of English crowds, as long as has we play good shows and have a good vibe.
What songs have been on repeat in your tour van? 

It depends on the mood of the day and who is holding the iPod. We all have similar tastes when it comes to music- from actual garage, to fifties oldies to retro punk and powerpop and to oldschool hip hop. I guess whatever is good (laughs).

Future plans for the band?

We just released our album, so for now we are promoting that. We want to tour and play as much as we can, and play the US. The label that released this record is in Germany so we are looking foward to a European tour and maybe during next spring if the records sales are good enough. We are doing a few dates in October but as soon as we can we are going to release a 7” with brand new songs. We are super motivated and have a lot of inspiration these days… so I guess the best songs and shows are about to come!

Catch Le Kid & Les Marinellis
Saturday, October 6th
9pm
Magpie 831 Dundas St W 
$7