“It was a great experience and there, C.R.A.Z.Y. came out and I was recognized. I decided to leave, but I found it boring. » What extraordinary experience is Marc-André Grondin talking about? From his work as a record store at the former HMV Megastore in downtown Montreal.
Does this mean that the success of Jean-Marc Vallée’s unforgettable film tore him away from his dream? we ask him, deliberately enlarging the line. Answer full of candor: “It’s stupid, but… I earn a really good living, I’m really lucky to have the career I have, to travel, but I know that ultimately, I would have been happy working as a record dealer or earning a humble living as a drummer in small gigs. Music, if it is present, I find my happiness, one way or another. »
Do not read this confession as a lack of gratitude, since in reality, it is quite the opposite. Marc-André Grondin knows full well that his life is made up of privileges; he has been acting since he was 4 years old – his first contract: a Minute Maid ad.
But if he speaks with seriousness and passion about his profession, the actor never lights up more than when he goes into a tirade about his favorite drummers or when he describes the Ludwig drums, Vista Lite model, color green, which his lover bought him for his 40th birthday. The greatest gift of his life, he says, before remembering that this same lover gave him the gift of two children, which also seems worthy of mention.
“Listen, I was really moved, I had tears in my eyes and I said to myself: “Well no, you’re not going to scream for a drum.” I have one of my drummer friends who I told this to who said to me: “Well yes, you can scream for a drum.”
“The only real regret I have in life is not having taken music lessons for a long time,” confides the man who, from the age of 4, was a fan of air drumming, his parents having both wielded sticks and played in bands.
“My need to ventilate, to express myself comes much more through music [than through his work in front of the camera], not just through playing it, but through listening to it,” says the one who officiated during the first decade of the millennium behind the cymbals for the rock groups Nitrosonique and Psychotic 4 and who must have imagined a few bebop solos during the filming of the Club Illico series IXE-13.
For a long time, Marc-André Grondin exchanged abundant emails with Jean-Marc Vallée and artistic director Patrick Vermette, in which the three friends offered others the gift of their musical excitement of the moment.
The Bahamas singer? It was Jean-Marc Vallée who introduced it to Grondin. Several years later, the Canadian indie folk artist’s music would become the soundtrack to the birth of his relationship with his lover, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse. “When I listen to Bahamas, I think of my girlfriend. » And to his director friend, too, obviously.
“The entire soundtrack of his projects can be found through these emails,” explains the man who put Jean-Marc Vallée on the path to Sigur Rós, the Icelandic post-rock group heard in Café de Flore (2011) and who was supposed to sign the music for The Young Victoria (2015), before obviously narrow-minded producers objected. Grondin was the perfect person to direct Mixtape: a musical tribute to Jean-Marc Vallée, presented at the Montreal International Jazz Festival on June 28.
“I remember that for Christmas or his birthday, I bought him Ágætis byrjun [1999] and the untitled album [2002] by Sigur Rós. I said to him: ‘This is my big favorite, I think you’ll like it, it’s super cinematic.’” And he wasn’t wrong.
A musical “curator” with enthusiasm as inexhaustible as a John Bonham solo, Marc-André Grondin could in this sense hardly be more the heir of his father, the radio host Denis Grondin, who experienced the heyday of CHOM and CKOI. It was with his father that he attended his first memorable show, that of Weezer at CEPSUM, on August 5, 1995. He was 11 years old.
Like Jean-Marc Vallée, who left too early at the age of 58, Denis Grondin left this world in 2017 at just 66 years old. “It’s certain that when you lose someone close to you violently, without warning, it puts a lot of things into perspective,” observes his son. You enjoy getting older. »
His white beard hairs, which are hidden from him on certain sets? Marc-André has learned to cherish them. “I don’t have much hair left, but I tell myself that I’m still lucky to experience this, to have these traces of time passing. »
“Of course it can be super anxiety-inducing,” he adds, “because it’s true that everything can stop overnight. So I try not to get too caught up in the world. I’m trying to apologize. When your father dies in his sleep, you say to yourself, “I’m going to try not to go to bed angry.” »