Paul Cargnello dropped a new video today and spoke to us about the resurgence of protest music

Paul Cargnello is a man of principle, and it shows in his music, storytelling, political leanings, and especially his work rate.

Cargnello’s 20th(!) studio album, Combat Blues, dropped on May 5, preceded by a six-track French EP Blues de combat. The veteran local musician has been among Montreal’s most prolific over the years, but reaching that milestone is nonetheless a humbling moment for him. “It’s unbelievable to me that 20 albums in, people still want to listen to what I’m doing,” he says. 

For Paul, the album’s release comes at a “strangely perfect” time, both for the world we live in and for him and his unapologetically left-wing, anti-fascist politics. “Everywhere I go, I’ve been answering questions,” he continues. “People are asking me about the recent controversy with Bruce Springsteen speaking out against Trump. 

“It’s so funny, because his revival of being the old version of himself, that protest singer, is kind of contributing to the protest singer movement right now. I think I’m in on that wave a bit. I’m very lucky. You couldn’t have predicted that sort of thing.”

As hugely respectable as his hustle is, Cargnello never thought he’d get to the 20-album mark. But as far as he’s concerned, he’s got four times that many still left in him.

“Honestly, I never thought I was going to get here,” he admits. “I always wanted to… When I was first recording albums, it cost a fortune. It was so hard to plan for. To be resourceful enough to put an album together was a huge effort. 

“I have 80 albums in me. I’ve got a lot of albums in me. Could I predict that the audience would still be there, that I would still have a career 20 albums in? I had a lot of doubts. But creatively speaking, it’s there — trust me. Now that I’ve got my studio, I can make as many albums as I want. So here’s to 20 more, if people keep having me.”

Cargnello — who, incidentally, was voted #2 Best Singer-songwriter, #5 Best Band and #5 Best-dressed Montrealer in this year’s Best of MTL readers poll — sees Combat Blues as an album he made specifically for himself and no one else, something he feels he hasn’t done in ages. “My goal was to make a record that sounded like something I would put on,” he adds.

“I can think of two massive musical forces in my life: the Clash influence (with) Joe Strummer, and on the other side, there’s Sly Stone, Funkadelic and Prince. If I could take those two elements and mash them together and just have it work, that would be my ideal band — my ideal record.”

Cargnello’s clip for the album’s fourth track, “Fascists in Our Midst” — a song he describes as a “punk blues reggae hybrid” — was uploaded to YouTube today. Directed by frequent collaborator Nik Brovkin, the video was filmed in NDG alongside fellow musicians Jonathan Emile and James Challenger (the latter being Cargnello’s bassist), who both contribute vocals to the track.

Emile, another regular collaborator and close friend of his, is the only featured artist on Combat Blues and also shares Cargnello’s revolutionary worldview. The two organized the last edition of Montreal vs. Racism together (where they also performed), and Cargnello most recently produced Emile’s upcoming French-language reggae EP Car on oublie, due out Friday, June 6.

Having Emile and Challenger on the track is something Cargnello describes as a “meeting of like-minded people” and a “show of strength” between the three of them.

“We’re our own diverse crew,” he continues. “That’s going to be the thing that defeats ignorance and fear, right? It’s going to be the acceptance of diversity, and here’s this really cool fusion of sounds.”

Even if the filming date was on a brisk autumn day, Cargnello still had to commit to the bit given the video’s planned June release. “It was a freezing cold day, but we knew it was going to be coming out now, so we were all dressed down,” he adds. “We were filming in November. It’s really hilarious: here we are, faking that it’s warm out.”

The video sees the trio walking across an overpass at the bottom of Grand Boulevard, linking both sides of NDG’s train tracks. “It’s kind of a notorious overpass,” Cargnello says. “People are afraid, but there’s no reason to be afraid of this overpass. 

“We just filmed ourselves walking one way, then the other direction, and then we did it two more times. And that’s the video. The whole video is just a randomness of four shots. It’s very lighthearted… We played the video a little lighter than the heaviness of the message.”

To be clear, Cargnello HATES music videos — both other people’s and his own, even though he’s usually happy with the results for his. 

Nonetheless, working alongside Brovkin as his director has bred a trust in his vision, even if the entire process is an object of visceral disdain for Cargnello. “I need to always work with somebody filming me who understands how much I hate filming videos,” he says. 

“If there’s any way for me to get out of it, to have actors do stuff or to be animated, I’m always like, ‘Yeah, do that.’ Or if there’s any way for it to just be a live performance, I’m like, ‘Oh, okay’… Shooting music videos is the most embarrassing thing in the world because people are walking by you. And there you are, like, lip-syncing. You feel like an idiot the entire time.”

Brovkin is acutely aware of Cargnello’s hatred of music videos, so he adjusts his filming speed accordingly. “He does it as quickly as humanly possible,” Cargnello says. 

“He always makes it very fun and light. I’m grateful for that, because the minute I’m with some director who’s taking themselves too seriously, I’m half asleep through the whole thing. I really, truly, truly despise the process… Nick knows exactly what to pitch me to hook me in and to trick me into being open to filming a video.”

Later this month, we’ll see Cargnello and Emile take the stage at Montreal’s Fringe Fest on June 14 to perform at the festival’s closing weekend, at the corner of Rachel and St-Laurent. The show will be treated by both artists as an album launch event, where Cargnello will play Combat Blues in its entirety, along with songs from Emile’s forthcoming EP, with both artists singing backup for each other.

“It’s free, it’s outdoors and it’s all ages — there’s no excuse to not come out,” says Cargnello. “It’s going to be a party, and it’s going to be a celebration of revolutionary politics and love and partying all at the same time.”

Given how hard it can be in today’s world not to be overwhelmed and burnt out by the nonstop onslaught of far-right Trumpian bullshit emanating from south of the border and beyond, it can also be difficult to achieve collectivism and class solidarity in a world where social media algorithms make us increasingly individualistic.

For Cargnello, collectivism was a huge part of how Combat Blues was made in the first place. “My approach to this record, it’s almost like a hymn to anti-fascism,” he says. “I recorded it with the band. I booked a whole bunch of jam sessions and came with some chordal ideas. But then we just jammed on things and whatever happened, happened.

“It was a real group effort in the way that I was bringing everybody in, whatever ideas they had, I was going to be like, ‘Whatever makes us funkier, whatever makes us heavier, whatever makes us more revolutionary, I’m going to do it.’” ■

Paul Cargnello and Jonathan Emile perform at Fringe Park (St-Laurent & Rachel) on Saturday, June 14, 8 p.m., free. For more on Paul Cargnello, please visit his website.

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