In XNUMX, we met to discuss my ideas for some of their posters.

They were interested and curious but nothing more. However, the year after, they called me up to create a concept and paint it on an actual guitar for one the artists at the festival. We talked about a bunch of scenarios and finally we decided we'd give the instrument to Flea, the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Why an instrument?

It was the idea of ​​Louis Bellavance, the festival's programming director. He wanted to give a personalized souvenir to certain important artists during their visits to the FEQ's boards, a sort of honorary prize more personalized than a simple honorary trophy. He is a lover of vintage guitars and a friend of Pierre-Luc Asselin, founder of Guitares PL, an exceptional luthier and in great demand. He's the one who made the bass I painted on. It was very exciting as a project, except that the " deadline" Was very tight, a few weeks of notice only... As usual, what!

We did talk about a more long term project using high quality instruments. We wanted to create a sort of collection of honorary gifts for musicians with original designs that would gain some notoriety over time. We thought that maybe word would get around to people in the music business and that these instruments would become sought after.  

The Festival approached you in May and the bass was ready in July, right?

Yeah and I didn't know the luthier, Pierre-Luc, it was Louis who introduced us. I felt he was concerned about deadline because in order to have a nice finish on a guitar, you need lots of layers of lacquer and every coats takes time because it has to dry properly.

Pierre-Luc and I met and I assessed that if we wanted to have the time necessary for the finish on the instrument, he had to provide me with the  "body" On the bass the following week. I then had to finish the painting in just a few days. I had never done that and I had serious doubts about the tenacity of certain pigments in reaction to the lacquer which is basically mixed in a solvent... I had to do research and tests urgently to see what was going to work or not.

I ended up speaking with specialists that make lacquers and who work with industrial chemicals and that helped me figure out the best products to use. It wasn't long before my sketches were ready to go and once I got the sculpted piece of wood, I got to work right away.

How did it go? Did you have to get your illustration approved by the festival?

Haha, no, we didn't have time for that.

They had to trust me and it worked out well that way! However, to add to the pressure, I was filmed during the whole project by a camera crew and it didn't start off well. To save time during the first day of filming, I had covered the bass in Mactac tape and I had cut out a pretty complicated stencil to add my base colours. It was pretty tedious work.

It was a rather tedious step. The problem is, the lacquer solvents have absorbed the glue from the Mactac. When I removed the film in front of the camera, I thought to myself, this is it, this is a total loss. The  "body" The bass was so sticky that I could lift it by putting my open hand on it! It would have been necessary to remove the film after a maximum of two hours in order to avoid the chemical reaction. I could not know...

I called Pierre-Luc to explain the disaster to him. He soaked the room in the " thinner" At night to see if we could recover it and fortunately it worked.

I started again the next day. Let's say that I no longer had the right to make mistakes. The following went wonderfully.

Still, Pierre-Luc and I, we have not been idle. I remember he put the strings and adjusted the bass the morning of the delivery!

Flea liked it?

Yes, we gave him backstage before Show. Yeah, we gave it to him backstage before the show. He really like it and did a bit of popping with it in between two sips of matcha. He said," It's gonna get played ! "

Mission accomplished !

In the drawing on the bass, I added all kinds of elements that have to do with Flea. The bees are a reference to his passion for beekeeping and the set of mechanical dentures with a gap between the two front teeth are a nod to his smile. We also built in a small chili pepper in the head of the bass,

The following year, in 2017, the festival approached Pierre-Luc and I to make a guitar for James Hetfield of Metallica. Unfortunately, the festival wasn't able to get the green light from the band. The project fell through but the guitar and the design were ready. One day, we might put it up for sale (laughs).

The concept for a guitar for Metallica must have been pretty different.

Yes! It was sculpted like a Flying V but the body was made to look like it was an M for Metallica. It was all black, the hardware, the pickups, everything, except for some white skulls that I had painted on it like they had been splashed on, like droplets of paint. It was simpler than Flea's bass but it was bad-ass.

I was not revived this year. I have the impression that there will have been, in the end, only the bass for Flea produced and that it will have been in the end a  "one shot".