Giving Bands a Hand

New Local Music Company Seeks to Help Local Bands “Make It” Outside Montreal

Fringe ArtsRiley Wignall — Published January 13, 2014 | Updated January 14, 2014 at 4:45am

That was when local company Coup D’Etat hosted their official launch—a music show with a variety of artists, a celebration fitting for a business that hopes to be a one stop shop for local bands.

“The only thing we really care about is that Montreal bands have a better voice than they do at this time,” said Mat Barrot, one of the three founders of Coup D’Etat. “If you look at the Montreal scene, it very rarely happens that you have a bunch of kids who are actually able to make it outside of [the city].”

Coup D’Etat offers everything from band and tour management to production, promotion, grant writing and more.

The founders of Coup D’Etat are in it more for the music than the money—equipped with extensive experience working in the music industry, some are also musicians themselves.

“When you have a bunch of kids who are starting a band for the first time, they have no idea what to do. We’re more than willing to help them for absolutely no charge, just to point them in the right direction.” – Mat Barrot, one founder of Coup D’Etat

“When you have a bunch of kids who are starting a band for the first time, they have no idea what to do. We’re more than willing to help them for absolutely no charge, just to point them in the right direction,” Barrot said.

The company’s launch took place at Cabaret Underworld and featured four separate musical acts: Bon Vivant, Atoms of Silence, Greg Laraigne and Jon Becker & The North Fields, who came from Ottawa for the show.

It was a night of music and partying with a strong show of support for a company that hopes to expand beyond its humble beginnings as a three-man operation.

Barrot said that for promotion purposes, in the future, they hope to create a network of contacts that spans from coast to coast, dipping into the U.S. as well, if they can.

“We’d like to really give exposure to these bands who deserve it,” he said. “We know the talent exists, but there’s this weird hole that Quebec kind of exists here, [especially] when it comes to the punk genre.”

He added that it’s not unusual for local bands in the United States to get hundreds of attendees to a show, an enthusiasm that he thinks is not currently present in Montreal’s scene. To invigorate the action and give newcomers a desired boost is the chief aim of Coup D’Etat.

“That’s something we’d like to change,” he said. “That’s the reason it was started.”