Les Cowboys Fringants
| Les Cowboys Fringants | |
|---|---|
In concert in 2016
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Repentigny, Quebec, Canada |
| Genres | Néo-trad, alternative rock, folk punk, folk rock |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Website | cowboysfringants |
| Members | Karl Tremblay Jean-François Pauzé Marie-Annick Lépine Jérôme Dupras |
| Past members | Dominique Lebeau |
Les Cowboys Fringants are a folk rock music group formed in 1995 in Repentigny, Quebec. The French word fringant can be translated as "dashing", "spry", "smartly dressed", or "frisky", "lively", "spirited".
They perform Québécois néo-trad music (modernized Quebec folk music with a rock flavour) and draw on country music. They have an international underground following, especially in France, French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland. There is a group of French fans called Les Cousins Fringants (a take on the expression cousin that the French use for French Canadians). They hail from the Montreal suburbs of Repentigny and L'Assomption. The entire band collaborates on the lyrics, although guitarist Jean-François Pauzé often contributes more than the others. The fundamental aspect of the band are their explosive live performances, captured on the Attache ta tuque live album and the Centre Bell 30 décembre 2003 DVD.
Les Cowboys represent an important part of modern Québécois music. They are part of the néo-trad movement that appeared in Quebec around the turn of the 21st century, and they embody a resurgence of political songwriting (after the drought of the 1980s and parts of the 1990s, political songwriting had been a victim of Post-Referendum Syndrome). As the néo-trad movement adapts Quebec folklore into contemporary crafts, the political message of the band is a re-occurrence of 1970s chansonnier activist messages of left-wing solidarity and, recently, sovereignism, although in a more distinctly modern way. They also sometimes adopt a minimalist and dadaesque style, a trend of the Quebec music scene of the 2000s – a decade of voluntary simple yet nonetheless quite intelligent and joual lyrics, therefore subversive and akin to a sort of lyrical naïve art. (The 1970s did see the first wave of voluntary joual art, like the songs of Robert Charlebois and Aut'chose, and the plays of Michel Tremblay, although not as willingly exaggerated. This is present even more in the music of Les Trois Accords, Les Denis Drolet, and Daniel Boucher, or in "Carole", the song by "Pépé et sa Guitare").
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