There is a moment in every band’s life where the desire to please strangers gives way to something more honest. For Montreal’s The City Gates, that moment came quietly, over years of Friday night jams, growing stacks of reverb pedals, and the gradual realization that nobody was going to hand them permission to be themselves. So they stopped waiting.
Guitarists Maxime Wingender and François Marsan sat down recently to talk about the band’s evolution from their earlier incarnation as Genuine, their upcoming album, and why a seven-minute song with four minutes of guitar solo somehow ended up on commercial radio station CHOM FM. Rounding out the band are bassist Jean-Sébastien Tremblay and drummer Jahazaib Bitou Mirza .
From Genuine to The City Gates: A New Direction
The band’s roots go back further than most fans might know. Maxime was in a band called Genuine before the sound shifted and the name changed. About four years later, a new member joined. “When I joined, the band was already in this transformation,” François explains. He came in carrying a record collection that skewed older and stranger, including Jesus and Mary Chain, Neil Young, and Love and Rockets. “I came with maybe different influences that the other bandmates didn’t have. Maxime was already interested in this kind of music, so it was a very good fit.”
That chemistry helped give the band what François describes as “our own sound.” Not unique in some grand claim, but genuinely their own. “We don’t intend to sound like other people”.
“We can play the way that we want”, Maxime adds.
The Freedom of Not Caring
Ask The City Gates what made the difference in their sound and they’ll give you an honest answer: getting older. Not in a resigned way, but in a liberating one. “We have been playing different styles, and when we get older, we don’t care what other people say,” François explains. “We didn’t care if the song was too long, the solo was too long, or there was too much reverb or too much delay. This is what we like.”
There is something that happens when one hits a certain age, as I can attest. You start doing things for yourself rather than for an imagined audience that, honestly, never cared all that much to begin with. That’s when things get interesting.
The best proof of this philosophy is a song called Checkpoint Charlie, a seven-minute track with roughly four minutes of guitar solo. The band never composed it with radio in mind, which is exactly why it ended up being played on CHOM FM, making it one of the longest songs in the station’s history to get airplay, alongside Stairway to Heaven. “I would have never, never guessed,” François says, still sounding a little amazed by it. “We weren’t expecting that. We never composed a song hoping we’d get on CHOM FM.”
A Montreal Sound, Whether They Like It or Not
Yes, they are from Montreal. And yes, by Quebec law, Randal is obliged to ask whether they are Angine de Poitrine, the province’s viral and beloved masked mystery band. They denied the claim with a laugh. Different sound entirely. Yet, it does raise the fair point that Quebec has a way of seeping into music whether you invite it or not.
For The City Gates, that influence shows up in texture and atmosphere. They leaned into it deliberately for the video for their single Capitol Hill, filming against the slushy, gray, late-winter Montreal streets. “We tried to link those images of Montreal with our music,” François says. “The slush, the snow, the cold, the gray sky. It is a part of us.”
That said, Montreal is not the easiest city to build a dark, atmospheric audience in. “I believe there are bigger crowds in Europe,” François admits. “There is a scene here, but when we played in Europe, we were always well received”, contributes Maxime. As the French saying goes, and François is happy to offer it: “Nul n’est prophète en son pays.” Nobody is a prophet in their own country.
Running Their Own Label
The City Gates release their music on their own label, Velouria Records, in collaboration with Icy Cold Records. Ask them whether this was born out of necessity or frustration, and the answer is: probably some of both, but mostly it’s about control. “From the beginning of the song to the recording to the mastering, everything is part of our artistic process,” Maxime says. “We’re sure to control 100% of what we really want”, François says.
François adds a slightly rueful note: it’s not exactly freedom in the sense of ease. Maxime especially puts in serious hours keeping the label running. “He spends many, many hours working for that label,” François says. A labor of love, no question.
Lyrical Tension
There is a tension in the lyrics of their songs between faith and despair. Have they resolved this personally? “I don’t think so”, says François laughingly. “It will always be a part of it.”
“It’s therapy for us”, adds Maxime.
Releasing those words to the universe, not only allows the band to reframe these, and give them meaning, but allows for listeners to attach their own meaning to them.
Multi-Language Options
Song are written in English, French and German, depending on the way they hear it. They will compose the melody, adding gibberish lyrics, and choose according to the vibe.
Vocals as an Instrument
One of the more distinctive choices The City Gates makes is the way vocals sit in the mix, buried somewhat inside the wall of sound rather than sitting out front. On their last two albums, including Age of Resilience, this was intentional. “It’s introspective music. We really consider vocals as an instrument,” François says. “We didn’t feel that the vocal needed to be at the first plan, the way you hear in most pop music.”
The emotional weight gets carried by the guitars instead. “You will hear very loud guitars that do express it. We’re maybe better at expressing the emotion with the instruments.”
That may shift somewhat on the next record. “On the next album, maybe you will hear the vocals a little bit higher in the mix. It’s part of the evolution of the band sound.”
The Live Experience
Are The City Gates a studio or live band? “I think both”, shares Maxime. “We like to play loud. I like to play live personally, especially that feeling of playing with the full band”. Maxime also likes the long guitar layers that is the core feeling the band evokes. He also enjoys altering the songs show to show.
“As the band is getting more experience, we do enjoy a lot of what we are doing in the recording process”, adds François.
Yet, the live experience is not only preferred, but an avenue of growth. “Many people discovered us with our live shows”, shares François.
What’s Coming
City Gates perform at Cabaret Foufs in Montreal on April 9th, alongside Golden Apes. If you are into darkwave, shoegaze, or anything that lives in that moody, atmospheric guitar space, this is the show.
Their new album drops May 15th on Valeria Records in collaboration with Icicle Records. A Canadian tour follows, hitting Montreal, Quebec City, and Toronto before heading to Europe. “Maybe it’s our best work so far,” Maxime says, with the kind of quiet confidence that comes from a band that stopped trying to impress anyone but themselves.
Fantasy Rock Band
No City Gates interview would be complete without a fantasy band lineup, and this one is revealing.
François did not hesitate on guitar: Neil Young, full stop, with all the reverb, delay, and fuzz you can stack.
Maxime loaded up the rhythm section with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth on drums and Kim Deal (Pixies) on bass, the latter chosen as much for her voice as her playing. Both names on the tongue of François as these were chosen.
The frontman spot proved harder. François went back and forth, briefly entertaining Morrissey before Maxime landing on Neil Halstead of Slowdive as the more honest answer, though even that came with a pause and a “good question.”
Put it together and you have Crazy Horse-era Neil Young’s heavy, distorted sprawl meeting Sonic Youth’s experimental noise, the Pixies’ loud-soft-loud dynamic through Kim Deal, and Slowdive’s dreamy, reverb-soaked atmospherics.
That is essentially City Gates in a nutshell, the honest DNA of a band that grew up listening to all of it and eventually figured out how to make it their own.
Show: City Gates at Cabaret Foufs, Montreal, April 9th, with Golden Apes
New Album: Releases May 15th on Velouria Records / Icy Cold Records
Canadian Tour: Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, followed by European dates
CANADIAN EAST COAST MINI TOUR 2026
- April 09 Montreal, CA – Cabaret Foufs /w Golden Apes + Scene Noir
- April 10 Québec, CA – Centre Hub Creatif /w Golden Apes + Palissade
- April 11 Toronto, CA – BMST 254 /w Girlfriends and Boyfriends + Golden Apes
EUROPEAN TOUR 2026
- May 29 Berlin, DE – Wild at Heart /w Cataphiles
- May 30 Holzminden, DE – Horstberg 76 /w Golden Apes
- June 02 Paris, FR – QG103
- June 03 Gent, BE – The Crossover /w Fragment
- June 04 TBC
- June 05 Wuppertal, DE – Loch /w Us and I
- June 06 Modave, BE – Deux-Ours
Writer: Randal Wark is a Tech entrepreneur with a focus on cybersecurity along with a passion for live music. You can follow him on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. His Podcast RockStar Today helps musicians quit their day jobs with out-of-the-box advice from Ted Talk Speakers, Best Selling Authors and other interesting Entrepreneurs and Creatives. He created the Rock Star Today Music Business Jam Session for musicians. Randal is a collector of signed vinyl, cassettes and CDs.
