Les Shirley released their third album, Hail Mary, on 25 September, and launch it in Montreal on 19 November at Théâtre Plaza, as part of M for Montreal.
Raphaëlle Chouinard (guitar, vocals), Sarah Dion (bass, backing vocals) and Lisandre Bourdages (drums, backing vocals) had just returned from Germany when we spoke. Asked whether the album’s harder edge was intentional, they think so: they wanted to make something heavier, and the state of the world fed into it. When we suggested the title track carried a kind of femme rage, the band agreed.
“With the condition of the world right now, everything is kind of on fire, with politics and just our rights being revoked,” says Chouinard. “Also being women and being part of the LGBTQ queer community, this is a reality that we live in. And we had a lot of stuff that we needed to unpack… We just started writing songs… I think we wrote, what, about 30 songs, and when we narrowed it down… we just realized that they all kind of talked about the same subjects, and definitely feminism, patriarchy. So yeah, there’s definitely a lot of femme rage, like you said.”
Dion sees the change from 2022’s More Is More as self-knowledge as much as anger. “We for sure are becoming more radical than we were on the last album,” she says. “Just all the subjects we decided to talk about, and the political stance we take now. And it’s just like, yeah, you mature. You get to know yourself and you’re just like, well, this is bullshit. This is fucked up… I’m not going to stand by that. And so you could say we’re more enraged, but I think we just know ourselves better.”
The press release announcing the album put it this way: “Hail Mary is the album where everything collapses. No more bullshit, no more hiding, we’re not going to stay quiet anymore. It’s our rage, finally released.” The video for the title track was directed by Amy Thibault, with help from Marjorie Hansen-Geoffroy.
Three voices on the choruses
On basically every song on the album, all three of them sing the choruses. They didn’t plan it that way, and a show at the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg showed them why it mattered.
“We just realized that, wow, actually, maybe we just needed to be heard,” says Chouinard. “And without even realizing it, I guess it just came out this way. And something really interesting happened in Germany. The first show we did in Hamburg was a showcase for just, you know, people from the industry… One of the songs on the album is called Jenny, Please, and the bridge is just basically… we were losing it… just screaming. And [someone] came afterward and just said, ‘That song really spoke to me. And I just cried.’ And I was like, that’s it. It touches people. And that’s what we want: people to just relate and be in the mosh pit with us and just, you know, be confident. Be there. Just speak out, and to feel something.”
Same Old was inspired by the trial of Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman whose husband drugged her and recruited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious, over nearly a decade. Pelicot waived her anonymity and refused a closed-door trial, saying she wanted shame to change sides. Chouinard says that is the idea behind the song: the shame belongs to the men, not to her.
Born a Man, with lyrics by Chouinard and a guitar solo from Gabe La Rue of Easy Tiger, approaches the subject from another angle. “This song is not about being a man… It’s just about, you know,” Chouinard says, before describing “how much of a privilege it is to not care. To just feel safe all the time and not think about all of this.”
Making the record sound like the band
Graham Walsh produced and mixed Hail Mary, and Justin Perkins mastered it. The three share the writing credits and split the rights equally; Chouinard wrote the lyrics for PLAYER2, Rings of Saturn and Born a Man. Apart from La Rue’s solo, they play everything on the record themselves.
“[Walsh] did the best guitar tones we’ve ever had so far,” says Dion. “… And it just sounds so big. But yeah, we write everything ourselves and we play everything ourselves.”
The compliment the band hears most often after shows is that they are tight and heavy live, and Chouinard thinks this is the first record that captures it.
“Everybody that sees us live… It’s the best compliment we ever get. It’s always the thing that comes back: ‘Oh my God, you guys are so tight. You guys are so heavy live,'” she says. “I think this is where we shine the most. It’s live shows… But it’s the first time that we get an album that actually is as good as the live, in my point of view… Before we went to record this album… we played hundreds of shows together. So I think for this album, you can really feel that there’s something… We’re like three old sisters. So it’s like we’re in each other’s head.”
That includes arguing. “I love to be convinced of something that I was not convinced at all before, and to fight a bit over that,” says Bourdages. “And it’s okay if they tell me, ‘This sucks and don’t do this.’ We can be real with each other. And it’s precious.”
Aqua, Elton John and a mirror at grandma’s
Under the heavy guitars, the band says, the songs start from pop.
“My first love was definitely pop music,” says Chouinard. “I mean, the first album my mom bought me was Aqua… I had the best of ABBA and Aqua, so… it’s pop music. Well, kind of pop… a range of pop music, but [you] just need a hook and a good song. And then you can put heavy guitars on it if you want, but it’s still pop-ish, you know?”
Dion’s first album came from her father’s collection. “The first album I owned, it was from my dad’s collection, and it was the best of Elton John and best of Styx,” she says. “That’s what I was listening to on and on and on.” For Bourdages, it was rock, pop punk and ska, though she expects to be teased for her actual first album, by the French band Tryo.
Chouinard traces her ambitions to her grandmother’s house. “I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s… When I was like 10, 11, I was blasting music in my Discman all the time. I had Linkin Park and Billy Talent albums, and I remember listening to them… There was this little mirror in my room at my grandma’s, and I was always pretending, looking in the mirror and just singing… And I was picturing myself doing this. So I guess it’s some kind of, I don’t know, manifestation.”
A message on Bandcamp
Les Shirley have since opened for Billy Talent, Green Day, Weezer and Avril Lavigne, mostly on one-off dates, and played a few European shows with Jimmy Eat World in 2025. In 2023, the Foo Fighters asked them to open at the Verdun Auditorium on 10 July. The offer arrived on 24 June, the Fête nationale. Chouinard tells the story.
“They wrote us on Bandcamp. I think they were trying to reach our label, but it was Quebec’s day, so nobody was at the label. Nobody was answering… And so I think they needed an answer pretty quick, so they tried to reach us through Bandcamp. The girls were out in LA… and I was in a rehearsal. And Sarah is just sending me this screenshot of this Bandcamp message… The title was Foo Fighters, and this girl is just like, ‘Hi, I’m working with the management team of Foo Fighters, and we’re just trying to reach you guys. Do you want to open for them on July 10th?’ I was like, ‘What?’ Sarah is like, ‘Ha ha, look at this scam.’
“… And I’m just looking, I’m like, ‘What if?’ I am googling real quick this girl’s name and the company, and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is actually the real company, and this girl is actually really working for that company.’ … Within five minutes, I receive a call from Los Angeles. I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ Answering: ‘Hi, this is so-and-so…’ They are huge fans of yours and they really want you guys to open for them in Verdun on July 10th… And I was just like, the whole time, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh.’ … So I called back the girls and I was like, ‘What are you guys doing on July 10th? Actually, I don’t give a sh… what you guys are doing. Just get your ass there.'”
There is a photo of the band with Dave Grohl from that night, and it exists because of the Montreal rock photographer Susan Moss, who died on 4 September. “She’d been asking us for like an hour, like, ‘Girls, it’s your band. You have to get a picture with him,'” says Dion. “And we were like, ‘Go for us. Please, Susan, go.’ And she just went, and she was like, ‘You’re a bunch of pussies!'”
Nights like that, Dion points out, are a small part of the job.
“We’re living the dream, and we’re so lucky… These nights are… No, they’re the most fun, but it’s like 5%, 2% of what being in the band actually is… Sending emails or making a budget or going to the bank for a loan… getting verified by the government because the taxes were shady, whatever. This is the most of the job… And even writing the songs, to me, is one of the best parts, but it’s 1% every four years. So when these shows happen, it’s like, okay, that’s why we’re doing this, you know?”
Germany, Quebec and what comes next
The German trip was the band’s sixth or seventh there. “Germany loves rock music, and we have such a good feedback from them every time we go,” says Chouinard. “… Every time it’s getting better. This time we went for the Reeperbahn Festival… and the city just gets crazy. Everybody’s hopping from bar to bar and just discovering music, and people just really show up to the shows and buy some merch, and it’s really, really cool… It’s like they live pretty much like 20 years ago.”
Home audiences are more cautious, says Bourdages. “[In] Quebec, sometimes people are a bit shy if they don’t know the band, to go see and discover, I feel. Maybe it’s because we also sing in English and we’re a punk rock band. But we don’t feel that way when we go in Germany. They’re curious and they really dig the rock-punk scene.”
The band hopes to make a first trip to Mexico. “We’re starting to work with an agent over there, so it’s going to be our first time in Mexico,” says Bourdages. “And Europe is still a big market for us. And here, it’s important… Next summer, we’re going to do… I don’t know, there’s nothing confirmed yet, but pretty much all the festivals here.”
Before Montreal, they launch the album on 13 November at Le Pantoum in Quebec City. They have played most of Hail Mary live two or three times so far, and Bourdages names the one she likes playing most: “I really like playing Jenny, Please… It’s the one we scream in. It’s, yeah, therapeutic, like I said.”
Asked whether they need a bigger venue than Théâtre Plaza, Bourdages says no: “I wish. No, no, no, it’s just a small venue, packed. It’s all we’re asking for.”
A Quebec tour follows from 23 January to 24 April 2027, with stops including Saint-Hyacinthe, Chicoutimi, Gatineau, Rimouski, Sherbrooke and Saint-Jérôme.
Hail Mary tracklist
- Hail Mary
- PLAYER2
- Jenny, Please
- Bang Bang
- Jungle Speed
- Not My Problem
- Bad News
- Death of Me
- Rings of Saturn
- Same Old
- Born a Man
- Fortune Teller
Watch the full interview below:
Interview – Annette Aghazarian
Photos – Charline Clavier & Steve Gerrard
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