In a cramped Montreal apartment during the first pandemic lockdown, Moon Davis experienced what he describes as a creative rupture. He had just abandoned a master’s programme, uncertain about his professional path, and found himself suspended in that peculiar isolation of 2020. Then he watched the first episode of True Detective. “I was completely blown away,” he recalls. “Far From Any Road, the song from the credits, played a part in that, but really, it was the whole atmosphere of the show that resonated with me – dark, introspective, existential. Right after the episode ended, still caught in that mood, I picked up my guitar, and within twenty minutes I had the song.”
That song became “A Man Without a Faith,” the centrepiece of his self-titled debut EP, set for release this fall. For an artist who wasn’t even writing music at the time, the moment felt significant. “I wasn’t even writing music at that time, so it felt like something had forced its way through,” he says. “Looking back, that’s probably why it became the centrepiece of the EP: it marked the exact moment when I reconnected with what still felt alive in me.”
Davis describes himself as a “modern bluesman” who transforms inner turmoil into something danceable, a mission statement that reveals itself in his songwriting process. “When I write, rhythm always comes first,” he explains. “I play the acoustic guitar in a percussive way, hitting the beats hard, almost like I’m drumming on it. The groove takes shape before anything else. Then I start singing words that lock into that rhythm – not floating above it but living inside it.” The lyrics emerge organically from this rhythmic foundation. “The lyrics tend to surface on their own, almost like automatic writing. In a way, the constraint of fitting words tightly into the rhythm forces me to say only what feels real. Those words always come from somewhere deeply personal and true.”
This approach to language as rhythmic material rather than mere semantic content distinguishes Davis‘s songwriting. “For me, words carry both rhythm and meaning – they arrive together, shaping each other,” he says. “When I write, I pay attention to how the syllables hit the beat, how they lock in with the guitar. You could call that a kind of texture, but for me it’s mostly about rhythm, the physical pulse of the words. The meaning doesn’t come from thinking, it comes from that same movement – sound and sense born in the same gesture. Sometimes that repetition turns into something close to a mantra, where the sound itself carries the emotion before the words do.”
The EP blends rock, folk, blues, dance-rock, and Afrobeat across its tracks, though Davis insists he and producer Jean Massicotte never thought in terms of genre. “Each song began simply, just voice and acoustic guitar. That’s where the core of it was, both rhythmically and emotionally,” he says. “From there, Jean helped shape the arrangements based on the moods and textures we wanted to explore. We never thought in terms of genres, but more in terms of feel: dark, warm, exuberant, or dirty, and so on. The EP naturally blends different influences – the pulse of Afrobeat and the simplicity of blues phrasing – which keep the songs alive even when the themes are heavy. Some songs are outright festive, like my upcoming single I Don’t Know.”
Working with Massicotte, whose production credits include Patrick Watson and Lhasa De Sela, proved transformative. “Working with Jean Massicotte was an incredible experience, both musically and on a human level,” Davis says. “He’s a kind and grounded person, which sets a great tone in the studio. From the start, it wasn’t an intellectual process. We didn’t talk much. I just wrote him a few lines about my intentions for each song, and we agreed on one simple principle: the groove had to lead. I think he already had that instinct in him, because from our very first sessions, everything moved in the right direction without needing to be explained.”
Davis counts Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and The Doors among his towering influences, though his attraction goes beyond their obvious poetic qualities. “What speaks to me in those artists isn’t just their words, it’s the rhythm that carries them,” he explains. “The Doors could make darkness dance. Dylan had a kind of groove that gave weight to what he was saying – you hear it in Gotta Serve Somebody, but in many other more recent songs too. Cohen, especially on I’m Your Man, had this way of locking every syllable into the pulse of a song. It’s something that became even more striking later in their careers, when their voices grew rougher and the rhythm itself felt like experience.”
Yet the weight of such influences isn’t lost on him. “I have to admit that their influence can feel towering at times – it really is – and it’s not always easy to write knowing you’ll never quite reach that level,” he admits. “Still, that’s what keeps you humble and pushes you to stay honest.”
A crucial collaborator emerged from an unlikely source: his neighbour during the pandemic. “Meeting Justine Ethier completely changed the course of my project,” Davis says. “We were neighbours during the pandemic, that strange time when you mostly saw the people next door. At first, we got to know each other because she came over to repaint my bathroom and a bit later, we began making music together.” Ethier, a percussionist with deep roots in the international metal scene, brought unexpected dimensions to the songs. “She’s known mainly as a drummer – and she really kicks ass at it – but she’s also a real composer. She gave the songs their shape, she brought the variations, the surprises; she has this way of sculpting sound, like a sculptor working with space and energy.”
What impressed Davis most was her generosity. “I was, at first – because now we’re close friends – just some random neighbour with an acoustic guitar, and she would sit down, listen, and give her full attention without ever counting the hours.”
The EP’s central theme of living without faith or illusions wasn’t born from a single revelation but from sustained experience. “It wasn’t one specific moment. It’s more like something that’s been there for a long time – a quiet kind of disillusionment that became part of how I live,” Davis explains. The title’s grammar carries weight: “You could say that if it were only about the loss of illusions, I would’ve called the song and the EP A Man Without Faith. But the title is A Man Without a Faith, and that small ‘a’ changes everything – it puts it in the same realm as being without a home or without a job, for instance. It makes it more visceral, not about rejecting belief but about having lost something that once existed. It’s not a stance, it’s a condition. My songs came from that place.”
As a Montreal artist, Davis feels connected to the city’s rich musical lineage, though the connection runs deeper than simple geography. “I feel connected to that heritage, more through temperament than anything else,” he says. “There’s something in the Montreal air – or maybe in the broader Québécois spirit – that draws people inward. You can feel it in poet Émile Nelligan, in filmmaker Jean-Claude Lauzon, in Jean Leloup too. It’s a mix of melancholy and intensity, a kind of raw sensitivity that feels like part of my own cultural DNA. I’m not consciously trying to belong to that tradition, but I can’t deny it’s part of my heritage.”
For a debut EP, A Man Without a Faith carries the weight of seasoned collaborators and mature themes, a gravitas Davis attributes to both his collaborators’ experience and his own lived reality. “I’ve been lucky to work with people who have a lot of experience, but also a lot of depth. That probably made the record sound more mature than a debut usually does – and I guess it also comes from the fact that I’m not twenty anymore. I’ve lived a bit.”
The timing of the release carries its own story. “As for the timing, life had its own plans. In 2022, the woman I had shared my life with for the past ten years passed away. Obviously, it altered the course of this musical journey. I had to step back for a while before I could return to it. Time passed, and little by little I found the strength to finish what we had started.”
Now, with the EP’s release approaching, Davis finds himself ready to let the music exist beyond him. “Now I feel ready to share my music with the world, to finally let it live outside of me and belong to others too.”
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