FEATURE
EXCLUSIVE MUZIQUE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW WITH THE LEAD SINGER OF HELLO FIASCO – ERIC LABOSSIERE
Photo credit: JSenftphotography
In the years leading up to 2021, former members of The Mailman’s Children joined forces with other Canadian artists to record 23 original songs. At the top of 2021, the new Pop Rock band emerged publicly as Hello Fiasco.
Although Hello Fiasco is principally Canadian, the band is considered “North American” because their frontman Eric LaBossiere (born Canadian) lives in Helena, Montana, USA. The rest of the band, including Joel Couture (bass), Joel Perreault (lead guitars/backing vocals), Ivan Burke (drums/backing vocals), and Guy Abraham (keys/Ableton/backing vocals), all live in the Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA region.
Hello, Fiasco has been compared to Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand & David Bowie, though listeners have also said that HF definitely has a sound and strength of their own. This only makes sense since the band prides itself on coming from the side of Pop Rock where the quality of lyrics and music still stand for something.
Although the band’s debut album FIND THE SHORELINE was released to Spotify back in May – where it has since amassed in excess of 1,000,000 streams and been added to over 2,000 playlists – the actual release date is set for August 4. The 12-song album was co-produced by frontman Eric LaBossiere and award-winning Canadian producer John Paul Peters (Propagandhi, Arkells, Comeback Kid, Faouzia, Royal Canoe).
Peters recently won both Audio Engineering and Producer of the Year awards at the Western Canadian Music Awards. Notably, the band’s upcoming album was mastered by American Grammy-winning engineer Randy Merrill of Sterling Sound (Imagine Dragons, Cage The Elephant, Muse, Maroon 5, Paul McCartney, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Adele, and Lady Gaga).
EXCLUSIVE MUZIQUE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW WITH THE LEAD SINGER OF HELLO FIASCO – ERIC LABOSSIERE
How Did you come by your band name?
The band’s name has to do with welcoming the challenges and fiascos of life. We have all been in bands before and this time we wanted to do it all. To do it all, you can’t be afraid. It’s the old adage of do you want to be the cow who always runs away from the storm and suffers longer every single time, or do you want to be the buffalo who runs into the storm and gets through it faster?
Life is constantly filled with unexpected challenges so the whole experience gets a lot better when we just dive in instead of running away. On the flip side, we also loved the name because it was simple and rhymed! Marketing 101!
When did you discover your love for your craft and what made you realize you wanted to pursue a career in it?
Personally, I remember the day well. I was in the 6th grade and our school brought in the grade 7 through 9 teacher to play songs for us, to see if we would be interested in joining guitar classes the next year.
The teacher – who didn’t look like much at the time – sat down and played “Stairway To Heaven” by Zeppelin on a classical guitar. He didn’t sing or anything but played the whole song and it was just pure magic. Mind-blowing for a kid! That was when I decided I was all in on this thing called music.
To what or whom do you accredit your sense of style?
Our band has a range of influences including anything from The Killers, The Strokes, Muse, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, all the way over to Cold Play, and even artists like Jim Croce. This for sure colors the sound and style of Pop Rock we produce.
But for me personally, I often have a mix of Vedder, Cornell, and Springsteen dancing around in my head when I sing, and I think this shapes my vocals quite a bit…even though what comes out might not sound like them.
On your current project, how did you come up with the concept?
We all write in the band but as the main lyricist for this album, I can truthfully say that this record is the most personal I’ve ever made. I used to write a lot more about other people’s lives and create narratives of their lives…probably because I was afraid to share myself and my life.
But not this time. This time the songs are all in some way directly about my family, my friends, my acquaintances, and the people who surround me. More specifically, the songs are about mistakes I’ve made within those interactions and with those people.
It might sound strange to the listener but I love writing songs as a reminder to myself of what not to do the next time and somewhere in there, I also always try to make sure there is a message of hope within each song…because no matter what, there is always hope, and hope is what gets us through.
This is how the band came up with the idea and concept of “Find The Shoreline” for this album. The songs are not just about surviving the struggle, but more importantly, they are about staying focused on making it to the other side and the shoreline.
What are some of your greatest challenges, and what is your greatest attribute when it comes to your work ethic?
We had a lot of challenges the last couple of years with things like building out the business side of our music, but nothing came even close to the impact of COVID. It started with losing shows, just like it did for everyone else, but then COVID really killed us for a while because we are a band with members in two countries; two countries who treat Covid restrictions completely different from one another.
As a result, crossing the border to play with the guys became very difficult. At times, impossible. At one point, it got so bad that we ended up deciding to record completely separately from each other.
I would start the base or bed track of the song and record alone in Montana on the US side, and then I would send the files to Manitoba in Canada where the guys would record their parts out there, without me. With that said, we did end up getting the track “Before Time Leaves You” out of the whole ordeal, so it couldn’t have been THAT bad.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank, any shoutouts?
One person our band really has to thank for this album is our co-producer John Paul Peters of Private Ear Recording. He has stuck us right from the very beginning and all the way through.
The guy literally recorded 23 songs with us over the last few years to get to the 12 that made the album. I mean, I just don’t know anyone else who could have put up with our band for that long, and then come out on the other side with the goods on top of that. JP is amazing.
How can fans find you?
We are the most active on Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and our website right now. However, most recently we made a website just for the album release that is getting a lot of attention.
Since things like liner notes, lyrics, and credits are no longer commonplace, we wanted to make sure that our fans could still have access to these and a “full picture” of our album in one place.
All of us in the band grew up loving the details of the who, what, when, and where, and we didn’t want to take this away from people.
What suggestions do you have for other artists like yourself?
As I get older and learn the industry a lot better, the one thing I would share with the new musician is to go and get the information yourself.
Do your own searches online of the things you want to learn about, master or access. Don’t just take the word of one or two industry people who likely don’t even know for sure. Learn to fish and find the information yourself. It will be worth it.
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