Sinners, Les - ?

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	L'interview	03:07
	2	Docteur	02:12
	3	L'harmonie	02:30
	4	Life is Easy	02:47
	5	Sofi	03:02

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Quel épouvantail	02:51
	2	Suis-je masochiste	02:41
	3	Voilier cristallisé	02:45
	4	Agnès Sorel	02:14
	5	You're My Woman	02:37

Photos

Videos

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Information/Write-up

Les Sinners were born in the summer of 1965 in the Outremont district of Montréal, one of the first French-speaking garage rock groups to emerge in Québec. Before settling on their infamous name, they briefly performed as the Silver Spiders, a teenage combo from the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood—a part of Montréal where French and English cultures overlapped naturally. That bilingual environment shaped their early sound: raw, irreverent garage rock sung in both languages. Their earliest concerts took place in the gymnasium of École Querbes, where Saturday-night dances became the testing ground for their spirited performances. From the outset, Les Sinners stood apart from the polite, clean-cut image of the “yé-yé” era. To promote their first single, they staged a mock protest on the steps of Saint Joseph’s Oratory, carrying signs that read “We love the Sinners.” Halfway through the stunt, several members slipped away, leaving the remaining placard to declare “We love Sin.” The joke summed up their identity perfectly—playful, subversive, and unapologetically mischievous.

The founding lineup featured François Guy (guitar, vocals), Charles Prévost-Linton (bass, vocals), Louis Parizeau (drums), Georges Marchand (guitar, vocals), and Jay Boivin (guitar, vocals). After brief stints with other guitarists—including Ricky Johnson and later Ernie Rock—the lineup stabilized with the addition of Jean-Guy “Arthur” Cossette, an accomplished guitarist from Les Jaguars. Through constant gigging in Montréal’s clubs, the band absorbed R&B and British Invasion influences, fusing the punch of the Stones with the melodic drive of the Beatles. Their bilingual repertoire made them stand out in the city’s growing rock scene, and they were soon signed by singer and producer Roger Miron to his Rusticana label in 1966.

Under Miron’s guidance, Les Sinners recorded three French-language singles—including “Sinnerisme”—before cutting their debut LP Sinerisme. The album, whose title playfully drops one “n,” appeared in 1967 and is now among the rarest and most sought-after Canadian garage records. Its songs toggle between snarling English-language rockers such as “Nice Try”—later anthologized on Pebbles Vol. 13—and more melodic French pieces like the title track, later reissued on The Essential Pebbles Collection Vol. 1. It’s a bilingual record full of quirky invention: “Candid Colour Count Down,” “Sour as a Sidewalk,” and “La troisième fuite de Mohamed ‘Z’ Ali,” a surreal nod to Muhammad Ali’s 1964 conversion and renaming. The album’s balance of grit and playfulness captured the very spirit of Montréal’s new rock identity.

By late 1967, the group’s rising fame brought them to the pages of Photo Vedettes, where each member described his “dream apartment”—a playful snapshot of their personalities at the peak of the psychedelic era. Louis Parizeau imagined a minimalist room with “cleanliness and sobriety,” complete with a Japanese massage table and a bar built into the bed. François Guy envisioned a simple, sunny studio with a diary painted directly onto the walls. Jean-Guy “Arthur” Cossette dreamed of a tent of Indian silk and incense guarded by a jade Buddha, while Charles Linton, the band’s resident provocateur, fantasized about orange and violet walls, a four-foot photo of his own tooth, and a deactivated bomb for conversation. What might have been lighthearted fluff revealed their creative contradictions—each Sinner a collage of discipline, absurdity, and philosophy.

After Ernie Rock replaced Ricky Johnson on lead guitar, Les Sinners signed with Jupiter Records—the Canadian subsidiary of London Records, best known for releasing early Rolling Stones albums. Their follow-up LP Sinnerismes (note the restored double “n”), produced by Pierre Nolès, marked a major step forward in sound and confidence. The record abandoned English almost entirely in favour of French lyrics and yielded the band’s biggest hit: a meticulous and wildly popular French-language version of the Beatles’ “Penny Lane,” with lyrics by Stéphane Venne. Its fidelity and charm were so striking that many radio listeners mistook it for the original. Other standouts included “Les Disc-Jockeys” and the tongue-in-cheek psychedelic romp “L.S.D. Ha! Ha!” Les Sinners became a sensation, their mischievous television antics—most famously bringing a live baby elephant onto the set of Jeunesse d’aujourd’hui—cementing their reputation as the enfants terribles of Québec rock.

Their third LP, Vox Populi (1968), stands as the creative high point of the group’s first era and one of the most important works in 1960s Québec rock. Issued again on Jupiter, the album was a bold concept piece—arguably the first francophone pop-rock concept album—linking songs with spoken interludes and studio experiments. François Guy and Charles Linton wrote much of the material, exploring identity, satire, and youthful idealism through songs such as “Je ne sais pas,” “Tard il se fait tard,” and “Kid Sentiment,” the last tied to Jacques Godbout’s film of the same name. Other topical tracks from this period, like “Les Hippies du quartier,” poked fun at the post-Woodstock generation’s contradictions. Vox Populi’s original cover—depicting the band in white robes at Montréal’s Côte-des-Neiges Cemetery—added to its mystique. A later curiosity appeared in 1969: Jupiter’s compilation Chantent 24 Succès, which squeezed Sinnerismes and Vox Populi onto a single LP—an early example of a “two-fer” decades before the format became common.

By the end of 1968, Les Sinners had splintered. Guy, Cossette, Marchand, and Parizeau regrouped as La Révolution française, inspired by L’Osstidcho and Robert Charlebois’s assertion that rock could thrive “en français.” Their albums C.Cool (1968) and Québécois (1969), both released on Tony Roman’s Canusa label, continued the Sinners’ spirit under a new banner, blending rock with satire and identity politics. The single “Québécois” became a cultural anthem, expressing pride, irony, and defiance in equal measure—a song that would later take on political weight far beyond the band’s intentions. Around the same time, another unrelated Ontario group using the name The Sinners issued the novelty single “Go Go Trudeau,” a reminder of how quickly the prime minister’s image was infiltrating Canadian pop culture—but that recording bore no connection to the Montréal band.

In 1970, Parizeau and Cossette resurrected the Sinners name with a new lineup: Alain Jodoin (vocals), Daniel Valois (flute, guitar, vocals), and later keyboardist Serge Locat. Their self-titled Sinners album on Trans-World Records (1971) introduced a heavier, FM-friendly sound. The record included the English-language song “Groovy” alongside francophone tracks such as “Chicoutimi,” “Heavy,” and “O.K. l’chien.” Though airplay was limited, the band remained active, issuing six more singles on various labels between 1972 and 1973, and even producing their own underground release Messieurs les jurés, inspired by FLQ member Paul Rose’s courtroom speech. Parizeau, who personally recorded the plea during Rose’s imprisonment, saw it as a statement on freedom of expression rather than politics. “Don’t confuse the content with the container,” he told Pop Jeunesse in 1972. “We just want to be what we feel like being.” The single “Des gens ben correct”—originally a jingle for Radio-Mutuel—became their biggest commercial success of the decade.

A 1972 Pop Jeunesse feature described the Sinners as “the simplest yet hardest band to define,” a group that thrived in contradiction—underground but universal, humorous yet deadly serious. Parizeau summed it up best: “We’re Québec tavern guys. We’ll never be huge, but we’ll be huge in small places.”

In 1973, Photo-Journal reported that Louis Parizeau, now managing La Révolution française, had officially donated all royalties from “Québécois” to the Parti Québécois—turning a pop hit into a gesture of political solidarity. “It was only natural,” he said, “that Québécois should give back to the cause that inspired it.” The act reflected his transformation from drummer-provocateur to cultural activist, bridging art and politics in a uniquely Québécois way.

In 1975, Les Sinners resurfaced again with Parizeau and Valois joined by Serge Blouin (bass), Claude Hétu (keyboards), Serge Locat (synthesizers), Denis Violetti (guitar), and special guests Walter Rossi and Richard Tate. They released the ambitious album ? (Chelsea Records, 1975) in both French and English editions—a final nod to their bilingual roots. Their last studio work, Le chemin de croix de Jos Roy (CBS, 1976), was produced by Louis Parizeau and arranged by Alain Jodoin, featuring Rossi and Tate again. Though its title suggests religious overtones (“The Way of the Cross for Jos Roy”), the record is more existential than devotional, its themes reflecting the band’s long, twisting journey.

After 1976, the group quietly dissolved, ending a career that spanned over a decade, six albums, and twenty-three singles. Yet their legacy endured. In 1984, they reunited for a one-off performance at Montréal’s Club Soda, and in the early 1990s a CD release revealed the complete English-language version of Vox Populi, astonishing collectors who had only known the French original. Later anthologies—such as the 2002 Mérite two-volume set—reintroduced their catalogue to a new audience, sometimes under the La Révolution française name, blurring the lines between their incarnations.

Today Sinerisme and Sinnerismes remain prized among collectors of ’60s garage and psych; Vox Populi is recognized as a landmark in Québec rock; and their bilingual swagger continues to echo through reissues and compilations. What began in a Montréal school gym became one of the great untold sagas of Canadian rock—a story of reinvention, rebellion, and language transformed into sound. In 2016, Charles Prévost-Linton published Cette voix qui nous habite, reflecting on those heady days when a few Montréal teenagers believed, with cause, that rock ’n’ roll in French could change the world.
-Robert Williston

Alain Jodoin: vocals, keyboards
Richard Tate: drums, percussion
Daniel Valois: flute, guitar, vocals
Arthur Cossette: guitar
Louis Parizeau: drums, percussion, production
Roger Gravel: guitar
Wally Rossy: keyboards
Ronny Dann: bass
Serge Locas: synthesizer

With special collaboration by:
Angelo Finaldi: vocals
Billy Workman: vocals
Georges Thurston: vocals
Nadia: vocals
Marie Lou Gauthier: vocals
Denis Violetti: electric guitar
Serge Blouin: bass

Arranged by Les Sinners
Musical direction by Richard Tate and Alain Jodoin
Produced by Louis Parizeau
Engineered by H. Leisker and G. Desbiens
Remixed by Robert Morten and David Stock

Graphic design by Moonshine Graphics and A.J.G. Cossette
Art direction by Daniel Valois

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