Dave Hamelin | The Montrealer who works with Beyoncé

When Dave Hamelin was a teenager, Grimskunk was his favorite band. The former member of The Stills is now a privileged collaborator of Beyoncé, and is associated with three of her eleven quotes at the next Grammy ceremony. The Press reached him at his home in Los Angeles.

“Do you want me to say how much I am from Quebec? », asks Dave Hamelin from his side of the videoconference, with that big adolescent smile on his face which has not left him, despite his 44 years. “Music came into my life when I was 11 thanks to Metallica! » We really don’t get more Quebecois than that.

He was even there at the Olympic Stadium on August 8, 1992 during the riot in which the evening bringing together the legendary thrash metal group and Guns N’Roses ended. “But we left before the riot became real, because I was with my mother,” adds the man whose two parents worked in the radiology department of the Royal Victoria Hospital, and who grew up in Lachine.

It was therefore first of all to follow in the footsteps of the little drummer of Metallica, Lars Ulrich, that David Hamelin wanted to hit hard on the drums. “I also realized more and more that I was never going to become Patrick Roy, Stéphane Richer or Denis Savard. »

From the end of his adolescence, he played in numerous groups, including The Stills, a flagship group of the effervescence of Montreal sound at the start of the millennium, whose album Logic Will Break Your Heart (2003) remains a classic.

After the dissolution of the Stills in 2011, Dave Hamelin headed to Toronto, where he worked a lot with his friend Kevin Drew (of Broken Social Scene), notably on the production of the 2016 albums Man Machine Poem of The Tragically Hip et Secret Path by Gord Downie. It was barely a year before the Canadian hero left this world.

“Gord is one of the most exquisite, brilliant artists I have worked with,” he confides. He always told us “You think, you stink”. What that meant was that when you create, you have to be in the moment. Above all, you should not think that you are not good. »

When Beyoncé knocks on the door

By signing a contract with the American music publisher Peermusic, Dave Hamelin went to Los Angeles to meet the team. “The funny thing is, I was trying to get a record deal for my solo stuff in Canada and people were laughing at me. And there, straight away, they told me: we think we know people who will appreciate what you do. »

Among these people: the monks of Kanye West’s label, GOOD Music, including Che Pope, one of the directors of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

It was he who would put Hamelin in contact with one of the most stimulating researchers in American rhythm and blues and hip-hop, the singer 070 Shake, whose three albums he co-produced, notably Petrichor, to be released this Friday.

“And I think the day after 070 Shake’s first album came out, Beyoncé’s team was at our house. »

A relaxed process

If her name is in the credits of Queen Bey’s albums The Lion King : The Gift (2019) et Renaissance (2022), Cowboy Carter is the true birth certificate of Dave Hamelin’s collaboration with the icon. He co-signed the words and/or music of five pieces, including 16 Carriagesnominated for a Grammy in the Best Country Solo Performance category.

“It’s always different from one song to another, but it’s really less weird than what people imagine,” he emphasizes about his creative process, when he comes up with potential success for Mrs. B.

How many times do they find themselves in the same room as the star herself? “Not often in person, but we communicate a lot. » What kind of feedback does she provide? Dave, rather voluble, suddenly becomes laconic. He doesn’t seem to have the time to go into detail.

Can he at least explain to us what makes Beyoncé Beyoncé? “She spends an incredible amount of time on the arrangements! Amazing. Not just on his voice, but on the arrangements of all the instruments. »

From Grimskunk to Los Angeles

A child of rock, Dave Hamelin is today far from the music that made him want to devote his life to it. “But you know, when I was young in Montreal, my favorite band was Grimskunk. I really liked Jean Leloup and Me Mom and Morgentaler. And all these artists made eclectic music, several styles superimposed on each other. And that’s a bit what I do now, I draw from different genres, different environments. »

Two other of his Montreal friends from his rock scene collaborated on the new 070 Shake album: Patrick Krief, seen within The Dears, who co-wrote three songs, and Melissa Auf der Maur, who provides backing vocals to a duo featuring featured his former Hole bandmate, Courtney Love.

“When Courtney was recording her vocals in London for Song to the Siren [une reprise de Tim Buckley]his engineer wrote to me to say: I’m sending you the voices of Courtney and Melissa. I immediately texted Melissa to ask if she was really in London with Courtney. I didn’t even know it! »

What does Dave Hamelin dream of for the future of his life in Los Angeles, where he has lived for seven years with his lover, whom he met a long time ago at Concordia University, and their two daughters aged 2 and 7 years old, whose eldest attends French school? “I would tell you that I am already living my dream quite a bit at the moment. »