Roll of the Dice: 3 questions with FakeYou

Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.

Montreal punk band FakeYou are stepping into the spotlight with their debut album Promise to Disappear, arriving 3 April via 59 X Records. Rooted in the city’s relentless DIY scene, the band channels raw emotion, loss and instability into songs that feel both urgent and deeply personal. With a sound that balances grit and melody in the spirit of bands like Leatherface, FakeYou turn emotional wreckage into something loud and uncomfortably honest. Backed by the experience of a former member of The Sainte Catherines and a growing reputation for powerful live shows, the band feels poised to make a lasting impact. We caught up with Guillame from FakeYou to talk about grief, duality and the making of Promise to Disappear.

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Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview!  Congratulations on the upcoming release of Promise To Disappear!

Thanks so much! We’re really excited to finally share Promise to Disappear it’s been a long time coming.

Promise to Disappear is a heavy title for a debut. What does “disappear” mean in the context of this record… escape, erasure, surrender, something else?

Yeah, it might sound heavy, but that’s honestly how we’ve been feeling for the past few years. That’s just how it came out. It’s also kind of the opposite of “promise to appear,” which is a term I’ve always found a bit harsh and, in a way, irreversible… Well, maybe not anymore, haha.
And yeah, it’s a bit of all of the above. In “Solace,” disappearing means hiding behind heavy addiction. In “Following Protocol”, it’s about doing exactly what you’re told all your life in exchange for a reward that will never come in the end, so yeah erasure.  In “Wanderlost”, it’s about still trying to figure yourself out and feeling lost in all the directions and expectations coming from society, friends, and family, so yeah escape.  In “Faded Scarf”, it’s about disappearing inside a relationship that’s been dead for years. And in “100 Million Sheep,” it’s about being so afraid of who you are that you end up creating a more “acceptable” version of yourself.
Anyway… long answer, but you get the idea, haha.

There’s urgency in your songs, but also vulnerability. How do you prevent one from overpowering the other?

We just want to be as real as possible, and that means being vulnerable. But we’re all guys who came up at a time when vulnerability wasn’t really the focus and, in a way, wasn’t really allowed. So there’s a bit of violence or anger behind it, it’s something we connect with more naturally than, say, sadness.
That being said, times have changed, and it feels easier now to express ourselves and actually name those feelings. A lot of these lyrics came from discomfort, sleepless nights, and old memories coming back up. In a way, this record is something that’s been sitting inside of me for years, and now just feels like the right time to finally let it out.

When listeners press play on Promise to Disappear, what do you hope lingers after the last note fades… relief, recognition, release?

Well first of all, we hope it feels like it’s time well spent when they do! In the end we are making this music for ourselves so we are always so grateful whenever someone out there connects with our music.  
I’ve always felt like some albums are more like places than objects or just a string of songs. Certain records have the power to take you somewhere;  confidence, comfort, sadness, even a bit of violence or tension, whatever you might need at that moment, you know what I mean. They become a space you can step into when things feel heavy or unclear. So I guess our hope is that this record might become a place like that for someone someday, a place they can go when they need it.