Winnipeg heavy metal band Harm screams with joy in French and English
'Expressing yourself in French, it's really opened up the language. It's really fun'
Mason Greuner has heard it before. French, he says, is the language of love.
But when you're a metal band onstage in Winnipeg, singing en français is also just plain fun.
"I like singing in French," Greuner says. "Especially doing the metal screaming in French. It has an edge to it that English just doesn't really have."
Singer Greuner and drummer Rylan Bazylo front Harm, a Winnipeg-based heavy metal band that — up until a year ago — sang in English only. Then an opportunity came up to take the stage at Chicane électrique — a music competition at the Festival du Voyageur.
The only requirement? They sing in French.
Thankfully, lessons learned in high school French classes stayed with them and saved the day.
"The few originals we had we translated, " Bazylo says. "It worked out great."
Geneviève Freynet, a singer-songwriter and judge with Chicane électrique, agrees.
"It's not exactly a genre of music that you see very often in the French music sphere," Freynet says. "They were original in their ways of making music together and presenting themselves on stage."
Today, Harm performs in both languages, and the band members wouldn't have it any other way.
"Creating art voluntarily and expressing yourself in French, for me personally, it's really opened up the language in a way," Bazylo says. "It's really fun."
Harm is now the subject of a new three-minute documentary by students in the Create program at Winnipeg's Sisler High School, a post-high school program that trains students in the creative digital arts, including filmmaking.
Create students Maya Reuther, Luis Manguerra and Shea Miller produced the new short video.
Meet the filmmakers
More about Project POV: Sisler Create
CBC Manitoba's Project POV: Sisler Create is a storytelling collaboration that partners filmmaking students with CBC Manitoba journalists to produce short docs. You can see past projects here.
The Winnipeg School Division's Create program is hosted at Sisler High School and trains post-high students in the creative digital arts.
During fall 2024, CBC journalists taught storytelling to filmmaking students and led producing workshops at Sisler.
Create focuses on education and career pathways into the creative industries. Students can take courses in animation, film, game design, visual effects, graphic design and interactive digital media.