Sergio D’Isanto on the band’s second album, cinematic instincts, and life as immigrants in Montreal

Transmission 336: Interview with Bye Parula

Bye Parula are a Montreal-based trio formed during the 2020 pandemic by three immigrants who had never met before: drummer and vocalist Sergio D’Isanto (Naples/Umbria), bassist and singer Loïc Calatayud-Sola (southern France), and guitarist Sebastián Riquelme (Chile). They connected through a mutual friend, wrote and recorded their debut while the city was still locked down, and within three years had their single Still Got the Spirit playing across Canada every morning as the opening theme of CBC Radio One’s flagship arts programme Q with Tom Power.

Title: Something Out of Nothing
Artist: Bye Parula
Release Date: 2026-06-05
Genres: Art Rock, Indie Rock
Label: Secret City Records
Description: Bye Parula's Sergio D'Isanto on Something Out of Nothing, out 5 June on Secret City Records. Interview.

Their second album, Something Out of Nothing, produced by Robbie Kuster (Flore Laurentienne, Patrick Watson) and mixed by Warren Spicer (Plants and Animals), is out 5 June on Secret City Records. The record moves between orchestral funk, folk balladry, and polyrhythmic pop sung in English, French, and Spanish, with a guest appearance by Elisapie singing in Inuktitut. It is split into two sides; one for standing, one for sitting; the first built on motion and seduction, the second on loss, distance, and the weight of being far from home.

Bye Parula got their song played on CBC every morning before most Canadians had heard their name; their second album, recorded live with Robbie Kuster, splits itself into a side for standing and a side for sitting.

How did you meet?

We met during the pandemic in 2020 here in Montreal. I play drums and sing, and I come from Naples; I grew up in Umbria. Then there’s Loïc Calatayud-Sola, who sings and plays bass, and Sebastián Riquelme, who comes from Chile and plays guitar and sings.

We met here during the pandemic through a mutual friend, all three of us. A musical friendship clicked right away, we exchanged musical ideas and from there this collaboration was born. We made the first record together at the end of 2020 and into 2021, and that was a springboard to then work on this album, Something Out of Nothing.

What were your biggest obstacles at the beginning?

Definitely the fact of not having connections here in Montreal and in Canada, and then the fact of not knowing each other. The first album was really a meeting point for all three of us. The pandemic played both a negative and a positive role, giving us time and mental space to write together.

How much of your sound comes from Montreal and how much did each of you bring from home?

Our influences, like it or not, the fact of living here in this Canadian and Montreal musical fabric, which has a very authentic texture, has certainly shaped us. Working with Robbie Kuster, who produced our albums including this latest one; he played and worked a lot with Patrick Watson in the past, Flore Laurentienne and many artists from here. Then with Warren Spicer, who was the engineer who mixed the album; they certainly opened us up to this Montreal timbre. But then the fact of coming from different places, one from Chile, one from Catalonia and one from Italy, we also brought our own musical background to the table, which can be cinematic music like that of Alessandro Alessandroni, Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Umiliani, or traditional Chilean music. This has certainly had an influence; I’d say 50/50.

Are there writers, directors or visual artists whose work you feel runs parallel to yours?

Certainly the ones you just mentioned have been influential; directors yes, also Alessandro Alessandroni, Morricone, Fellini himself, also Alice Rohrwacher have certainly inspired us. What happens is that when we write we have images on another desktop, on another screen to inspire us, or we try to explain ourselves starting from a Chagall, a De Chirico or from photographs.

You touch on themes like urban alienation; do you approach them politically or do you keep them on a personal level?

I’d say more on a personal level, and then of course in everyday life this also influences our work, our way of thinking and writing.

Still Got the Spirit became the CBC morning theme. Does knowing that a song reaches so many people every day change your approach to writing?

Great question, it certainly had an influence in part also because we thought… the first record was a record of exploration, it was really a record of encounter as well. This opportunity certainly inspired and influenced us to develop this aesthetic further, without abandoning the slower-tempo, more cinematic, more descriptive texture.

How much did the album change between the early demos and the final version?

We were already very close in the demos, but certainly the fact of having recorded all the basics and the vocals together, rather than instrument by instrument separately, made the difference. It was all live, whereas in pre-production there’s more of this thing where you work in layers: bass, drums, then guitar, acoustics, choruses, vocals. In the studio instead it was a truly live experience, and that made it more alive and authentic.

Is there a song you’d call the emotional centre of the record, the one around which everything else revolves?

I’d say Something Out of Nothing, which I think will be the focus track on 5 June with the album release. That one was really a meeting point between the themes we addressed in the tracks on the B-side of the album, which is Listening in a Serene Position, where it’s more contemplative, where it’s more about emotions, more from this internal experience outward. A meeting point then with the up-tempo part of the album, which is the A-side, where you live it more in first person but it’s less reflective, more action-driven. I think this focus track is the meeting point of the two worlds we wanted to present.

How do you handle disagreements within the band, when one person has an idea and the other doesn’t like it?

The fact of being three multi-instrumentalists helps; to arrive at our truth we try things out, each of us tries a bass line or a guitar part or a vocal. Like a game of Chinese whispers, until we arrive at a common idea. Otherwise, certainly putting the ego aside and letting one of the three express their idea fully can be a winning approach.

What did the various album guests bring to the record?

Certainly the experience of Robbie Kuster and Warren Spicer brought an even deeper level of depth. Then there was François Lafontaine, a Québécois keyboardist; we gave him the colours and he tried every combination of shades, which all stayed in the sessions and we decided to keep them. Then there’s Morgan Moore, who recorded a few tracks on bass, and Elisapie, an Indigenous artist with whom we collaborated on a song in Spanish and in Inuktitut, in her language. We certainly went further than we could have imagined. Collaboration is fundamental in this field; the exchange of experiences, of sensations, also having a detachment from the work and having something less subjective, that helps a lot.

Are you already thinking about new material or are you focused on the live campaign right now?

Yes, we’re already writing for the next albums, absolutely.

Can you give us a preview?

We’re experimenting more with up-tempo stuff for the moment, tracks where we’re more on the A-side of this record we’re presenting now. We’re trying out this aesthetic; theme-wise we don’t have a clear idea yet, but aesthetically we’re exploring this universe for the moment. I feel that then in the summer and autumn we’ll go on to experiment more with mid-tempos, low-tempos, ballads; I think we’ll enrich our catalogue and then play around with that.

Photos courtesy of Bye Parula

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others