I: History

Godspeed You! Black Emperor was initially started as a Montréal-based solo project by guitarist Efrim Menuck, the name coming from a Japanese documentary film about motorcycle gangs directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi. After a period where Efrim would get, “drunk with friends who worked [at the Laurent Bar Miami in Mile End], then went home, and would ‘just record whatever came to my head'” Efrim released an extremely limited 33-copy cassette album entitled All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling in 1994. While the album primarily featured just Efrim on vocals and a variety of instruments, mainly guitar, it also featured short acoustic guitar snippets from Dano LeBlanc, who would serve as Godspeed's drummer in their first few years, and bass guitar parts from Mauro Pezzente, an ex-colleague in the grunge band Pud a.k.a. Bueno Pud Bueno and a high school friend of Efrim, who has continued playing bass with Godspeed into the present.

This was quickly followed up by another childhood friend and ex-bandmate of Efrim, guitarist Mike Moya, joining the band in 1995 before the first show under the name Godspeed You! Black Emperor. At their second show ever, in Moncton, Bliss guitarist David Bryant joined on drums (although some accounts suggest he was on guitar or not there at all) for their approximately 40-minute set consisting purely of improvisation, likely centered around the chords F# and A#. In a later interview, it was stated that all the riffs they played at this show ended up on the first Godspeed record, F#A#∞ (described as the first since All Lights Fucked is considered to be a solo record by Menuck), however it is likely that the basis of the song “The Dead Flag Blues” was written in 1993 or 1994.

Soon, Bryant switched to third guitar, and the quintet of Efrim, Moya, Mauro, Dave, and Dano seemingly became solidified. However, Godspeed's openness to adding nearly anybody who could play an instrument led to a flurry of new members joining around 1995, ultimately peaking at 15 members. During this period, recording started for Godspeed's debut album as a band, and label debut, F#A∞, which was initially released by Constellation Records in 1997 as a single LP.

This lineup ultimately came to an end on March 15, 1997 when Godspeed was booked to play Symptom Hall in Toronto. While most of the band wanted to play, five members refused, and 10 members remained. After Grayson Walker left sometime around September 1997, the nine musician and one projectionist lineup that would make up pre-hiatus Godspeed remained. This iteration of Godspeed soon signed to Kranky and re-recorded their debut at Thee Mighty Hotel 2 Tango, a studio, artist living space, and venue that became a center point of the scene the band soon spawned in Montréal. This re-recording drastically altered the original LP, removing an untitled segment with Moya on banjo while adding two new songs: John Lee Hooker Outro and Dead Metheny, both of which would become live staples that wouldn't drop out of the band's rotation consistently until 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Finally, in 1998, the band’s lineup would completely stabilize as Christophe Comte, the band’s fiddle player would get replaced by violinist Sophie Trudeau, Mike Moya would leave to focus on his project HRSTA, getting replaced by Fly Pan Am co-founder Roger Tellier-Craig, and the band’s live projectionist Lee Schnaiberg, who had replaced the duo Flux Lux previously, was replaced by Mark Littlefair. With a new, more classically focused, violin sound and a guitarist with a more technical bent than Moya, the band’s sound changed drastically as they developed material for their first EP and second album, Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven respectively, both of which incorporated a slightly more optimistic sound, significantly different song structures, and an increased emphasis on samples. This was reflected in the bands live performances where sample layering/manipulation and drones become an increasing point of emphasis, with a sample often preceding every song in the setlist.

This approach drastically shifted, however, in 2000 when the warm hopeful sound of their material was replaced with a noticeably darker aesthetic. Classics such as “World Police and Friendly Fire” and “Dead Metheny” became louder and more violent during their crescendos, newer songs like “Gathering Storm” and “John Hughes” slowed significantly, and the band introduced the harrowing song “12-28-99,” along with an accompanying outro section that was played sporadically, at their first shows of 2000 during a three night residency at Montréal venue Salle L’X. In August, when playing two nights for an avant-garde film festival at the Knitting Factory in New York, the band debuted the second new song of 2000, “Tazer Floyd”, in an embryonic form. These shows at the Knitting Factory are often cited as a turning point in the band’s history, where their playing became noticeably more confident and their sound markedly more blunt. “Tazer Floyd” specifically highlighted this, for its political nature is rather unambiguous, with guitars and violin mimicking the sound of fighter planes, falling rockets, and explosions while the drums in the quiet middle section sound unmistakably like a march. At the final show in 2000, Godspeed played their first 150 minute show, starting with a speech in both English and French calling for cops to lay down their weapons and a “popular republic of Montréal run by the people for the people,” before angrily playing songs from their entire history, including both new tracks and the entire Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada EP.

In 2001 Godspeed played only 11 shows, taking a nine month hiatus between December 2000 and September 2001 to record their third album Yanqui U.X.O. with punk rock legend Steve Albini recording and mixing the album at Electric Audio in Chicago. While previous albums had divided songs into movements and had myriad field recordings interspersed between the main compositions, Yanqui had a single sample at the end (an abstract collage of George Bush quotes from his first state of the union address) and only four pieces, all with reworked titles from their live performances: “12-28-99” was released as “09-15-00” (the outro was likewise called “09-15-00 (cont.)”) in reference to the date of the Second Intifada, “Tazer Floyd” was released as “Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls,” and a new 30-minute piece they had written, which was often called Tiny Silver Hammers on setlists, was released as “Motherfucker=Redeemer.” While the 2001 tour was short, it featured four shows in Japan, showing increasing international recognition after the band’s first Japanese shows in 2000.

After the limited 2001 tour, the band toured feverishly in 2002, playing 55 shows in 108 days. By the start of the tour, they had significantly reworked nearly every song in their repertoire. Multiple songs had entirely new sections added. With these reworkings, the anti-war anti-capitalist message of the band became more apparent as the songs increasingly grew more aggressive. This is evident in the speeches that preceded each show of their four night residency at Théâtre La Plaza: the first speech dedicated the show to ending police brutality, the second to the “prisoners of 9/11,” the third to “the end of time, the start of community, and pretzel,” with the latter referencing the pretzel George Bush choked on the night previously, and the fourth to their defunct tour bus. These Théâtre La Plaza shows and many of the following shows in January were some of the longest they ever played, with 2002-01-25 and 2002-01-22 being their first and second longest known shows at 178 minutes and 175 minutes respectively. This period also saw the only known time Godspeed played with 10 musicians (not including collaborations), for their projectionist JS Truchy joined Aidan and Bruce on percussion for encores. During this stretch of touring Godspeed also developed two new improvisational pieces exclusive to 2002. The first, “Montréal Improv” seemed to be a semi-composed drone-based piece made for when Dave broke a string. The second, which is often referred to as “2002 Noise Outro” or simply “Noise” was a similarly semi-composed piece used to segue out of the end of “Gathering Storm” or “JLH Outro” on a few shows.

Following April 2002, Godspeed once again went on a lengthy break from touring, not playing again until March 2003. In the interim, however, Yanqui U.X.O. was released in November after the band remixed Albini’s recording due to being unhappy with the initial result. Album reviews were relatively lackluster because of the lack of samples and the overtly anti-capitalist and anti-war album packaging that prominently featured a diagram showing how major labels connected to the weapons industry, but retrospectively it has been viewed as one of Godspeed’s finest works.

2003 featured a very similar style to that of 2002, but with two new songs, “Albanian” and “Gamelan.” Both had many of the same loud, violent, and abrasive moments as the Yanqui material while also incorporating elements of folk music, with “Albanian” unsurprisingly sounding somewhat similar to Albanian music, and “Gamelan” similarly being based on the Indonesian percussion style of the same name. Shortly after the June 2003 shows, Godspeed announced that they would be playing again later in 2003, but these plans never came to fruition as the band’s various side projects (most notably Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Set Fire to Flames, and Esmerine) led to them disbanding.

In 2010, Godspeed reunited with a slightly altered lineup. Norsola Johnson and Roger Tellier-Craig declined to rejoin the band, and Mike Moya rejoined, replacing Roger. Their first shows after reunification were performances at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Butlin’s, where they curated the lineup as the headliner, bringing increased recognition to a variety of lesser known artists while notably kick-starting Weird Al Yankovic’s first successful European tour by including him on the bill.

From 2010 to 2012 this renewed lineup played a variety of pre-hiatus Godspeed songs with new interpretations of various parts necessitated by the departure of Roger and Norsola. This new sound was noticeably less violent and abrasive than 2002-2003 Godspeed, often being slower and heavier with more of an emphasis on percussion and bass. From 2010 onwards, Godspeed has opened every show with an unstructured improvisational piece called “Hope Drone” by fans while also ending every show with an unnamed slowly fading drone, often concluding with a repeated sample of the F#A#∞ piece “String Loop Manufactured During Downpour.” This expanded on certain ideas they had intermittently explored pre-hiatus when shows would open with short improvisations and/or end on manipulated samples or harsh noise rock style improvisations.

In 2012, the band released their fourth album Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! featuring reworked versions of “Albanian” and “Gamelan” released as “Mladic” and “We Drift Like Worried Fire.” The band ultimately won the Polaris Prize for the album, but refused to accept the award in person due to various large corporations sponsoring the event. They ultimately donated their prize money to a charity dedicated to providing prisoners instruments.

Shortly before the release of Allelujah!, Bruce Cawdron had decided to depart from the band and was replaced by Timothy Herzog, drummer for the metal bands Des Ark, Milemarker, and Black Skies as well as a former Silver Mt. Zion roadie. Tim’s readily apparent metal influence furthered the established sound of post-hiatus Godspeed, pushing them into even slower and heavier territory. Shortly after Tim joined the band, they debuted their first new song in nine years, “Behemoth,” after a musician at the Pitchfork Festival accused them of being a “legacy band.” As the title suggests, “Behemoth” often surpassed 40 minutes in the 2012 performances and was, with the exception of its debut, always at least 30 minutes long. “Behemoth” was the only post-hiatus song the band played for the next two years, until the debut of a skeletal version of the song “Bosses Hang” in November 2014. In 2015, the band released their fifth studio album, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress, which consisted entirely of a 40-minute performance of Behemoth, although the album was split into four parts for streaming revenue purposes.

By the first show of 2015, the band had significantly developed “Bosses Hang” and had written an entirely new song “Anthem For No State.” 2015 would also see the return of “Tazer Floyd” after not playing it for three years, with new drum parts for Tim.

2016 was a significant year for the band as “Anthem For No State” would get dropped from their setlists, Casios were again incorporated into the band’s performances of “Hope Drone” after not being used since 2012, leading to more textured Hope Drones than those in previous years, “Dead Metheny” was brought back after not being played for three years, and “Bolero” was brought back after 19 years of not being played, the longest gap between a performance of a song in the band’s history. 2016 also saw slightly more variable performances of “Behemoth” despite the length being similar to that of previous years. During 2016, the band started their collaboration with the dance group Hollow Body Tattoo, for performances entitled Monumental. These collaborative performances featured a mix of standard live performances, songs played in part, and tape sections.

In 2017, the band drastically shifted direction. The heavier sound that had marked previous post-hiatus performances was left behind, as the jazzier material from their next record Luciferian Towers became setlist staples. Nearly every setlist from 2017 to mid-2018 consisted of “Hope Drone,” “Bosses Hang,” a new version of “Anthem For No State” with the middle section in previous performances removed, a new song, “2 Nouveau Tower,” that featured a collaborating saxophonist, usually Mette Rasmussen, Devin Brahja Waldman, Patrick Shirioshi, or a local musician, and all of Slow Riot to close out the show. While “Albanian,” “Dead Metheny,” and “Monheim” entered the rotation in April 2018, all of the songs on Luciferian Towers were consistently played until 2019.

In 2019 the band debuted two new, somewhat undeveloped, songs “Glacier” and “Cliff.” The original versions of these songs were relatively simplistic and undynamic compared to the rest of Godspeed’s discography, giving them a distinct primal feel that seemed as if it was carried to the rest of their sets that year, for 2019 had a notable increase in energy compared to much of 2017 and 2018. Unfortunately, while November 2019 was one of the band’s most unique sounding periods, all 2020 dates had to be cancelled due to the COVID pandemic, and the band did not tour again until 2022.

The band’s consistency increased considerably after the Luciferian Towers era with 2022 having some of their most energetic post-hiatus shows at the time. This was especially evident after November 2022 where Cliff became considerably more dynamic and Glacier much tighter. 2023 was very similar, with Godspeed playing more consistent sounding outro drones and shorter more predictable performances of “Hope Drone.” Throughout this post-COVID period many old songs were brought back such as “Dead Metheny,” “Tazer Floyd,” “World Police,” and, most notably, “John Hughes,” which had not been played in nearly 12 years when it was first played in 2023.

In 2024, Godspeed developed the material for their next album No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead in a unique fashion, recording the album before the start of their tour in February, leaving a considerable amount of room for later development in subsequent tours. In their first show after recording the album, they played it in its entirety, debuting “Sun Is A Hole Sun Is Vapors,” “Babys In A Thundercloud,” “Pale Spectator Takes Photographs,” and “Raindrops Cast In Lead” all in one show. Almost immediately, the material started changing as “Raindrops Cast In Lead” was moved from its closing spot where it would segue into an outro drone into the middle of the set. The Fall 2024 tour saw even more drastic changes as the first part of “Pale Spectator,” “Broken Spires At Dead Kapital” was dropped in favor of “Fire At Static Valley” leading into “Pale Spectator.” October 2024 also saw “Babys In A Thundercloud” get considerably slower, “Sun Is A Hole” get new bass parts from Thierry for a few shows before reverting back to the original version, a smoother and more consistent transition from “Hope Drone” into “Sun Is A Hole,” and, surprisingly, a return of “Piss Crowns Are Trebled” separate from “Behemoth,” which had never been done before.

In 2025, the material was further developed again as the vocal sample in the middle of the studio performances of “Raindrops Cast In Lead” was introduced live and the intro to “Pale Spectator Takes Photographs” was completely reworked with new bass harmonics, a quieter swell, and the occasional use of “Monheim” as the intro instead of “Fire At Static Valley.” During this time, Godspeed played their first tour in Asia since 2016, during which they brought back “The Cowboy” with a reintroduction of a short segment of the 2002 extended section, and “Gathering Storm,” which they started playing as a closer. “World Police” was also noticeably altered with the final crescendo sounding more similar to the 2002 and 2003 performances with a louder and more violent conclusion.

Currently, it is too early in 2026 to make any definitive statements about setlist patterns, or song developments. Any updates to this section will be made as is deemed necessary.