Photo by Réjean Ouellette

by Matt Dixon, May '08

1. Please introduce Bette & Wallet and give some background behind the band.
I’m Mary Beth Carty (“bet”), and he’s Gabriel Ouellette (“wal-ETTE”). Despite the connotations, we do not gamble… well, actually, Gabriel bought me a scratch Bingo ticket last week.

Bette is the Québécois word for beet, our favourite root vegetable. We play roots music. Sometimes we sing about vegetables, too. We like to hang out with old people and learn from them. We are wanna-be folklorists.

2 . How would you describe your music to someone that has yet to hear you?
Quite simply, we are a two piece band that sounds like a four-piece. The drums are Gabriel’s feet – Romanian shoes on a custom designed board. One of the two of us usually plays rhythm guitar while the other plays lead – banjo, violin, and accordion. Bass - left hand on my accordion. We sing too.

Our music is like a patchwork quilt. There are patches of all colors – Québécois, Nova Scotian, Klezmir, Cajun, even psychedelic rock? Yes - Gabriel used to be a rocker and I used to be a country singer. I am also highly influenced by Brazilian folk music and humorous songwriters like Dan Bern and Louden Wainwright. So it’s a melting pot. On this album we put new words to traditional melodies, dust off old songs, compose old-sounding tunes. We sew together things you wouldn’t expect. We call it recycled music.

3 . What is your musical background? Your music clearly reflects some of your heritage, but how has your experience in the indie/punk/folk/whatever scene come together with traditional inspirations?
I spent much of my adolescence in a mosh pit at Sommers Hall, Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The energy of those bands is something we try to emulate, but with acoustic instruments. To me, fiddle music is the equivalent to heavy metal. Gabriel so rocks on the fiddle. I hope someday people will mosh at one of our shows while he plays fiddle. Everything would come together at that very moment. Enfin!

4 . What does Bette & Wallet consider worth fighting for?
Cultural ecology. We are cultural ecologists. People often talk about mono-culture in relation to farming, but the same thing is happening to music! Have you seen music television lately? Ach! It’s aimed at innocent children! They are made to worship these computer-enhanced idols! Meanwhile indigenous cultural traditions and languages are waning and dying because young people don’t think it’s cool. Me and Gab, we teach traditional music to kids. We play, we dance, we sing together with them. Everybody can sing. Everybody can dance. It’s therapeutic, it’s healing. In the old days, music was about the collectivity, community, people getting together and dancing, playing, being the show. In Canada, there was this amazing dance-hall epoch. You had these entire orchestras that would play every night in every small village and town, with a dance caller. That was the popular culture. You can still go to these dances – but you have to know when and where. We want to bring square dancing back to the youth, back to the bars. We want to see people swinging together in rock venues, in the streets, in schools, in living rooms.

5. Is there anything specific you try to communicate through your music?
With the OGM (GMOs) song on our new album, I am trying to communicate sadness and despair in the first part. There is a turning point in the song – everyone comes together and Gab’s driving feet come in – like revolutionaries rising up. I don’t know if that song will cause anything to change, but if it makes people think twice at the grocery store, mission accomplished. On Automobiles and Madamoiselle, la Végétarienne, we want to bring issues up for discussion without telling people what to think.

6 . Do you think it's necessary for independent artists & bands to have a form of ethics?
Yes. Gabriel thinks that indie musicians should form a coalition and go on strike against bars that exploit them. In Québec City now, most places say you have to pay $200 to play. The bars are making money off the backs of musicians, who are creating events, bringing people in. When Gabriel was a teenager, bars paid his band a minimum of $400 a night, that was in the nineties. In the 70s, bands got paid $1000. Things are going down. C’est le monde à l'envers.

7 . You're set to play Sappyfest '08 in August. Have you ever been to Sackville, NB? What attracted you to the festival?
We are so happy to be accepted by the indie-rock community! Paul Henderson and Rose Murphy invited us to come. I have only been to the gas-station, so I’m pretty darn excited about actually entering the town and discovering a new place! From what I hear, Sackville is full of good vibes.

8 . I read that you recorded most of your record Voici pretty much on your own in your home studio, is this correct? How has the DIY ethic influenced the band and how you go about your business?
Yes, this album was made in our bedroom and laundry room. Yves Drolet, an experienced sound engineer – he mixed and mastered it with Gab, who learned a lot. There are so many ways of learning outside of institutions! My theory is: learn to do by doing. We do everything ourselves – recording, artwork, website design, booking, publicity. We didn’t even look for a label. We’re going to plow through it all! In fact we invented our own label, Saspooray.

9. When do you think the best time and situation to listen to Voici is?
In the kitchen at a Sunday afternoon potluck!

10. What do your families think of the band?
Our families are so supportive. Gab’s Dad and step-mom served wine and p’tit bouchés for our cd release party in Deschambault. Gab’s mom brings different friends every time she comes to a show (and she comes often!). His brother let us take over his house for a whole morning to record piano tracks. My parents hosted a house concert for us, and my mom lent me her car to do a tour of Newfoundland (we ended up touring Cape Breton instead). My mom (the lovely Sara Carty) is organising the biscuits for our cd release tea party at the Antigonish Heritage Museum. Our music is family music, for oldest of the old and the youngest of the young.

11. What is your favourite dance party song?
On Voici… there are a lot of good dance party songs. I would have to say my favourite would be the polka at the end of Pantalons. Nothing gets a party going like a good polka – in the old days, Antigonish was known as the Polka Capital of Nova Scotia.

12. How can ppl contact you?
We have beautiful new homemade website – www.bette-wallet.com. Our e-mail is bette-wallet@hotmail.com.

13. Final words?
N'ayez pas peur. La force est en chacun de vous. Vous avez droit à l'erreur, vous êtes humains. Aimez et vous serez aimés. Le futur est maintenant. Cherchez le bonheur. Débranchez vos frigos pour l'amour de la terre.