A pretty little bug is set to infest Casa Del Popolo

Gabrielle Papillon, a petite-framed, all-Canadian, guitar-strumming songstress who calls Montreal her home, sipped on her coffee 550 kilometres away in Toronto. She’s on the tail-end of an extensive Canadian tour that took her and her fellow folk-singing comrades from coast-to-coast on over 40 dates.
Though The Currency of Poetry is her latest release, she’s been previewing some of her songs from her upcoming album, which she’s set to begin recording with her bandmates here in Montreal at the Treatment Room in 2012.
Her new songs have grown when compared to the tracks featured on The Wanderer (2010), and especially compared to her much earlier release Songs for a Rainy Day (2001), which featured half acoustic, half punk tracks.
“The arrangements are just more developed than what I’ve done in the past,” she explains. “Maybe because I’m growing as a musician.”
But growth isn’t always constant for her. The dedication required to push on in a field over-saturated by talent can sometimes be daunting, resulting in one feeling like a tiny speck in a vast sea. So much so that Papillon has not only one, but two songs by the name “Little Bug” that speak to the insecurities and feelings of insignificance she’s experienced on her journey.
“Both of those songs, in a way, have to do with me feeling small and maybe the growing pains of being in the music industry,” she admits. “[It’s] really easy to get started and to say that you’re going to do this, that’s one thing, but to keep going—for me the struggles have come a lot more recently.”
“You know, you don’t quite know who to talk to or you have to talk to bigger industry people, and maybe you get the brush-off, or maybe you don’t get the reception you want, and you just feel small. It’s harder to go on,” Papillon trailed off. “It’s a bit of a play on words because of my last name. You know like butterfly is this really elegant thing but sometimes I really just feel like a little bug.”
She’s careful not to be too self-deprecating and tries not to let negative thoughts dominate her psyche. “It’s kind of about being small, but being a fighter,” she laughs. After all, nobody suspects the butterfly.Gabrielle Papillon is playing Casa Del Popolo on Nov. 29 with Kim Wempe and Roxanne Potvin. Doors open at 8:30 p.m.