DJ Champion - Early Music Career

Early Music Career

Maxime Morin began playing guitar at age 13, playing mostly heavy metal music. He went on to play in a few punk and metal bands, but by the age of 25 he found himself moving away from metal and gravitating towards techno. The transition was a gradual one: "Totally, I was like 'Dance music is crap!' So it was actually a big liberation, to lose my fear of dance music,” said Morin in a 2004 interview. Morin’s girlfriend at the time took him to a warehouse show and soon he began to attend techno Sundays at Les Foufounes Électriques, a Montreal nightclub better known in the 1980s and 90s for booking punk and alternative rock acts. By 1994 Morin began producing his own dance music and was performing around the Montreal club scene under the names Le Max and Mad Max. By about age 27 he stopped playing guitar altogether.

In the late 1990s, Québécois composer Benoît Charest attended a Mad Max performance; after the show Charest approached Morin with a business proposal; the two men went on to become co-owners of Ben & Max Studios—a company specializing in jingles and soundtracks. Ben & Max Studios became quite successful, however in 2001 Morin sold his share in the company back to Charest in order to continue his own personal musical career. Even after leaving their business partnership, Morin remained in close contact with Charest who was working on the score for the 2003 animated film, Les Triplettes de Belleville. Morin would go on to perform the bass and percussion on the song "Belleville Rendez-vous" and he also performed the song live, along with Charest and vocalist Béatrice (Betty) Bonifassi, at the 76th Academy Awards ceremony—Morin played percussion on a bicycle during the live performance. One of the main protagonists in Les Triplettes de Belleville is an aspiring cyclist who happens to be named Champion; Morin has stated that he was already performing under that name before the film was even created.