JF Pauzé

For close to thirty years, Jean-François Pauzé has been the guitarist of Les Cowboys Fringants, the Repentigny-formed group whose néo-trad music reworks Quebec folk with a rock edge and draws on country. Pauzé often contributes more lyrics than the others, and his pen runs through a catalogue of political songs that tackle poverty, consumerism and political apathy, often with a wry lightness, while populating them with recurring fictional characters. Since 2025 he has also stepped forward under his own name.

The band's honours include 17 Félix Awards, five of them at the 2020 ceremony, and a Juno for Francophone Album of the Year in 2024 for En concert avec l'Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. After lead singer Karl Tremblay's prostate cancer diagnosis in 2022 and his death on 15 November 2023, the group released Pub Royal in 2024, containing the last songs he completed. Pauzé's debut solo album, Les amours de seconde main, followed in 2025, debuting at number 10 on the Canadian Albums Chart in October and earning a Juno nomination at the 2026 ceremony. Its lead single, "Ballon-sonde", written as a letter to Tremblay, reached the top of the Quebec charts.