For this episode of the Winnipeg Music Project, Tim and Marianne from the new group Red Rose came down to the station to share their new music and talk about the build up and delayed beginnings! These two are so kind and wonderful to talk to with hearts of gold! Their music is pretty darn neat too, listen to it here!
Set List:
Red Rose "Pipeline Road" Live
Red Rose "Frozen River" Live
Red Rose "Nothing So Sweet" Demo
Support Local Music-Makers Red Rose!
The twenty-fourth episode of the Winnipeg Music Project with Sam and Eli from the emerging band The Heights! We talked about their past musical adventures and how it led them to form their newest project. They are super excited to release their official self-titled EP at the pyramid on Saturday June 11, 2016 (WHICH IS TOMORROW).
If you want to order some tickets in advanced for the show for $10, PM these guys on any of their social media accounts. Otherwise you can pay $15 at the door.
I hope to see you there!
Set List:
The Heights "Sweater Season" from self-titled EP
The Heights "Through the Looking Glass" from self-titled EP
The Heights "A Touch of Grace" from self-titled EP
Support local band The Heights!
The tenth episode of the Winnipeg Music Project meeting with Summer Dwellers to talk about their upcoming album and recent music video release for their song "Best In Me."
Set List:
Summer Dwellers "Happy to Miss You" from Ready For Life
Summer Dwellers "Best In Me"
Support Winnipeg Band Summer Dwellers!
Listen to it again! Interview with Micah Visser about his recent tour and new single "I Will Not Return As A Tourist"!
The third episode of the Winnipeg Music Project. Meeting up again with my friend Micah Visser to talk about his tour he just finished with French Press and to debut his new single "I will not return as a tourist"
Set List:
Micah Visser "I will not return as a tourist" Single Track
Support Winnipeg Musician Micah Visser!
Instruments: Guitar, Voice and Theremin
Genres: Folk, Adult Contemporary
I had the amazing opportunity to meet with Keri Latimer from Leaf Rapids, a Juno-award winning singer and I am very proud to say I didn’t completely freak out. Keri is a kind and extremely talented musician and I had so much fun listening to her talk about her experiences and life filled with music. We talked about songwriting and the Theremin and just had a great time.
Ashley: How long have you been playing music?
Keri: Well I started playing piano when I was really young, I was about seven or eight but it was just for fun. I wrote my first song when I was 10, we moved from Calgary and I was really say about leaving all my friends and I Was looking at the back window as we were driving and I was just reflecting on how sad I was so it was something like losing your happiness and how it would always be behind me, something like that. I can’t really remember but that’s how it started?
Ashley: And how long have you been playing in leaf rapids?
Keri: It’s a new one actually; it’s only been a couple years for Leaf Rapids. We got offered a record deal and couldn’t really pass that up.
Ashley: So where does the name Leaf Rapids come from?
Keri: Leaf Rapids is a place my husband grew up in northern Manitoba and we would go there visiting and I always thought it was such a beautiful names. I think because the town is so small and isolated up north; it’s almost the end of the road and I just always loved that name. When we were thinking about band names I asked what my husband thought about it, he was a bit a torn about it because he grew up there.
Ashley: How did you get a record deal? Did they approach you specifically?
Keri: I was doing a solo album before that, Nathan is really hard on the road and I just needed a project to keep working on. So I played a showcase as a solo artist and one of the musicians in the showcase who was backing up Jill Barber and I knew him and I knew he was an amazing guitar player. I said “ Well since you’re sitting beside me, you might as well join in on my songs and of course he plays like he’d known the songs for years. He’s just one of those people and it was amazing. Afterwards we were talking and it turned out he had a record label and he was a producer and he offered us a project. We were looking for something because we love traveling.
Ashley: Why did you decide to learn to play the Theremin.
Keri: We were making a Nathan record and we had four days until it was going to get mastered so the mixes were done and there was this one song that for the solo part we just thought that sci-fi instrument that was in all of the science fiction movies would be great but what the hell was it? We did some research and for some reason I found one at Mother’s Music in the corner gathering dust for half price. It just got left there because no one knew what it was, I think. It was a stroke of luck because they were hard to find so I bought it and I practiced and practiced it and now I’m completely obsessed with it.
Ashley: How do you learn an instrument like that? Is there a book?
Keri: It comes with a little book with a few suggestions on finger movements because I think the main thing about the Theremin is when you are figuring out a melody the tiniest knuckle movement is like a semi tone so you just need to get used to the tiny little increments takes a lot of work and shaking your hand to get vibrato. There isn’t really a way to play it, it’s very intuitive; it’s basically a leap of faith and trusting you’re muscle memory. In fact you have to turn your brain off, I find, it’s like meditation. You’d like it!
Ashley: What is a practice to jam session like?
Keri: For Leaf Rapids it’s basically me writing the songs and then Devin and I coming together and figuring out the bass parts. I guess it’s primarily my song writing; with Nathan Shelley wrote a lot of the songs and now Mike who is apart of the band is a great writer and musician. IT’s more collaborative for Nathan but for [Leaf Rapids] it’s just mostly myself.
Ashley: So then what is your songwriting process?
Keri: It’s kind of embarrassing; this is lately. Sometimes I’ll get into a writing flurry and I’ll just put music to that. But more often than not it’s just melody and some gibberish which I record into my album and I’ll go through them and see if some imagery comes up and I’ll start piecing it together. But Mainly I’ll get struck with a melody but if anyone gets ahold of my iPhone, it just has the most embarrassing stuff.
Ashley: So who inspires your music? Or when you first started how did you find your voice and style?
Keri: Well I actually went to art school thinking I would be a visual artist and I took graphic design. It was so intense that I think on the side as a release of some tension I would just start songwriting. Ani Difranco at the time was just getting big and she was just an explosion that went off. When I heard of her, it was my first introduction to a really raw singer-songwriter and a guitar. She plays very percussively and she’s very poetic. You have to check her out. That idea of just be a songwriter with a guitar and have a message, that sparked me to just play a little bit. Then unfortunately my studies suffered because I was hooked by songwriting by full force.
Ashley: How do you go on tour when you have kids?
Keri: IT’s funny because Devin plays bass in the band with me so that’s handy. We bring them with us. In April we spent two weeks in western Canada and took our kids with us and toured with Slow Leaves. We practiced together and I learned a lot of backups for him, then he played guitar and sung backups for us too so it was a really feasible way. Part of the reason we paly music is because we both we love to travel so this is a way to subsidize our travel.
Ashley: Do they come with you to the show or do they stay in the apartment?
Keri: It depends, one of the festivals we did was 16 and over so we couldn’t bring them so we hired a sitter or nanny for those. But they’re starting to sell merchandise because they’ve started learning math.
Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?
Keri: Right now I’m really excited to play Theremin for the WSO for the new music festival this January and that’s completely terrifying which is the sign that you should do because you should do what terrifies you so I’ve already started practicing for it.
Ashley: So what advice would you give to beginners who are starting to perform and get their music out there?
Keri: I would say always keep an iPhone or some kind of recording device and write whatever comes to your mind even if you think it’s stupid. Don’t censor yourself. IF you start censoring yourself you’re going to accidentally filter out a lot of really good ideas. And you have to get through all the stuff because you can start getting to the new stuff. Then you start editing things and take away. And practice, practice, practice; which everyone knows. It’s hard because you get so sick of yourself. My husband is really good at making us practice a lot. I’m always fighting him but I’m always so thankful when we play live.
Ashley: You mentioned this before but how do you balance your music with you other obligations?
Keri: I think it’s just a natural thing. Other than having to just turn out the music, which is a hard one but the consequences are not worth it. Also bring the kids on tour is a lot. I know a lot of musicians who don’t bring their families on tour with them and it’s really hard on them so I’m very grateful.
Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you’ve started in the music?
Keri: I think, it’s to not censor yourself too much. Not to worry about whom you think you’re writing for. The songs that have affected me the much in a real emotional way, hadn’t written for a mass. There’s something particular in the details in a really profound way. Don’t’ be afraid to put those ideas out there that terrify you.
Support Winnipeg Band Leaf Rapids
The second episode of the Winnipeg Music Project Featuring Bassist Nick Friesen from Future Kids promoting their upcoming album release show on November 21st at the Windsor Hotel at 10pm for $10 entry.
Set List:
Future Kids "White Girl in a Wu-Tang Shirt" From This Is Everything
Ashley Bieniarz and Nick Friesen
Support Winnipeg Band Future Kids!
Here is this awesome behind the scenes, making of the song "This is Everything"!
Genres: Everything (Grungy, Folky, Funky, Rock stuff)
Eli’s Instruments: Voice, Guitar
Evan’s Instruments: Bass, Voice
I met with Eli and Evan in their jam session this summer and we had an awesome chat about None The Wiser and their experience performing and song-writing. I can honestly say I learned a lot from these guys and am super thankful for them letting me interview them! Read it now~!
Ashley: So you play everything, how do you decide what to play at a show?
Eli: For shows we have been keeping it to out up-tempo dance-y songs. It depends on the venue. I was even reading in this David Burn book that people write songs for venues. They have a venue in mind as a musician and you write a song that’s geared toward that. It’s a different given or take with the audience. It’s more intimate when you are playing those quieter show but when you see people dancing and having fun, that’s what really does it for me. I guess that’s how we decide on what we play at shows, it’ where we are playing.
Evan: We often also don’t know ahead of time. We’ll have a general idea of what we’re doing and depending on what the crowd likes and we’ll change what we are playing. We play the crowd.
Ashley: So you have brass instruments in the band, how do you incorporate that when you’re playing rock music?
Eli: It’s just another layer or texture that you can add. Like I said, we don’t like to pigeonhole ourselves. We like to put together a good song with a catchy hook on the horns; they can do things [others can’t]. They can do melodies and add so many different things. It’s just nice to have them there.
Evan: I think it’s a great throwback to some of the funkier Motown that we are all kind of into. We are a band that for all intensive purposes rock band but a big brass section behind it adds this entire new layer of music.
Ashley: Where does the band name come from?
Eli: I’ll give my brother Zach credit for that one [back in 1999 or 2000], we just hadn’t come up with anything new since. It’s been so long that I haven’t really thought about changing it. I tried once, I did a solo op and just ended up being another None the Wiser [project].
Evan: I think too few bands are honest about how arbitrary their name is. Some bands have really cool or awesome history about their name but I think most bands are just “we need a band name and this sounds cool.”
Ashley: So how often are you guys practicing together?
Eli: We practice at least once a week. We do Wednesdays at the jam space, leading up to bigger shows we will squeeze in a couple more. We also break it down into sectionals so I’ll go jam with the horn players so they can work out their harmonies to not waster everyone else’s time. Sometimes we’ll have practices where we just work out vocal harmonies, break it down into sections.
Ashley: What do you listen to for inspiration for music?
Eli: Oh lots of fun stuff! I like everything from the Spice girls to the Beatles.
Evan: We actually do a couple covers of Spice girls at shows.
Eli: I want to say the Beatles, Dave Matthews band, Sublime, KT Tunstall. I’ve been really into Max Martens’ writing lately, he wrote all pop songs on the 2000s. I’m into pretty much everything. I’m wearing a Fela Kuti shirt right now. I love afro beats stuff. That really helps bringing in the horns actually.
Evan: I think one of the nice things about sitting down and jam is that we come from different backgrounds with some overlap. I come from a really big metal background. I listen to metal bands and played in a lot of Winnipeg death metal bands and stuff that is very different from what we play; it also a slightly different perspective. It brings things that only once person would necessarily think of. Josh plays a lot of country, Jordan is really into weird art rock kind of stuff.
Eli: Cary is really into blues and funk and soul, so it’s a really cool mash up . Really the inspirations are infinite.
Ashley: How do you think death metal helped none the wiser?
Evan: I think if anything, I might occasionally play things a bit more aggressively than maybe other people might have thought of. I think we have a few songs where things have dropped a bit lower and a bit heavier.
Eli: I love a good solo with a gritty bass that probably comes from some metal stuff.
Evan: Cool things happen when you put a different perspective on something that’s relatively normal.
Ashley: So what is the overall songwriting process?
Eli: Up to now, we are starting to write more because we are jamming more often, but usually it always starts with a guitar and the sounds come before the words. We fill in the words to the sounds. To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know where it comes from, it’s kind of that I just lucked out and something cool popped into my head. I think that’s really common with all songwriters. They don’t really know where it comes from; every now and then they tap into the cloud of songs and just get lucky every now and then. For the most part, up until now that we are starting to write stuff together, I would come up with a song and more often than not we would have a solid first verse and chorus and whoever didn’t come up with that would help finish the words and the story and the idea and concept.
Evan: I feel with this these fairly frequent lineup changes, like any good musician would listen to the songs and learn the notes and once they start jamming without really thinking about it, they starting playing things a little differently with different inflections. The arrangements are just different.
Ashley: How do you go deciding your set list for a show?
Eli: Again it’s really venue dependent. If we’re playing at a restaurant we usually start quieter and gradually get louder and more energetic. If it’s a theatre thing even like the Pyramid where everyone is paying attention, you really want to hit them hard with your two favorite songs then pull back and draw people back in by building it back up. I feel that’s what set lists are usually like, two really high energy songs off the bat, and then a chill song to draw people in, not lull them but bring them down so it has more effect when you bring the high energy songs back.
Evan: You aren’t going to throw in the songs you’ve only jammed a couple times and don’t sound the greatest.
Ashley: With None the Wiser, what accomplishments are you most proud of?
Eli: For me the albums are some good accomplishments because they are just a lot of our songs out there in the world for people to hear. Some of our festival shows like Shine On, the first year we played we did a John Lennon song and everyone sang alone; just the little things.
Evan: The whole reason we’re doing this is for us to have fun and express that fun and have the other people who are watching have fun. Everyone’s excited; everyone’s having a moment together. That’s more important.
Eli: That’s kind of the goal. Just to do that with as many people as possible.
Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who might be nervous about starting their bands?
Evan: Don’t be nervous. Just go out and play. You’re probably going to suck the first few times you play so just go out and suck and you’ll get better. Even if you suck you’re going to have fun.
Eli: You’re only going to get better the more you play.
Evan: Don’t be scared and don’t care about what other people thing about you. If you really believe that the music you are playing is good or you like it or you have fun and people can see that you are having fun and you believe it, then there is going to be a crowd for it. Maybe you aren’t playing the right places, don’t get discouraged if you have a bad show, or people hate you, or no one shows up or anything of those things. I wouldn’t worry about it because you can just play another show and maybe next time people are super into it. Play for free, play for fun; eventually you’ll start making money and that’s not what it’s about anyways. IT’s about having fun; ideally you want to be making money so you can work less and play more.
Ashley: So if people have gathered this courage but they are missing a band member?
Evan: Go to jam nights?
Ashley: Where do you find jam nights?
Eli: Wee Jonny’s and the cavern had one fore awhile.
Evan: Go to open mics
Eli: It’s also easy to just post ads online. I have friends who have found two hardcore band members that took their band to the next level by posting an ad online. They were in their 30s and they got this kid who was 18 who was ready to go.
Evan: I lived in Ottawa for a few years and I wanted to make sure I played music so I found any music forums online and posted “ I play bass and I want to play anything you want me to play.” And I found something in less that a month. It helps if you’ve had past experience that you can cite to people but even without that it’s not going to take that long. People are always looks for people to play with.
Eli: Another thing is just asking you best friend. Maybe they don’t play the bass or the drums together, but if you start together you’ll get better together. You don’t need to be the best musicians; you just need to be good as a group. If you’re already friends to begin with you’re going to be tight as a group.
Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?
Eli: My favorite song right now is probably Magic All the Time or Back Behind the Blue. Back Behind the Blue is kind song sexy song, pretty psychedelic and Cary does kickass guitar solos. It’s a like a jam. The live performance is many minutes longer than the recorded one. It’s really energetic and fun and it’s new.
Evan: Probably Beale Street Beer it’s just a very straightforward easygoing vibe that’s easy to play. It’s not hard to play at all and it just feels good.
Support Winnipeg Band None The Wiser!
Genres: Alterative Country
Instruments: Voice and Guitar
Kieran West is living the dream everyday by having the opportunity to play with his music with his favorite band. He talks about his strong connection with his band members and his go with the flow songwriting skills. He confides how lucky he is and how where is, it what he’s always dreamed of. Not playing for 80,000 people or playing for the queen. Playing to 150 people who are having fun and everybody it happy; that’s the dream for him.
Ashley: How long have you been playing?
Kieran: I’ve been playing music my whole life. I’ve been seriously playing for six or seven years. The buffalo band has been together for three and a half years.
Ashley: Why did you guys decide to start playing together?
Kieran: Well, I was working on writing a lot of songs and was just going to perform them by myself because I had had experience playing in bands that weren’t that great and kind of wanted to just do my own thing. But I started to really miss playing rock shows and having fun where people dance and single along. That doesn’t really happen when you’re playing mellow acoustic shows. Right at that time I met this band “Little House”, a girl that I was dating at that time introduced to me their music and I totally fell in love with their music and they became my favorite band in the entire world. I wanted really badly to just be in that band because I admired them all so much. It was a four-piece band and they all wrote songs together and I loved that. They really reminded me of the Beatles. We would hang out and I would show them all my songs and they all really liked the songs and stuff. They wanted to help me out so we started talking about doing a couple shows together called “Kieran West and Little House” or something else. It just turned into this whole thing and we decided that we wanted to be our own band. The line-up has changed, it’s not just little house, but that’s where it started. I wanted to play rock shows and they came in there.
Ashley: What is a practice or jam session like with the rest of the band?
Kieran: We are very informal. As Roger Miller once said, he’s a country singer, “We play a highly informal set. The higher we get, the more informal we are.” That kind of perfectly describes our practices. We practice in our basement, drinking and having fun really. There is such a cohesive bond between the guys and the band because they had been playing for four years before we started so they have been playing together for seven years so there is such tightness. The songs aren’t really that complicated so we just get together and have fun; that’s what we do when we play shows anyways to it just makes sense to practice how you play.
Ashley: So you primarily write the songs so how do you bring those to the band?
Kieran: I write the songs, the verses and the choruses and whatever else; but it comes back to the way that we started. Just hanging out and me showing them these songs that are completed but, like I said I’m just a huge fan of them as a band, and I just tell them to do what they want. It’s never the way I that I hear it in my head when I write it but it’s always better. They always have so many ideas. They are all so musically inclined and these musical brains and they’ll come up with these ideas that make the song more interesting or exciting. They’re always working to improve the song.
Ashley: So what is your songwriting process like, then?
Kieran: Well it’s always kind of different but most often I’ll come up with a line in my head like maybe it’s start with some words, or something I want to say. From that, I’ll put a melody to those words and those will become my chorus. I usually start with the chorus and the hook of the song. We have the song “Big black bug”:
“Big black bug living inside my brain, and the thoughts inside are horribly arranged.” That’s all one complete thought that will happen in my thought and I’ll have that chorus and then start from the stop down and write the verses. I’ll use rhyming dictionaries a lot too. Yeah, usually start with the chorus then work the verses around it.
Ashley: So you’re music is more lyrically driven?
Kieran: Yeah, the whole reason I play music is because it’s so emotional for me and my songs are all about stuff that I have experienced or things that I feel. It is lyrically driven but it’s also with the band; they make it so musical that it’s a nice mix of both.
Ashley: Who inspires your music? Who do you listen to that inspires your songwriting?
Kieran: That’s a big question for me. As a band we have many obvious country influences like “The Band” “Steve Earle” “Hayes Carll” “Hank Williams III” , bands like that that are not necessarily Nashville country bands or classic country bands; country music in their own style. As a songwriter and as a human being I have so many other influences that are all very apparent in my songwriting. Like when I’m at home I don’t listen country music, I listen to hardcore punk like “Minor Threat” “Bad Brains” “Comeback kid” I was just to this morning. Stuff like that. Or Nirvana. It’s such a wide range of stuff; I love rap, I love learning from rap because there are things that rappers use lyrically like devices that rappers use that are just totally brilliant and don’t really exist anywhere else in music and there are things that I’ve learned and used. It’s really all over the place for me.
Ashley: So what is the most stressful part about being in a band?
Kieran: For me I would say: keeping everyone happy. That’s not to say we’re divas or anything; but as a leader I find it really important that everyone feels heard and feels respected and honored and all that. There are five of us which is tough to make sure everyone feels heard because there are five different personalities and five different musical personalities that are coming together and sometimes they don’t always match. That’s really important, if we’re not having fun then there is no point.
Ashley: With you’re band what accomplishments are you most proud of?
Kieran: We’ve been really lucky. We’ve gotten a lot of really great opportunities. It’s tough to just pick out one. I would say if I had to pick one, it would be to be asked to do the Minstrels program for the Winnipeg Folk Festival. That was a huge honor. We were asked to do it by the festival, I got a call while I was at work and asked if I wanted to play with my band; that it something that I dreamed about. It was really cool. It’s just really nice to be recognized and to even be on the track to play a stage one day soon. That was really huge. I’ve been going to the folk festival since I Was 16 and the first second I saw that stage and heard music coming from it I was like “That’s what I want to do, that’s where I want to play.” It was amazing to hang out back stage, ten feet away from Dan Mangan. It was cool.
Ashley: What advice would you give to musicians who are nervous about starting out?
Kieran: I would say, two major things:
Play with your friends, don’t try to start a band with stranger, because you’re not going to have as much fun and the whole point of music is to have fun.
And, make friends with bar owners and managers. It’s really good to have people like that on your side. It’s not just a phony thing, most of the people who run bars in the city are really down to earth, awesome people who are really really interesting in fostering young talent. Put yourself out there, next time you’re at the bar try to figure out who the manager is and introduce yourself. It never hurts to put your name out there. You want to get good shows, it’s not a secret if the bar owner likes you personally they are going to pay you better than if they don’t like you. That’s just the way it is. Music is like any other business; it’s all about who you know. We’re met some really amazing people through bar owners just hanging out.
Ashley: Before a performance what do you do to deal with nerves?
Kieran: That’s a funny question for me because performing and pre-performance are the only times I don’t have trouble with anxiety. Anxiety is a huge problem in my life and performing is the one time that I am never anxious. I feel great. I feel on top of the world. I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and it just feels right.
Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?
Kieran: This song Coming to Terms; It was one of the first songs that we ever learned, and we still play it. It’s a song I wrote about a conversation I had with Ben Figler, who was the singer of Little House who is now the singer for Somebody Language. It was just a conversation we had and I wrote the song Coming to Terms about that conversation. It’s a very simple song with two chords the whole way through, basically. At the end we have this end where we going into this jam section where everybody lets loose and it’s the same chords this song called “At least that’s what you said” by Wilco which also ends in a jam session so we ripped a lot of stuff from that but it’s cool because Wilco is one of our favorite songs in the world so it’s like we’re playing a Wilco song; but it’s also the same chords as “Don’t let me down” by the Beatles so a couple bars into the jam session, I go into the chorus of that song and sing it. But I can’t really hit the notes so I’m just screaming it. It works and it’s a lot of fun. We just totally rip at it; it’s awesome.
Ashley: How do you balance music with other obligation like work?
Kieran: It’s not easy. When you’re really serious about music and working full-time and recording yourself, you don’t find yourself with a lot of free time. Especially when you manage yourself. We do our own artwork for posters for promotions and talking with college radio sessions and publications. There is a lot of time that you put into it and that can get really stressful. People need free time. That’s just kind of a fact; people need time to relax. When I’m working, [we aren’t working as hard] with the music thing. When I’m working on music, I really feel like I’m working towards something and I love the work that I do in the schools. So, it’s really just a matter of focusing on the fact that I might be tired, I might be exhausted but I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed about doing. So that makes it okay. Luckily working in a school, I have good hours and I have summers off so I can focus on doing festivals and promotions and all that over the summer. I have my evenings and weekends off, which is very good. Other guys in the band, our bassist Corey works at the Handsome Daughter and they are quite accommodating for him with getting nights off. One way or another we make it work. It’s just so important to all of us that we just have to make it work.
Ashley: So when you finally get that time to songwriting, how to do get into the zone or find that inspiration?
Kieran: I only write when there is inspiration. Inspiration comes from everything. All my songs are about my own experiences. We have a song called “Kill myself today” and I was just walking and feeling depressed and thought about jumping in front of a car, no seriously of course. But that melody started to come into my head. It was this bouncy, blue grassy thing. I was like “I could kill myself OR I could write a song a turn this pain into something happy.” It takes away the power from that feeling and we play it at shows are people are dancing around and singing along and all of that. Its just things like that. I like to write about my family a lot. I have a really serious interest in family history and stuff like that. I like to write about stories from my family. I love hockey, I’ll write about hockey. It just comes from everything. I was thinking Red Green the other day, and was thinking about his catch phrase “Keep your stick on the ice.” So I wrote a song called “Keep your stick of the ice.” You get ideas from listening to music, that’s where I get a lot of my ideas.
Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you started working in the music business?
Kieran: That’s another tough one because we really have been very fortunate to meet really successful people who have given us a lot of really helpful advice. I would say the best advice I’ve ever gotten from a musician from Bobby Desjarlais from Attica Riots. He has been a mentor of mine every since I was fifteen years old. He was working as an EA at Kelvin high school when I was there and he saw my band perform and he found me the next day at lunch and took me to this little office where he had been writing songs on his breaks, I guess. In that room, I Would go everyday, I was in the process of dropping out of school at this time so slowly and slowly I stopped going to class and just be in that little room with Bobby and his students and I would be hiding out from my classes but I’d be learning the things I Really wanted to be learning. The most important I learned from him while I was there was: When you’re writing a song, no matter what you’re writing about, even if it’s a meaningless pop song, always know what you’re writing about. Always have a point and always writes about something real. Even if it comes out as gibberish, just always have a point and always know why you’re writing the song and what it means to you. That’s something I’ve always carried with me.
Support Winnipeg Musician Kieran West and His Buffalo Band!
Genres: Noise Rock/Punk
David Dobbs’ Instrument: Guitar
Matthew Powers’ Instrument: Drums
I met with David and Matthew earlier this summer before a show they had at the Park Theatre. I was interested in meeting them because I was really new to the genre of “Noise Rock.” To be 100% honest, I was really new to the genre. The loud atmosphere was really exciting and really let me experience a little dose of how loud and how much David and Matthew had when performing on stage. They are currently on tour doing really cool stuff. Follow them on their instagram to see all their exciting adventures.
Ashley: How long have you been playing together?
David: Matt and I have been playing together for coming up to 2 years and vampires has been a conception for about 4 or 5.
Ashley: And how long have you been playing your instruments?
David: I started playing piano when I was 8 maybe and that moved to guitar when I was 13. I can play everything though; drums, keyboard, bass guitar and whatever.
Matthew: Yeah I started in piano, my dad tried to get me into it. I never really cared for it, drums was what I really wanted to do. I guess I have been playing drums since I was 12 years old so a long time. More than half my life which is weird to think about. Drums is my main thing but like David we are both multi-disciplinary, we can both jump to guitar and bass and dabble around on piano and all that kind of stuff.
Ashley: Where does the band name come from?
David: It comes from a deeply routed childhood love of vampires. I myself dressed up as a vampire every Halloween for like eight years in a row until my friends started calling me a loser. It’s also an emotional and spiritual reference to how as humans we feed all the time. Whether its actual practical raw matter like food or it’s like emotionally or spiritually feeding off other people. We’re drawing attention to that dynamic of not being ashamed to admit that we all feed off each other and it’s not in an angry or cynical thing it’s just something to acknowledge that we all need each other.
Matthew: We both really like vampires as an idea of a monster. They are kind of the most human-like. They have feelings and emotions and they are even relatable in a way.
David: It’s the stresses we put on ourselves. Dracula always felt at odds. He was only proud when he was comfortable otherwise he was angry all the time. It just showed that he was like everyone else.
Matthew: We don’t have any imagery associated with fangs or capes; it’s all a very artistic reference point, I guess.
Ashley: So why did you decide to start playing together?
Matthew: We kind of found each other. [David] had something I was working on on the internet and we started talking and realized that we were looking for each other.
David: I was looking for a drummer and he was looking for another project to be apart of.
Matthew: In that shared time we both kind of realized that my thing was just a in the basement having fun and he already had a project with legs and had momentum and he had a show coming up with Big Fun a couple years back and was just looking for someone to fill in the dates because he had to place it. We got together for that originally and just when on from there.
David: Yeah, we put out a four song EP together and we kind of liked the EP. It was just a showcase of what we were going through at the time. It’s really raw, its four songs that we wrote together and helped established the band in its new direction and it’s new legs so to speak. We just recorded a full-length album and it’s pretty exciting.
Matthew: It’s our first big studio album. Before [the music] was done low-fi, on the down low kind of thing. It’s our first step into a big studio with a cleaner sound. You can hopefully hear more of what we’re doing opposed to the low-fi feeling of the EP album. The songs are going to come through more in this new way.
Ashley: What is a jam or practice session like for you two?
David: Our rehearsals are usually during the week, Tuesdays and Fridays. They start around 7:00 pm typically. They’ll be me getting home from work and I’ll tidy up the space a bit and we’ll go over the lyrics and most of the time we are either writing songs or rehearsing towards a show, those two modes. We’ll play through songs a couple times and play through the songs we suck at a couple more times. Otherwise we are writing songs there is a little more relaxation and experimentation. I guess a jam is just an idea or a very small part of an idea. I’ll have a riff, let’s say, a single riff of 5 or 10 notes, some will be good and some will be bad. Matt will come along and stitch riff 2 and riff 5 together and I’ll be like “wow, it’s a line now.” Other times though they’ll just write themselves. After like four hours we will have a song.
Ashley: Would you say your songwriting is more lyrically or melodically driven?
David: Oh definitely melodically. Music writes itself and usually you find places to put vocals on top so it’s never me humming to myself trying to write guitar to my vocals it’s me matching a vocal line to my guitar I’ve already written.
Ashley: And how do you choose your lyrics? What’s your inspiration?
David: It seems to always be a commentary on social relationships and social dynamics. Personal experiences that I’m watching happen. Some songs are really personal and I wonder how I sing them all the time in front of strangers. Sometimes they’re a way to get people involved.
Ashley: How do you sing about personal things? How do you decide if something is okay to share?
David: It’s something that happens while playing music. It’s never “oh I’ll just go sit down and write music” they just start to happen. The music makes me feels a certain way so whatever I’m feeling that month or that day or that year and it just comes out. It’s usually reflective stuff, I’m commenting on something and then I decide to make it personal. How it might happen to me. I don’t really know how I let it become about personal stuff, it just happens because it makes sense. It’s okay in that way.
Ashley: Why don’t you [Matthew] write lyrics? Have you thought about it?
Matt: I guess with my own music I do, but I guess I never stepped into that role with vampires. Not to say that it’s not in the cards that if I have some lyrics that I felt passionate about. I’m still getting into singing with vampires, they used to have a pretty big back and forth vocal dynamic between the Dobbs and the drummer and that’s something we’re trying to bring back in my own way so there may be a time when I’ll have something to say but until then I’m just hitting stuff in the background.
Ashley: What accomplishments are you most proud of?
David: Still being band. A lot of bands, I think, find the internal dynamics to be too much pressure. It requires patience and hard work. We used to play at Sled Island Music Festival and that’s a huge accomplishment for this band. We’re putting out a record with a big name recording studio and that’s another huge accomplishments. We’ve gone on a couple fun little tours so far together and haven’t broken up. At the end of day it’s a band about social reflection so that interactive connection of getting other people’s take on the music so it’s always a cool moment.
Matthew: it’s nice to have people after show and say “oh I haven’t seen people do that or have that much fun on stage since I was a kid, or in years, or since this band.” People are looking at our music and what we are doing and there is a nostalgic feeling or energy that is brought back to them. I think it’s an amazing accomplishment to have that connection with people.
David: We talked about why it’s special. For us it’s just us doing what we’re doing, It’s the matter of that generational gap of the old rockers and the new kids. There is also this feeling of tolerance and inclusion, of just being seen somewhere. Part of going to a show now is just having certain people see you and tweet about you. I’m just interested in a good time.
Ashley: So you mentioned that you’re going on tour, what’s the most stressful part about going on tour?
David: The most stressful part was finding ways to keep going. We all work 8 hours a day and you’re one activity is playing then you sleep and you drink a lot.
Matthew: The days off or feeling like you’re not just wasting your time out there.
David: Learning how to maximize your time. We don’t have an agent of a publicist so we are in full control of our time and there are some points of it where we should be doing more. That’s just hard shit though; it’s not really stressful.
Matthew: It’s a breeze being out there when you’re driving to a gig and it’s going to be a new show in a new city with new people and there is always something to look forward to. Maybe it’s stressful that you’ll always needing to be “on”. You don’t want to drink yourself on the road, we want to network and meet know people and remember them.
David: That’s the most stressful part; always making you’re sure you’re at your best. Finding ways to recover to clean slate. US we’re doing the same thing everything everyday but for those people who are just seeing us for that one day. On a personal level to meet people and say I’m a stranger and you’re a stranger and at some point you might even want some space but it’s not fair to others. It’s not out of our control
Ashley: What advice would you give to beginners who are nervous about starting out?
David: Don’t be nervous.
Matt: Yeah, just get out there and do it. You’ll find that once you’re on stage that nothing else matters all those things you were worried about don’t matter.
David: Be bad. Be the worst, you can only get better if you start out bad.
Matthew: Let yourself to be that too. Don’t expect you’re going to be a rock star right from the get go. My first show I got heckled with my first band. The first show we did outside of the basement. That experience was enough to be like “stop, I’m done.” But no, you want to get better and you want to prove those people wrong.
David: I’m so impressed when I see a bad who suck but they did it. They tried. I find that’s way more exhilarating than [a band] who has practiced for 10 years before finally taking the stage. Don’t perfect it. Work it out if it shows and really reflect at rehearsals. Try it out, if it doesn’t work out for a show and you’re cheeks burn red scrap it but if it works, you’re a better man.
Ashley: So what do you guys do to deal with nerves before a performance?
Matt: I don’t really get nervous anymore, I’ve been doing this for so long that it’s more the anxiety of wanting to play. It’s not that I’m scared of anything happening it’s that I just want to be on stage now; I want to be on stage where I feel comfortable.
David: I still get nervous on bigger shows. To be closer to the gear, to the stage, to the bartender or the sound guy, to feel the room that’s how I work through it. For the bigger show I’ll get nervous, it won’t be a crappy nervous where I’m sweating, it’s a nauseous nervous. I feel that’s a real strong energy that I can use to my advantage.
Matt: Yeah use it like adrenaline in a way and ride off it.
Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?
Matt: I really like the newer stuff. The foot we are stepping forward with, the new songs are really fun. Because we wrote them so quickly before getting into the studio just to get them out kind of the thing, I feel the songs are still evolving. What you hear of the album is just the first conception of them, us playing them live they are evolving and parts are becoming longer and things are getting cut, so things are really coming to life.
David: That’s the best to say, we’re always pumped to play the new material.
Ashley: How do you balance your music with your other obligations?
Matthew: Carefully
David: Yeah very carefully. You don’t have a social life. Your band and your art will make you very social. If you are partying all the time, you’re losing a lot of time. I have a radio show, I record that, I work at a restaurant and I do [music]. I do so fucking much. So managing your obligations, you knowing what you’re doing is important. Continue to say, it’s important that I work toward this so you find the time. If you care about it you’ll find the time.
Matt: Music has always been a big priority of my life, as much as I tried to balance it with other things, the bands I’m in have kind of taken precedence in my life in a way. There is always for them. The jobs we have to do from 9 to 5 is more to fund the things I want to do after work. I work so I that I can be in a band, otherwise I’d be a starving musician that couldn’t afford to go on tour and wouldn’t have a vehicle. It’s impossible otherwise, I’ve tried working with musicians like that and it just doesn’t work.
Support Winnipeg Band VAMPIRES!
Instruments: Voice, Piano and Guitar
Genres: Jazz and Folk
I met with Erin back in July shortly after the birth of her beautiful second daughter. We met in a Joe Black coffee shop and enjoyed some yummy lattes while she chatted about her musical experiences. Quickly into the interview I realized how much Erin and I were alike. Her honest and intimate answers were so revealing about how much in common our musical goals are. She talked about patience and making the right decisions when you’re ready (something that constantly frustrates me) and about and much more. I feel we really connected (I hope Erin feels the same way) after that afternoon together. I later listened to her music again on Soundcloud (link at the end of the article) and after hearing about where her inspiration came from, everything just clicked. I absolutely love her voice with its folk and jazz influences and the guitar accompaniment perfectly compliments her voice. Definitely super talented.
Ashley: Whenever you have a show? Are you contacting and hiring other musicians?
Erin: I hire other people. For the most part I work with a guitarist and producer named Larry Roy. The music is ours, we write together so we are a duo. We go together. As much as I can when I’m out [working], I’ll work with Larry. Sometimes other people will hire me as a singer for their ensemble or group for whatever they are doing. I have occasionally, but not often because I focus so much of my time with Larry, I have done duo gigs with other people just to stretch myself and work with someone else and we’ll both contribute 50/50 to the music. Whether they are playing and I’m singing and who is choosing or writing the music.
Ashley: So, how long have you been singings?
Erin: My whole life, I’ve always loved to sing since I was little. I started taking lessons when I was twelve until I finished university when I was 27. I took piano lessons from age 6 to high school.
Ashley: So why did you make the decision to perform?
Erin: I have a lot of ‘youngest child’ qualities. There are four girls in my family and I am the third of four but I was the youngest child for nine years before my little sister was born so I always want to tell the funniest story at the family gathering. I want to do the funniest dance and everyone is going to watch me. I just want to be in front of people, it’s not because it doesn’t scare me because it always has and I get nervous all the time, but it was something I just felt I had to do. I felt I owed somebody and that I needed to be in front of people. I just liked it.
Ashley: How often are you practicing singing?
Erin: Right now, none at all except for when I’m singing the odd lullaby, usually just silly songs that my kids like. Otherwise before any gig I’m learning the music, I’ll practice a lot. I practice a lot because I’m a teacher as well. I teach voice lessons so I practice what I give my students that I assign them. That becomes practice time and then before a gig, any music I’m working on; I’ll spend sometime really going through that stuff. It depends how much time I’m working. If you see me working, you know I’m practicing. Right now I’m not working so I’m not practicing. I’m breastfeeding my brains out right now. That’s what I’m doing. [laughs]
Ashley: Who inspires your music both lyrically and melodically?
Erin: Lyrically, my own experience’s from life. I’m finding my music is becoming, when I get a chance to write, is very domestic sounding and which makes sense because that’s where I am. I’m at home, I’m in our yard, I go grocery shopping, I feed children and I wipe bums. The things I’m doing, I don’t write about wiping bums, but stories that revolved around home and around those small things that happen. Those subtle moments between couples that tell a lot more than what it would appear to be on the outside. Hopes that I have for my children, looking at years to come. The things that I’ve written for our first album, in a way were 15 years in the making for me. A lot of things I wrote for it were written years ago in my life that just needed to come out at some point. They finally came out on my first album; they were older stories.
Lyrically my music comes from personal experience but I also find that I don’t have enough personal stories or experiences to make that many songs very interesting. So I borrow from other people’s stories as well. One of my songs is a little bit about me but is a lot about a friend of mine too. I combined our two life stories into it.
One of the songs on my album is about my sister, my parents and my grandparents; I put them all together in one song. One song is about Larry, I try to include his feelings lyrically when we work together.
A few years ago, I wrote a song for a friend who had experience a great lost and that was the first time that I wrote for someone who was new in my life. A story that was a little bit at arms length, I didn’t know them as well [as the members of my family]. That was a step away for me.
Musically; chords, harmony and rhythm, that one is always really hard. I do that so much with Larry. I will write a lot of harmony for our songs. Probably the more and more my songs are being influenced now by songs from my childhood. Those are the songs that are coming back to me as I sing to my kids when I’m staying at home. Irish folk songs are coming back to me. A lot of my melodies sound pretty folky, but I try to make the harmony more interesting that just G, C and D because that’s really boring to me. When I’m writing harmony for something I ‘ll look at jazz standards that I learned in university and ones that I didn’t learn that I’m just learning now and I’ll copy something that they do. I’ll look at their chord progressions or I’ll just forget about my lyrics and put them to a jazz standard or I’ll take a jazz standard and put lyrics based to that. I’ll take a 4-measure section of a tune that I like and I’ll take that out and I’ll try to write something over it or maybe I’ll change one chord in the configuration to make it original and try to come up with a new melody over that.
Ashley: So what accomplishments are you most proud of?
Erin: I was really proud of graduating from university. That was a big deal for me. It was a big deal for me to go back, I was 24 when I started the degree. A lot of my friends that I grew up with got married young and had kids. I got married young but we weren’t thinking of having kids yet at the time so choosing to do a four-year degree was putting it off until I was almost 30. But I honestly wasn’t thinking about that at the time.
I think part of me thought I could never do it. I had quit a couple things in years previous. I started projects and quit them and I was starting to feel that maybe that’s what I was, that I was a quitter. So starting to that degree and committing to four years was something I thought I would never be able to do. It was very scary. I deal with fears that have nothing to with music, I have some general anxiety problems and just some other stuff going that go around in life that make it hard to be around people are finish something. So I’m really really proud of that accomplishment.
Doing the album with Larry, when I started my degree and I met him, I never would have guess that I work with anyone on faculty. It’s a big accomplishment that he chose me as a friend and as someone to work with and since I was a kid, dreaming of being able to put my music on something tactile and giving to people. People had been asking since I was 15 for a recording. It took until I was 28 or 29 to put it out there. That was a really big deal. It was a long time coming.
Ashley: So you took some time before you put something out there. What advice do you have for people who want to do music that don’t feel like they’re ready to get their music out or are too afraid?
Erin: For not being ready, I would say its okay to not be ready. Most of the world is not ready and you want to feel ready. It’s an expensive thing to do if you want to do it well and you want to do it right and it’s a lasting thing to do. You want to feel like you’re in a project, whether is a band or solo act or working with a certain producer, you want to feel like you’re putting your time and effort, your gift, your talent and your studies, and your money behind something that is worth your while. It is okay to not be ready. You make yourself ready. I had opportunities before this album with Larry, and there was always something that felt a little funny. I just wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted to put my name behind first. And I don’t regret those decisions. It felt frustrating at the time; I would think, ”maybe I should just do it.” Maybe it’s different for other people but that’s how it was for me. I wanted it to be really really good. Some people in my life have told me I take things too seriously and maybe that’s true. Maybe I take myself too seriously but it’s worked for me. To be a serious person and wait for good timing, I think that there is a lot of value in delayed gratification. Take your time, it’s okay.
As for being afraid, well that’s just something that a some point that you just need to choose that its what you want to do and get out there and do it. I’ve chosen not to do something that I didn’t want to do and I’m let myself down in different areas where I just decided, “nope I’m too scared to do it.” You don’t want to have those big regrets at the end. Or maybe you don’t care, maybe you don’t mind living with a little regret. I do. I have a few regrets in my life that I wish they weren’t there, that’s why they are regrets. At some point you just need to chose it, and if you need to go to counseling it’s totally find, [I’ve] been there and probably will be there again, or you just need to start small, like talking to people about it. Doing a small coffee house show and only inviting people you feel comfortable with. That’s fine! Do what you need to do. Or you need to jump in and do something crazy to get you started. Maybe something crazy to you is getting up a jam session, maybe crazy to you is signing up for a noon hour recital or something. Yeah! That’s pretty scary, but maybe you need to do that one crazy thing, fail and fall on your face, that’s okay. Or maybe you’ll be awesome. At some point you need to choose. It might be something small, it might be something crazy.
Ashley: What do you do when dealing with nerves before a performance?
Erin: Well what I want to do just not talk to anybody. People want to be all chatty and gabby with you and I’m just like, “get away.” I want to think of my music, go through the lyrics and go through a couple trouble spots that I’m particularly nervous about. I’ll go through five-or-so spots in my set, “this is the place where I could totally screw up and the song would fall apart” so I got over that part mentally. I started to try to do this thing called “positive visualization” where you imagine yourself going through your whole set flawlessly. Get all the bad stuff out of there and imagine yourself doing it flawlessly. I don’t like to talk to people, I’ll just do that alone.
Ashley: What is your favorite song to perform live?
Erin: For the past two years or so in Larry and my set, my favorite song to do it Waters of March. It’s not even an original it a standard by Antonio Carlos Jobim. (Click here to hear what it sounds like!) It’s normally done in Portuguese but I haven’t tried to learn the Portuguese yet. There are so many words in it but we do based on an arrangement based on Cassandra Wilson. I love her band, she always has a great band. Her arrangements are almost always really cool. The groove that Larry plays with it is really cool and it’s intense at the same time and it’s beautiful and its fun.
Ashley: How to do you balance music with other obligations?
Erin: I’m learning. Right now I’m in phase where I have a newborn at home so it’s all about her. That’s all. It’s more of a mental balance that I have to remind myself every couple of days that this is what I’m meant to do right now. These are the choices I have made, I love her and it needs to be done. There is just nothing else. So that’s where I’m at [right now]. What we are planning is, she’s getting used to using a bottle now and now I can get out for a few hours in the evening and my husband can help out. I have never been someone whose want to gig multiple times a week just because I love to be at home and I love my kids and I love my husband and I want to be there. It takes a lot of planning. My obligations are my family so it’s just planning to make sure a kid is comfortable, breastfeeding and on the bottle so I can do rehearsals a couple times a week, do some studio time, finding really great babysitters and I have really great family to help out with that; and emotionally tearing myself away from my family once or twice a week to write and practice. I’m going to have to do that. I’m not there yet because she’s so young, but I’ll have to get there in the next couple of months. Making the choice to keep writing and sacrificing a few hours a week with my babies. I have to do that.
Ashley: Do you feel that songwriters should have some sort of structured education for singing or do you think that as long as they are practicing everyday it’s okay?
Erin: I would really prefer to hear a voice that at least as the training over a voice that hasn’t.
Ashley: What do you hear when you listen to an untrained voice?
Erin: You can pick this stuff up when you have a good ear and listening to trained singers and figuring it out for yourself. You’ll hear a nasal tone, weird vowels and not that I don’t do weird vowels sometimes but there are some really weird vowels out there. You’ll hear people who really aren’t singing with their real voice yet because they don’t know how to breathe properly and it kills me. Not because that’s what I have to hear but that’s what they have to work with. They could be doing so much more. Just taking a couple lessons with somebody. I’ve had students that once they learn how to breathe properly, they sound completely different. Those kinds of things kind of drive me nuts. I think you can be a great singer without any formal training if you just have a good ear and are willing to get the best for yourself, then you’re going to reach out somehow. You’re going to figure it out somehow and that’s fine.
Ashley: What’s the best advice you’ve heard since you’ve started working in the music business?
Erin: The first thing that came to mind is not what you want to hear so let me thinking of something else
Ashley: No I want to hear!
Erin: Okay, I was at a music conference and Steve Bell was asked to play there. He’s a very well known Christian artist and he’s a great singer and guitar player. Every year he does a show with the WSO and it sells out. He’s won lots of awards and he’s from Winnipeg. This high school student stood up and asked “Mr. Bell, what would you say if I said I was interested in going into music, what advice would you give me?” And Steve said, “If there is anything else that you can do, you should do that.” He’s [meaning] instead of music. He’s talking as a person who is in his second half of life who has worked hard, I don’t know him personally but I imagine he works hard, to raise and support a family and he probably had things and lost things and had things and lost things and there is so much more stability in another career. You’d have to ask him specially why he said that but I found it very interesting and very honest. It makes you honestly look at yourself and what you want out of life. Do you want to buy a new blouse every week and go on a snowboard trip every winter and have a new car every 10 years or have a car? Do you want to not share an apartment with somebody? Do you want to not rely on sharing a rental space with someone? Then [music might not be] the route for you; you have to look at what kind of lifestyle you want and what expectations you have for your life.
The other best bit of advice or just statement that I heard was probably back in university and Steve Kirby said to someone in our class, “You don’t even know what your don’t know.” That has meant to a lot me. It’s meant a lot to me about humility, of not going into a situation assuming I know where everyone is coming from or that I know much about music at all. I have to assume that I can get something in any situation from other people that are positive things. That other people have wisdom to share from me. Instead of going and assuming that I’m the one who has the wisdom and that works everywhere in life.
Support Winnipeg Musician Erin Propp!
Instruments: Drums, Bass, Guitar, Keyboard, Voice (and some flute)
Genres: Danceable Lap Pop, LoFi Silly Songs, New Wave, Acid Jazz, Grunge and More
Joel Klaverkamp is the mastermind behind the varying styles of beefdonut. After a short and sweet introduction and interview, I could immediately tell he is a relaxed and laid back dude. His musical CV is all across the map when it comes to genres and musical styles so the best thing you can do it check out his soundcloud and hear them for yourself. I promise you won’t be disappointed!
Ashley: Can you tell me a bit about yourself?
Joel: I’ve played for a long time in the Winnipeg music scene. I played bass in Skingerbreadman and bass in The Hummers. I also played keyboard in Drums and Wires and I played guitar and everything with beefdonut which is sort of just me and my songwriting. I also play drums for people like A La Mode and Boats.
Ashley: So where did the name come from?
Joel: I worked at HMV a long time ago and I worked with a friend of mine who brought donuts from sears and they tasted like they were deep fried in oil that had deep fried beef so it had this disgusting flavor to it. We started calling them ‘beef donuts’ and later on I thought it would be a pretty good name so I took it.
Ashley: How often are you practicing your instruments?
Joel: The correct answer is not often enough, but it also ebbs and flows. Lately I’ve been practicing drums a lot more because A La Mode was preparing for Real Love summer fest and a show at the Handsome Daughter. It all depends on which gig is coming on. I am mostly practicing for shows three times a week.
Ashley: What is a practice or jam session like with the band?
Joel: It depends on the project, if its very collaborative it’s very magical. I try to respect that magic and allow it to happen and that’s one of the main reasons I play. If it’s not collaborative, if it’s someone else saying theses are the parts or if I’m saying these are the parts it tends to be not as magical and a bit more technical. You have to actually figure out their vision or you have to try to communicate your vision [to others] so it’s less just “letting it happen.”
Ashley: And with beefdonut, how do you perform your music? Do you do it solo or do you book musicians?
Joel: It depends, we played at Graffiti Gallery and it was a whole new line up. I got flute synth parts, electric guitar, backing vocals and percussion, synth and drums and it’s got a bigger band and dance focus. The last record I did was very grunge rock themed where there are very little dynamics. It was a four piece [set-up]. Before that I have done performances alone with laptops but I don’t really like that; I’ve also had guitar loops solo shows where I’ve had a guitar loop pedal and play. It can be whatever. I’ve also done a lot of recording for sound track work mostly for modern dance shows so a lot of the times I’ll be live mixing that while the show is going so the sections all match up with each other. It really depends.
Ashley: What is the most stressful part about being a musician?
Joel: I’m really easy going and relaxed in general so there really isn’t anything that stresses me out about music that I can think of. For me, that’s the fun part.
Ashley: Then who inspires your music?
Joel: That changes a lot. Currently I’m really inspired by Goat and Thee Oh Sees although if I had to pick, in the past I would have said Bjork or Prince. But now I would have to say James Murphy. The stuff he makes is just perfect in my mind. If you were to break it down into actual quantifiable metrics, thearrangement of the song, the tones of the instruments, the lyrics, the melodies and everything about what he does is matched in my DNA for music.
Ashley: So then what is your songwriting process?
Joel: I don’t have one. Nope, I just sit down and let them come out. I don’t think of them as coming from me.
Ashley: Is it what’s in the your head and you put it out there?
Joel: Yes the music will usually come to me, usually on the bus, and I’ll write down the words I’ll hear. I’ll try to keep the melody in my head until I’m near an instrument and try to figure it out. Usually by then it’s somewhat changed or I don’t get it exactly right.
Ashley: Would you say your music is more lyrically or melody based?
Joel: Oh definitely not lyrically based. Although a lot of times the music will start with one lyric or one phrase that comes into my head and it will have a melody attached to it already and I’ll just build on that.
Ashley: What accomplishments with beefdonut are you most proud of?
Joel: I recently won an award for ‘Best Music for a Short Film’ that was in a film festival. The film is called Alice and Kevin; it’s a really touching movie, really well done. It’s about a mom and her son and the son has I believe its cerebral palsy; basically he has special needs and she lives on a reserve with him and she’s not getting the same level of health care that she would get if she lived in the city. She’s filed a human rights claim and she’s just found out she has cancer and has a limited amount of time to live. She feels that if she’s gone then he’s not going to get the proper care to live without her. It’s a very powerful story and it’s true. It’s a documentary. I didn’t even know it was in festivals and I got a check in the mail and it said ‘Best Music’ from the Nanaimo Arts Council.
Although that said, that would be for beefdonut. For other projects I’ve been in, I’ve been doing [music] for a long time but playing at Folk Fest with The Hummers in 2007 was probably the highlights. We went on we were supposed to play for maybe an hour long set but we ended up playing from 3:00am to sunrise. There were just thousands and thousands of people, it was a lot of fun.
Ashley: What’s your favorite song to perform?
Joel: My favorite song to perform is Signs of Seasons. I also really like performing with Robo Jam; which is a band I play drums in. We have a lead vocalist/dancer and a keyboard player and we use prerecorded loops and a software that generates music and it’s a lot of fun. It’s very theatrical and we all dress up like robots. It’s a high-energy band and the crowd reaction is pretty good.
Ashley: How do you balance with your other obligations?
Joel: I don’t do anything else. I work and I have a family and I have music. I’ve never seen an episode of Breaking Bad and I miss out on all those pop culture references. I work with a lot of people who reference shows that I’ll never get around to watching. I probably won’t see anything until I’m 70 and I’m in my hospital bed and I have nothing else to do but watch them. Hopefully I’ll be mentally fit to understand them.
Ashley: Since you’ve started working with people, what’s the best advice you’ve heard since you started as a musician that has stuck with you and helped you with your music career?
Joel: [I would say] I try to be, as much as I can, a person in the music scene. The music community in Winnipeg is pretty wonderful and pretty open. Anyone can get in there, just start going to shows and you can start being [one of those people] that are part of the community. For me, I try to go to as many local shows as I can, listen to their stuff in the car and the Internet radio. For me everything it gears towards that. What I’m talk about is just support. I try to support the music scene as much as I can in confidence that it will be reciprocated. The people who come out to see me play are the people I go out and see play.
Support Winnipeg Musician beefdonut!
Genre(s): Indie Alternative Pop
Instrument(s): Bass Guitar, Guitar, Keyboard, Voice
Sandy from Indicator Indicator, originally from the band Quinzy, talks about the struggles of leaving one band and feeling the need to keep making music. He talks about the stresses of starting out and touring and talks about his decision to join the label Pipe and Hat. His was really interesting to listen to and I really enjoyed the way he understood each experience meant to him and what he took away from it all.
With me still not really used to meeting and interviewing band members, I was really nervous about meeting Sandy. I had heard great things about Indicator Indicator from a couple of my co-workers but hadn’t met them before the interview. I had volunteered at Sc Mira’s Album release on June 11 (which was an amazing show by the way) and got to see Indicator Indicator perform as one of the opening bands. They all had an excellent stage presence that really pumped the audience in a great way and the music was vivacious. You could really tell the crowd adored them.
Ashley: What started Indicator Indicator?
Sandy: Well, Quinzy was just starting to wind down a little bit. We spent a long time with Quinzy, doing the four-piece pop rock band thing, a little more mainstream. We spent a lot of years trucking away, swinging for the fences with labels, things like that, and it started to weigh us down a little bit. But we’re best friends - we didn’t want to stop, and so we just put it away for a little bit.
But I’ve got the sickness worse than anyone else, I think, so I just couldn’t stop. I write, and songs just kept coming. My first love, since I was 15 or 16, has been home recording. So I kind of wanted to get back to where I started, which was these home recording projects. Not even thinking about how you would play them live, or what the point of it was. Just to make music for the sake of making music. That’s what the first Indicator Indicator EP was. [It was] me playing at home on my computer, recording all of the instruments myself. A little labor of love.
Then it was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award and things were going really well with it, and I wanted to take things further. But I wanted to do something different from a 4-piece rock band because I had just done that, and was a little bored with it.
So, I recruited a friend of mine, Matthew Harder, and we did it as a duet, striving to make as much noise as possible. We couldn’t quite play these rich pop tunes with just the two of us so we did a lot of digital vocal harmonies and looping and a bit of electronic sequencing. And things like that that were totally out of our comfort zone because we were just musicians, not necessarily technology-oriented people.
In fact, Matt is a folk player - blue grass, primarily - so we really pushed ourselves outside of our comfort zone. We spent a couple years doing the two piece thing, and did a little touring - it was really cool and fun. Then as the next recording started to happen, it was getting bigger with more live drums and real bass guitar, and I was starting to inch back to making it a band. I took this long circular route back to a 4-piece band! But this time we’re using a lot less traditional electric guitar, more synth, more fake instruments and other stuff like that. Just blending organic with inorganic.
What I love about pop is that it’s like a mockingbird. These birds are known to grab all the other bird songs they hear and blend them into their own collage. It doesn’t care about genres, it will just take what it wants out of everything. So, if you like a hi-hat tone from this hip-hop song, grab it. If you like heavy synth, use that. It doesn’t have a lot of parameters, and I like that.
Ashley: Where does the name come from?
Sandy: It was a song title for about 10 years. I like song titles; I have notebooks full of them. For some reason its kind of where I start a lot of the time. So I had this song title that I really liked - I had read about a bird called the greater African honeyguide, the genus is “indicator” and the species is “indicator”. It somehow knows where honeycombs are trapped in trees, but can’t get to them, so it co-evolved with nearby tribes of humans, and would lead them to where the trees were and where the combs were trapped. The humans would crack them open and they would all get to share the honey.
I though it was the coolest nature story, plus I loved it as a name, but I could never find a song that was really good enough for [it]. Then when I was starting this new project I was like “oh good, I’ve got the perfect name waiting in the wing.”
Ashley: What is a practice session like with the whole band?
Sandy: I get to play with a lot of guys who have a lot of band experience, so we don’t have much patience for watching each other practice anymore. There are high expectations that everyone knows what they are doing, and so more we’re just tweaking and selecting who is playing what part, and making more “production” decisions than actually “can you play this guitar line”.
I tend to think with production in mind as I write, and maybe 1 in 10 songs I could just play on an acoustic guitar and have it make sense. I guess I could write more of those types of songs, but that’s not really where I lean. I like parts; I like having a bass line that’s distinctive to the song. When there are all these moving parts in a song and there are only four of you to play them, it’s more about who is doing what at what time, and making sure we’re representing the song correctly. If someone were coming in [and listening to this] cold, would they be able to understand it?
So it’s more about a “producer” mindset than “instrumentalist”. I don’t want just a guitar player, or just a drummer. I want people who can do whatever. And so we’re just four producers trying to make something cool.
Ashley: So when you are writing music, do you think of every part? How do you bring that to the band?
Sandy: Usually I record it all and then say, “here’s what we’re playing.” Although this is the first recording that the other guys are really deeply involved. We’re getting ready to release a mini-LP, (it’s a little bigger than an EP, so I’m calling it a mini-LP), and one of the songs is called No Anthem, which is the first single, and I had it fully produced [to sound] kind of cool. But when I brought it to the band it just wasn’t working. So it got deconstructed and became something totally different and now it’s very much a band arrangement.
But for the most part they come fully fleshed, though. I did that a lot with Quinzy too. As soon as I get into a song, I can’t really let it rest until it’s finished in my head.
Ashley: I can’t produce music.
Sandy: You should try, it’s easy.
Ashley: I have tried, it’s too hard for me.
Sandy: The world we live in, every low-entry Macbook has Garage Band; which is an amazing recording tool and let’s you multi-track as much as you want. You can dick around, and no one needs to hear it. You just chisel away at it. Sometimes you can be recording something, a full song even and the only thing you like about it is this little guitar part, so then take that and build around it.
I think it’s a great tool and it’s obviously revolutionized music. People are making laptop rock. People are making full music all on their own and they don’t know how to play a single instrument. It’s lusher and more innovative than any 4-piece folk rock band you’ll ever here, again because they’ve got no parameters.
Ashley: I guess I can give it a shot. So who inspires your music?
Sandy: Bands that mess around a lot in the studio. And people who can write songs. But that’s almost beside the point. Too me, it’s how can they make it interesting, different, cool. Subvert what may be a great melody. I find that stuff inspiring, and I’m often scared that I’m maybe not pushing myself enough to do that.
But also, modern pop. I love modern pop. With Tegan and Sara, when they just jumped straight into top 40 synth-pop recently… I thought that was a really cool move. And I know they took a lot of slack for it; but I think their songs are just so beautiful and air-tight, so unnatural-sounding, but so moving. It cannot be recreated. It’s an art onto itself. It’s unnatural. It’s an impressionistic painting or something. All kinds of pop nowadays, the amount of creativity involved is just staggering, the amount of love these engineers and producers are putting into it. Put headphones on and it’s a magical world, it’s great. And pop never gets credit for it. It’s seen as disposable, and maybe it is. The songs don’t actually “mean” anything, but they are staggeringly beautiful. Like that new Selena Gomez song; I mean, who likes Selena Gomez? But that song is so good when it comes on the radio.
We can’t do that modern pop thing, quite. I don’t have the skills, but maybe I would if I could.
Ashley: You mentioned a little earlier that you start with songwriting titles, but what exactly is your songwriting process?
Sandy: Sometimes titles. More often than not I’m sitting at the piano. It’s almost always at a piano. Once in awhile I’ll try to come from a more production-based place. I’ll get a really nice feel or beat or something like that and just improvise over it. I usually have email drafts of lyrics all over the place and when one melody comes out I’ll sort through the lyrics and see if anything goes with that; in terms of feel, or if it actually fits with the melody.
So it’s pretty rare that I just sit at the piano and pop something out all at once. Maybe a verse melody comes along, then I think about other chorus melodies I have laying around, and see if they fit. Look around at the lyrics I have, or see if there is a title I want to start with, and it slowly comes together.
But it can happen suddenly once in awhile. Our new record starts with a waltz called Instant to Instant, and that feels like the last time I just sat down at piano and was like, “Oh, here’s a song. Oh, and the lyrics came too, how nice!”. I walked away that afternoon feeling all good about myself. But it’s usually a more painful process than that.
I try to be really ruthless with songs. My personal belief is that everyone can write melodies. Everyone can. When we’re whistling in the street, when we’re singing in the shower. People are creative. Every single person. I think the craft of it, or the hard part, is in he editing. Knowing what’s good and what is not, and being able to cobble it into something that both makes sense on first listen, and yet is not quite what people would expect.
Ashley: With Indicator Indicator, what accomplishments are you most proud of?
Sandy: Little moments. Like back when it was just Matthew and I doing a two-piece, when we were in Toronto for a little festival - it was our first time on the road, and we were still working out a lot of kinks. (Actually we never really got through all the kinks, we kind of just moved on). But it was particularly tricky in that first little go, to the point where two thirds of the shows were miserable. This piece of gear broke, I didn’t do this right, this looped sucked.
We had one of those shows, and it was a showcase where we were supposed to be judged, and it was a terrible show. I was like “Oh my god, I’m too old to have terrible shows like this.” We went home, had a beer and kind of licked our wounds because we actually had another show that night. We did eight or nine shows in six days, I think. So we had to pack everything up again and go do another show and THAT one we crushed. The idea that we just got right back up and put the first one in the rear view mirror, and then got a win. It’s those tiny moments that I love and will never get tired of. Because it should always be hard, it should always be SO hard so when you get those little victories it feels so good.
It’s a double edged sword, I’m always kind of proud of the product, but I’m never satisfied with it, I’m never really happy with it. I like the records that I’ve made, I like the recordings, I like the recordings Quinzy made. But I don’t listen to them, I would never listen to them, I would only hear the things I would want to change now. Similarly, I look back at shows and see the banter that I didn’t like, or the missed notes. So, the details are almost always painful, but there is a more general pride simply in that I get to be in a band. It’s the coolest thing in the world and I still love it.
I love it as a concept, but every actual moment of it seems frustrating and hard and soul-sucking [laughs]. But it’s who I am and I have to do it.
Ashley: What is you favorite song to perform?
Sandy: I think it’s the song called Back into the fire. It’s the last song on the first EP, and in retrospect it touches on the time that Quinzy was going for major label deals, and we got kind of close, but all around us we could just see that this model we were chasing was dying. That it doesn’t work anymore. It’s all going to be totally different soon so when it ended, it felt like I was escaping a burning building. But then I realized “Nope, I’m going back in. Here we go.”
It’s a simple song that just felt kind of pure coming out, and the feel of it works with the lyrical vibe. And I feel it every time we play it, almost every single time. It’s a slow, boring ballad and maybe we shouldn’t be doing it all the time, but I love it and it’s important to me. It’s one of those rare victories that I don’t always feel in songs.
Ashley: How do you deal with nerves before performing?
Sandy: [Points to beer] For the record, I just pointed to my beer. [laughs] No, I generally don’t get too nervous. What’s funny is that I’ll usually have nerves the day before. Or even the day of, but as soon as I’m setting up, that’s where the experience comes in. “Oh I’ve done this before, I’ve done this a million times. I know this.” This process of getting ready, strapping on your guitar, checking on your gear, tapping on your mic, it just puts you in this zone like, “I know how to do this”.
I used to have worse nerves, and you just have to barge through it. There is no easy way around it. Really, you should always have some nerves. If it’s just dead to you, that’s not a good thing. You have to feel some kind of apprehension that it’s not going to work, that you’re always on the knife’s edge, and you have to accept it for what it is. Yet, you need to realize that the stakes are not that high. I mean, you cannot play the worst rock and rock show ever played. You can’t. And what’s so important to you won’t be that important to the audience. That’s sort of sad and sort of cynical, but it’s the truth. All you can do it make them feel that this is as important as it is to you. The worse case scenario is not that they’re going to hate it, it’s that they’re not going to care. If you can kind of realize that without letting it take away your steam, you can put it in a proper context. I mean, this isn’t Doctors without Borders. It’s standing there trying to entertain people, and it’s been done a million times before you and will be done a million times after you. So just do you’re best.
That’s no answer for you at all, I’m sorry.
Or, I guess the answer is doing it again and again and again because you have to. That’s the only way.
Ashley: What is the most stressful thing about touring?
“...it should always be hard, it should always be SO hard so when you get those little victories it feels so good.”
Sandy: Money. It’s expensive, and being away from home is hard. I have a two-year-old son and it’s not easy to be away and realize he’s growing up without you, and that life just goes on. I know a few musicians for who [touring is] their primary source of income, but it’s very rare. For the most part, even the most creatively successful musicians have another job somewhere. They have to. Which means you need to leave that behind when you tour, and if you have a family you need to leave them behind too. There’s just so much selfishness that it can feel pretty bad. So, when you come to a place and play for no one, you wonder “why am I leaving everyone for this?” Yet, if you want to be in a band you have to do it. It’s a sacrifice, but really it’s a selfish sacrifice. And if you think too much about it, that’s what makes it hard. So, you just need to not think so hard about it at the time, and be very careful in the touring that you choose to do, and make sure each trip is the right move. That it’s appropriate, and it’s worth the investments. You have to do it for a very good reason.
Ashley: How did you get signed to your label?
Sandy: When Indicator Indicator started, I knew I wanted to release as much as I could on my own. I’ve always liked the do-it-yourself approach. I’m a very hands-on kind of guy. I even ran our own promotion campaign for the first record because I wanted to see what it was like. And I just like learning and seeing all the different sides of the industry.
Anyway, I was really happy doing it all myself and seeing how far I could get, but cracks were starting to show and I was hitting some walls. I wasn’t doing a very good job over here, or the music was suffering over there. And there were just these walls you hit – some things you just can’t do on your own. It’s not a matter of will, it’s that you just can’t do it. I came to the realization that I should probably team up with someone to relieve some stress and get opportunities that I can’t get on my own.
So I reached out to Pipe & Hat just because I wanted someone local that I could talk with in person everyday if I wanted to, and I felt like they’re hungry. Like, they have these large ambitions so in a way I can unload that feeling a little bit. Let them feel the fire and hunger so I can focus a bit more on perfecting my own little world.
These guys seemed to fit the bill, so I reached out to them and we right away got along beautifully and formed a fast friendship. I’ve been really impressed with what they’ve done so far and the level of professionalism that they’ve brought. They’re challenging us to raise our game, and that pressure feels damn good.
Support Winnipeg Band Indicator Indicator!
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