I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

Tis the season for giving- well at least it almost is and in the world of music, that is no exception. Fucked Up are one such band who are doing their part this holiday season by raising awareness for a group that often go unnoticed in the media. Following their Polaris Music Prize win, the band, which consists of Damian Abraham (vocals), Jonah Falco (drums), Mike Haliechuk (lead guitar), Sandy Miranda (bass guitar), Josh Zucker (rhythm guitar) and Ben Cook (backing vocals), have decided to put together a benefit single to help support the Aboriginal community out west. iheartthemusic spoke with Damian before their Polaris win where he explained what we can expect from what will definitely be in our stockings this Christmas.

iheartthemusic: First off I have to say that I love your shoes!

Damian: Well thank you, I designed them myself!

iheartthemusic: No way! Well I can see that you really dressed for the occasion! [laughs]

Damian: I was like what is the dress code? And they were like “casual” and I guess we all have different definitions of casual. But yeah, I designed these myself and they even say “drug free” on the side! [shows me the letters spelling out "drug free"]

iheartthemusic: Well at least the kids out there will get the message! So I believe a double congratulations is in order-one for tonight and one for the baby!

Damian: Well thank you, he’s here actually! The baby is downstairs right now. I brought him for the “sympathy” vote! I am going to go by the jury room and hold up my son and be like he’s hungry, you have to pick me!

iheartthemusic: [laughs] So where were you guys when you found out you had made the shortlist?

Damian: We were in Croatia actually. It was a great experience. It’s crazy because that’s why we missed the press conference, because we were literally crossing the border into Croatia. It was really bizarre because we were all like celebrating and all the Croatian people were like “what’s a Polaris?” and we were like “it’s a Canadian award, you wouldn’t understand”! [laughs]

iheartthemusic: What does it mean to you as musicians to make the shortlist?

Damian: I think it is validation of a record that you made. I’m not saying that I agree with all the choices. I think that there are great records that weren’t on there, but it seems that everyone that has won so far, have been real artistic achievements in Canadian music and I think being among that elite group is really flattering.

iheartthemusic: Absolutely. I mean you guys are kind of considered the “rebels” amongst all the nominees.

Damian: Yeah, we are the only band to get frisked coming in and out of here. 

iheartthemusic: Well I can somewhat understand where they are coming from based on what you did last time you were here! [at the Masonic Temple]

Damian: I know! I don’t blame them and I’m not trying to be like “poor us” because you reap what you sew but at the same time it is funny to see other bands walk by while you just stand there and get patted down. I made sure they didn’t frisk the baby![laughs] All I could get were some cigarettes in.

iheartthemusic: Where is the rest of the group?

Damian: We don’t really talk! [laughs] I’m the chatter box, everyone else in the band is downstairs or probably eating dinner somewhere. I am the one who has to…

iheartthemusic: You are the face!

Damian: I’ve got the look!

iheartthemusic: You mentioned earlier that you were surprised that a few albums didn’t make it into the list. What albums would you have included?

Damian: I thought that Japandroids Post Nothing was going to make it in there and Bison B.C. could have been in there. Also Women, I was surprised they didn’t make it.  Even more than that there are a lot of  hardcore bands, punk bands and metal bands that have never made it in years past. All these great bands that are kind of underrecognized and its funny because you go over to Europe and there are kids wearing these band’s shirts coming to your show and you are like ” that’s so weird because noone in Canada knows about them”. It’s always been like that in Canada so if anything our nomination, I hope that means that more records like ours are going to make it. I mean we are on an indie label, we are indie dressers, maybe we will open the door for a little more of an aggressive look and sound.

iheartthemusic: What will you do with the prize money?

Damian: I would love to take everyone out for dinner that made this album possible. Like all of the people that guested on it and came on, that we thanked obviously, but we never had a formal celebration for what they had done. I’d love to do that. We are putting on a benefit single for Christmas time and we are going to donate all the money to an Aboriginal Youth Charity in Canada. So we are getting all these guests to go on it and so I think we are going to pay for that. Right now, I don’t think you have heard about the Highway of Tears, but there are tons of Aboriginal women who go missing every year in Canada that are not reported and are just totally ignored by the media. The Pickton case is really interesting because when they reported that in the press, they never really talked about the fact that a lot of those women were Aboriginal women. They are marginalized in these situations, so there is a racial issue to this violence and I think that is so important. If anything else we have a lot of people on this record that are going to surprise people that hopefully can raise more awareness.

photography provided by Sara Collaton

Sunday, traditionally the day of rest, but there is no rest of the wicked during NXNE. Fantastic photographer Joyce and I managed to hang in there for one last night of musical merriment.

First stop of the night was the Rivoli for Rueben deGroot. Don’t let this cowboy-hatted hottie fool you, he ain’t just country. DeRoot infused his tines with elements of folk and jazz to create music that most country nay Sayers could enjoy. In fact, this Kingstonian supposedly likes to describe his sound as “swamp-swing”, a name I quite enjoy and think expresses the sense of toe-tapping fun. If this sounds like this might be your cup of tea (or your looking for a way to transition into liking country), check out deGroot when he returns to Toronto on July 24 to play at the TRANZAC.

Next up at the Rivoli were The Gertrudes. And goodness gracious they were ginormous! In fact, they barely all fit on stage. I couldn’t count them all, but according to their MySpace there are a dozen. It wasn’t just the magnitude of the members, but the instruments they trucked up with them that was interesting. In addition to the usual suspects (like guitbox, sticks and violining) I spotted a banjo (or banjer), accordion (squeeze box), and ukulele (ukalucas). When The Gertrudes initially took to the stage the sounds that emanated were not at all what I was expecting. I had in my head barn dancin’, foot stompin’ hootenanny fair. Instead it was atmospheric indie folk. Very cool. Then, as the set progressed, more of that country-dance vibe I was expecting filtered in. There was a real sense of fun as the large familia seemed to enjoy the show as much as their audience.

Joyce and I then took leave of the Rivoli to venture up to the El Mocambo for what we expected to be Oh No Not Stereo, a pop rock band from Hollywood. However, that was not what we got. Not even close. Instead we walked into The Hank and Lily Show. How to describe the experience that was Hank and Lily? I think goth rock would best describe the genre. I believe the name of the song which we walked in on was aptly titled “Don’t Be Afraid”… and we tried not to be even though it sounded like the soundtrack to a B straight to video slasher flick, which was appropriate considering the costumes. The woman I assume to be Lily was a blonde wearing horn-like antlers who played the saw while the man I assume to be Hank looked like he fell out of a dark western remake of My Bloody Valentine. However, there was a positive note among all the shrieking ones, they had a song about David Hasselhoff, and I do love the Hoffmeister!

With the ringing still in our ears from Hank and Lily’s piercing wails, Joyce and I jumped over to Rancho Relaxo where our auditory vessels were comforted by the sweet sounds of Dan Griffin. Not only was the change of decibel refreshing, but so was seeing the simplicity of an acoustic set. It was interesting because earlier in the evening Joyce and I discussed what a rarity is seems to see a solo show these days when there seem to be so many massive groups a la Broken Social Scene and the like. But I digress and return to the musician at hand, Dan Griffin. He had a smooth and mesmerizing voice that was super easy to listen to and sang lyrics you could not only hear but really listen to. There was once exception and that was when he struggled through the Tokyo Police Club cover “Nature of the Experience.” However, he was humble about the stumble and was ultimately saved by stage manager Cam and his handy iPhone (and if you want to hear him get through the song without any trouble check out his MySpace).

Concluding the 2009 NXNE experience for Joyce and myself was the Toronto-based band bellewoods. A full sounding indie rock band that infused folk and had soul. There was a nice robustness to their music and I enjoyed that it was occasionally accented with church organ sound. The lead singer has a great voice and if you followed it on some of the slower tracks you felt like you could fall right into the song (…or perhaps that was the fatigue… or beer…). Despite it being a Sunday night after almost a week of music and extended last calls there was quite a crowd drawn out to see bellewoods, and rightly so. They had a good solid sound and clearly have potential.

And that was that. Another year, another group of musicians to add to the roster to follow and another NXNE in the bag.

Words by Emer Schlosser

Photographs by Joyce Wong

Cancer Bats need no introduction. Originating in 2004 with Liam (vocals) and Scott (guitar), these guys have since toured all over the world, shared the stage with the likes of Alexisonfire  and even won some awards in between. Their debut album, Birthing the Giant, was met with huge acclaim and now with the release of their second album, Hail Destroyer, there appears to be no stopping these guys! iheartthemusic caught up with Liam while he was in Toronto for the Rockstar Taste of Chaos Tour and asked him how he felt about being the only Canadian band on the tour.

iheartthemusic: So how’s the tour going so far?

Liam: I really just want it to be over. I mean, we played two and a half months of tour and we finally get to our hometown only to have to leave the next morning? Boo! Although, Montreal is going to rip! The last time we played there it was crazy.

iheartthemusic: Really? A good fan base there then?

Liam: Montreal is a tough city. We started the band when I was living there, actually. Originally the band wasn’t supposed to be full time at all because Scott was playing in another band and I was obviously living in Montreal, so we thought that there was no way that we were going to make it happen. Then the band started to do really well, so I was taking the bus and the train to Toronto every weekend. The good thing was that it didn’t deteriorate my pocketbook since Scott was working for VIA at the time, but it did deteriorate my relationship. In the end my girlfriend broke up with me because she hated the fact that my band was so important to me. Fast forward to now, and my band rules and I have a girlfriend who is amazing!

iheartthemusic:  Well it sucks to be the ex-girlfriend then! Being the only Canadian boys on this tour, what was the response like in the U.S.?

Liam: There were definitely a lot of kids who had never heard of us before, or maybe just listened to our MySpace, so in a way we took on every night trying to impress people and really put the word out.

iheartthemusic: When you returned to Canada it must have felt like a huge homecoming then?

Liam: It was so wicked because we were getting hometown response in every city, so for us it was really nice to even just show the other dudes on the tour that our band is worth something. We also did a bunch of off-dates too, like Thunder Bay a few nights ago, that weren’t part of the tour. So for those dudes to see us in the smaller towns and still have a good following, I’m just like, “ya, we own Canada”. It’s wicked because it makes all that hard work that we put into it worthwhile so I’m stoked.

iheartthemusic: Having toured quite a bit, what place has surprised you the most?

Liam: I will say that the craziest thing that happened was on our last tour, we went to Helsinki, which we had never been to. You have to take a 10 hour ferry to get there and we show up and it ended up being the best show of our tour.

iheartthemusic: Why was that?

Liam: Kids knew the words to the songs and were super psyched that we were playing and didn’t even care about the headliner. They bought tons of merch too, so all over the place it was a great show.

iheartthemusic: How did you decide on your style of music?

Liam: When we were starting the band we were really into a lot of rock, hardcore stuff. So there were a lot of bands that were doing this kind of thing at the time. It wasn’t like I wanted to copy those bands, but I was getting really excited about that style. We were seeing all these bands doing the hardcore thing, but none of it was done in a way that we wanted to have it. So we had all these ideas for our band to begin with and then we started jamming and it worked and it went from there.

iheartthemusic: You have mentioned before that from your first album to the one you recently released, you have matured a lot. Care to elaborate on that?

Liam: I think from touring so much everyone had really stepped up their game. Also, the fact that we were playing with so many amazing bands and were looking at these dudes thinking that we wanted to play just as good as or better then that. I mean, all across the board, Mikey, Scott and I had that same vibe without even talking about it. I wanted to step up with my vocals, not only just singing, but writing-wise too. So all of us were super excited to prove what we could really do it, which I don’t think we had done with the first album.

iheartthemusic: Well, the first record definitely garnered a lot of attention and you ended up winning two awards: one at the Indies and another at the MMVAs!

Liam: That’s the thing. I don’t discredit that album at all. I think there are some really great songs on it and am psyched on how it turned out, but I think if we were to rerecord that record now I would probably be a lot happier with how it sounds. I know that there were parts on that record where I couldn’t yell as loud as I wanted to or even when we got George [Alexisonfire] to come in and do “Pneumonia Hawk” he blew me away! So he dominated and I was just like, “fuck me, really dude”. I love him and was so psyched and if anything that really made me want to step up even to the point where we are finishing our record and I already want to get better. I’m stoked now because I feel like I can hold my own as singer against those dudes.

iheartthemusic: So was there any reasoning behind getting all these guest spots on your album?

Liam: They had been such a big part of our band. Obviously the Alexisonfire guys have helped us out so much in terms of where we are now by just always throwing us a bone. They took us on tour for three months when Birthing the Giant came out. At the same time you want to have your friends come along and be a part of it because you are excited.

iheartthemusic: Do you feel that there is a sense of community amongst bands?

Liam: I would in Southern Ontario for sure, but also more so in Canada in general. There aren’t a lot of full-time bands in Canada so everyone wants to help each other out as much as possible. It’s tough everywhere right now. I mean, we benefited from the help we got from other people so we want to help out the friends that are doing the same thing or want to be a serious band.

iheartthemusic: With this  new record Hail Destroyer, you mention that you were writing about a lot of personal things, so did that make it easier for you to write?

Liam: To realize that when you write something intensely personal how much other people realate to it is incredible. So many people have come up to me and been like, “that song ‘Regret’ means so much to me”. That’s a really intensely personal experience that I had, so the fact that all these other people had a similar thing is cool.

iheartthemusic: There seems to be a lot of death associations in the lyrics and song titles, is this indicative of the style of music you play?

Liam: I think there is going to be a lot of darker aspects and that is something that I am definitely stoked on. Thinking about it, I wonder if that is something that always goes along with it. Like look at the fact that a lot of punk rock kids skateboard, it’s just like something that happens to go along with it. I think that that’s just a part of the genre that you just classically write about without getting cliché or hung up on it. I do realize that I’m guilty of it as well.

iheartthemusic: So what’s up next for you guys?

Liam: We are going to write our new record this summer because, basically, once we get finished touring we are going to come home and write it for the next few months and put it out sooner than later and then keep touring.

photography provided by Patrick Moore