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

iheartthemusic went to check out our old friends from The Johnstones when they played at the  El Mocambo during Canadian Music Week. These boys are known for their crazy onstage performances that often include some kind of costume and tons of energy. Although they often don’t disappoint,  this time it was the crowd that did. With so many shows going on that night, these boys appeared to be left in the dark. Nonetheless, they proved that you can always bring the party to the stage. At one point during their performance drummer Ryan Long was smashing away at his drum kit while simultaneously standing on top of it. If that were not enough, trombone player Julian Warme and trumpet player Renee Gillezeau decided to venture out into the crowd to play amongst those in attendance. One thing is for sure, you can always count on The Johnstones to get the crowd involved no matter how big (or small) it is.  Check out some of our live shots from the show:

If you are fans of The Johnstones then be sure to hit up Bovine Sex Club on Friday (March 27th) for Mean Tangerine’s CD release party where Ryan Long and Jarek Hardy will be performing their side project ironically titled Tall Guy Short Guy.

photography provided by Kristin McCormack

iheartthemusic  got the opportunity to sit and have a chat with a band that have been riding the reggae/rock circuit for quite some time. Rebel Emergency consists of Roddy (vocals), Geoff (guitar), Neil (bass) and Jeremy (drums). After persevering through tough times at the beginning of their career,  these guys have proved that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. With a new album in the works and tons of show dates to come we are sure that Rebel Emergency will be infiltrating your ears very soon.

 iheartthemusic: How did you guys form as a band?

Roddy: I started messing around in a basement with Neil, the bass player, and another dude named Adam, who is no longer in the band. We started out just for fun, writing bad songs and stuff, and I actually went to school with this guy right here [points to Geoff] and saw him play guitar a few times and he was awesome so I invited him to come jam with us. We hit it off and started a group from there.

iheartthemusic: The style of music that you play is quite unique, how did you decide on that?

Roddy: We actually had an opportunity to go and record in New York at a place called John Shop Studio. It’s a place where they record a lot of dance hall and reggae. At that time we were a little more of a rock band, so when we were down there we started to mess around with dance hall beats and a bit more of the reggae style. When we came back to Toronto and played a bit of that style, everyone loved it so we kind of just stuck with it. We grew up loving reggae though, so that sound has always been with us.

Geoff: We were in this environment [in New York] where everyone was creating a completely different style of music than what we were used to playing and so we just jumped on and decided to try it. It was just for fun at first, the same way that we started the band, but then it morphed into this rock/reggae thing and people started hearing it and saying that that is what we should be doing. At the time we were like, “really? That was just messing around.” But Roddy and I grew up in Scarborough around a lot of reggae music, that influence was huge in our high school and circle of friends, so I’ve always had a lot of reggae CDs at home and always loved it.

Roddy: Right after that we moved back to New York to do a full album because we only did a few songs the first time and ended up hanging out with a ton of Jamaicans. They were pretty much our whole circle of people while we were there so we eventually went to Jamaica and played a bunch of festivals and stuff.  It really got engrained in us more and more as we lived it.

 iheartthemusic: When you were in Jamaica, did being submersed in that whole culture influence your sound even more?

Geoff: After seeing the real deal over there, we tried our very best to hold that authenticity. Other bands come from a punk background and then they merge into ska and then maybe English beats, but we’ve tried to take what we experienced directly from the Jamaican culture and the Jamaican dance hall culture and infuse that style into our music. So we aren’t necessarily coming from a punk background but more of a straight rock, straight Jamaican, straight dub sound and have tried to uniquely put that into our music as it is. I mean, we love English music, and of course it’s going to come out in our sound, but our standard has always been to keep it authentic and true to the roots of music that we were engulfed in at the time when we were down there and in New York as well.

 iheartthemusic: Do you find it tough to promote yourselves with that genre of music, not being so mainstream?

Roddy: It’s tough but I think that reggae is such a likeable genre. I mean, you can’t really not like it because most of the time it’s just easy listening and a good vibe. It’s what you would listen to if you’re at a cottage or on a beach, it just adds to the good time.

Geoff: You didn’t answer her question at all [laughs].

Roddy: What was the question again?

iheartthemusic: [laughs] Where do you see rock/reggae music right now?

Roddy: I think there is definitely an audience for it and I think there’s room for more good rock reggae bands out there.

Geoff: The industry is very strange these days and I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

Roddy: There are a few good bands out there that have made it though like illScarlett and Bedouin Soundclash and they have been very successful doing it, also tons of bands in the States and overseas. There is a market for it, you just have to know how to present it and put yourself out there.

iheartthemusic: Speaking of illScarlett, you guys are opening for them tonight, who else have you been able to share the stage with?

Roddy: A lot of the big reggae artists like the Marley sons; Damian and Stephen.

Geoff: We played in LA with Ky-Mani and Rohan Marley as well. We also played Sumfest in Jamaica, which is a huge festival and that was jaw-dropping.

Roddy: Also Fantasia and T-Pain.

Geoff: Jadakiss and T-Pain a few times. In Jamaica they just throw all the international acts together. We’ve been really fortunate in the reggae genre of stuff.

Roddy: We did a song with Bounty Killer actually, which was really cool.

Geoff: We’ve played some great Canadian gigs as well. We played with The Trews and illScarlett was great, Down With Webster is also awesome, we love them. We are fans, I do listen to them.

iheartthemsic: You’ve also played with Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker (USS), who have a completely different sound to you guys. Does the genre or style of music of other acts ever come into play when you are booking shows?

Roddy: Not really, we are open to whatever. I like shows sometimes where there are different styles but they are both good bands. With USS it’s just a good night because you know they are going to be awesome so it makes you want to bring your game up too.

Geoff: We played one or two shows with them, just off the cuff, when we were both pretty small and when we played with them we kind of just looked at each other and were like, “you guys are fucking awesome,” and they were like, “no you are awesome.”

Roddy: It’s become more of a friendship with them. They are probably our best friends band wise.

Geoff: It’s weird because it just works. I know we are polar opposites when we play, but at the end [of the show] everybody is like, “that was amazing.”

Roddy: It’s the same with playing with Down With Webster. They bring so much energy and we feed off each other.

Geoff: I think it’s great when you have different genres that almost compliment each other because when you have the same sounding bands, after a while the sound starts to blend. When we play with USS they get on and sound nothing like what we just did and visa versa.

Roddy: It’s still the same energy though.

iheartthemusic: What can we expect from your stage performance then?

Roddy: Energy, passion and good looking dudes.

Geoff: Good looking dudes for sure.

Roddy: We come across best live because we really feed off the audience and we love it.

Geoff: We try to leave it all out there. We love to see a band that is basically falling over when they walk off stage so that’s what we try to do.

iheartthemusic: You must have some crazy stories from performing.

Roddy: There have been a few mishaps for sure. I fell off this [Sound Academy] stage a couple of times before because there was a gap between the speakers and the stage and I fell in the gap.

iheartthemusic: So did you just try to act all cool after that?

Roddy: Yah I did. I thought I broke my thumb actually. Neil, our bass player, has fallen off the stage before as well.

Geoff: Watch, something is going to happen to me tonight now.

 iheartthemusic: That’s always the way it goes, you are next I guess! Where has been your favourite place in Toronto to play?

Roddy: Sound Academy is probably up there. We have played here a few times. I also like Mod Club just because the vibe is great there and the lighting and stuff.

Geoff: We did a show at Kool Haus with 311 one time which was awesome too. It was a great venue.

Roddy: That was a wicked show. Horseshoe is always fun, it’s got that legendary thing going for it.

iheartthemusic: What crowd blew your mind?

Roddy: Montreal is always good. I think they have that European mentality in that they aren’t too cool to clap. They just have fun and they’ll clap along, sing along, and dance along to anything.

Geoff: We did a show in New York City which was a part of the Irie Jamboree Festival a few years ago, which is a huge festival. When we played that we just saw people as far as the eye could see. We only had about 20 minutes on stage, but just to see that many people was incredible. There were probably 10 to 15 thousand people there.

Roddy: That was our biggest show. Actually another band that we forgot about was Gogol Bordello who are from New York and are like a gypsy punk kind of band, but that’s probably the best live show I’ve ever seen. We got to tour with them a bit.

iheartthemusic: So you have a new album coming out soon, do you care to leak anything about that with us?

Roddy: Hopefully you can expect it out next month and we think it’s going to be called Love Ain’t Free. That’s one of the song titles from the album and also a theme we have going on that corresponds with the artwork as well.

Geoff: It’s a big leap forward for us as you might say.

iheartthemusic: Anything else you want to add?

Geoff: I’ve had a wonderful time. This is the highlight of my day so far.

If you missed out on their show during CMW then don’t worry, these boys are back THIS Friday (March 27th) at the Sound Academy to rock the house and surf the crowd. Check out their MySpace for dates and show information!

Photography provided by Matt Vardy

Celebrating their 14^th Anniversary, Stomp Records put on an electrifying show at The Opera House on Saturday night (February 14th) featuring The Creepshow, The Snips and headliners, The Planet Smashers. For those of you who haven’t heard of The Planet Smashers shame on you – these guys are veterans in the industry having been around since the early 90’s and toured all over the world. Originating in Montreal, Quebec, this ska punk band consists of Matt Collyer (guitar/lead vocals), Neil “Lonestar” Johnson (saxophone), Andrew Lattoni (trombone), Dave Cooper (bass) and Fred Benton (drums) and together are the most-toured ska band in this country. I was lucky enough to catch Matt Collyer (who also happens to be the founder of Stomp Records) in between shows and we talked music, Stomp and how Planet Smashers came up with their unique name.

iheartthemusic: I wanted to start off by wishing you a happy anniversary!

Matt: Oh thank you that’s very nice! Yah it’s been 14 years and still going strong, so it’s been a good run.

iheartthemusic: So this anniversary kind of coincides with the band’s anniversary too, right?

Matt: It kind of does, I mean The Planet Smashers are more like 14-and-a-half right now – our real anniversary for is in October if you want to get technical.

iheartthemusic: How did you guys come up with the name for your band?

Matt: It’s a good story, basically we were stoned in October of whenever that was that we started the band, and really drunk and people were shooting names around and one guy, probably the drunkest, was talking gibberish and was like “oh, eh, spaceships and smashing planets” and we were like “oh that’s a great idea.” So that’s how it happened.

iheartthemusic: Well thank you drunken slang! You guys have had quite a few members come and go since the beginning, has this affected the band at all?

Matt: This is actually the longest running line-up we’ve ever had. It’s been like this for five years now. It’s been hardest to keep the horn players. Normally our horn players are professional, good musicians and they have other things that they want to do so they are the hardest to keep, I find. We’ve always had good turnouts though and we get along and everyone knows us. That’s what The Planet Smashers are: a good time band. We aren’t here to save the world or anything so as long as we keep that in mind everything is fine in smasher world.

iheartthemusic: So being someone who has never been to a Smasher show, what can I expect to get out of it?

Matt: Drink a lot of water because you are going to need it! You are going to be dehydrated and we’re just going to party and dance a lot. Enjoy it, have fun and it’s not a lot of moshing, it’s more dancing but there is a pit. It’s not like a punk rock show, people want to have fun, dance and get pretty loaded. It’s high-energy and we’re just going to try and play a fun set.

iheartthemusic: You’ve been fortunate to be able to be recognized internationally and toured all over the world. What has been your favourite moment while touring?

Matt: It’s hard to say because we’ve done a lot. If I had to choose between going to Moscow and going to Japan, I don’t think I could. It’s hard to judge which one was better because they are both so different. Concert wise we just played in Montreal and there were 22,000 people there. I was blown away, I was like this is ridiculous, so intense. That was the biggest show we had ever played and it was a real kick.

iheartthemusic: You’ve also been able to share the stage with some heavy hitters in the ska scene, any favourites?

Matt: Actually, a lot of our favourite bands that we’ve toured with are smaller and more unknown. In the world of ska I loved Mustard Plug who we toured with and who are such good guys. Back in the day we toured with The Flashlights who we played with a lot and were fun. There are lots of smaller bands that we also get a long with very well – Billy Talent, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – tons of great bands.

iheartthemusic: Any crazy fan moments that you care to share with us?

Matt: There isn’t one that beats them all because every show is different; something hilarious happens all the time. Most recently, though, was last night there was this girl who had a crush on our trombone player and was pretty much chasing him around on stage. It was very funny because he was like “get off, I’m married leave me alone!” Stuff like that comes up all the time, I could go on forever.

iheartthemusic: Where do you see the whole state of ska music right now?

Matt: Ska is going to remain a subculture for another good 10 years or something so right now I would say it’s pretty healthy. There’s always a good support for it within the subculture, you know. There are tons of different takes on ska styles, like the whole reggae thing, similar to what One Night Band are doing, is definitely a little bit more,  I don’t know what you want to call it, it’s more marketable. Ska punk is definitely up and down right now. We’ll see more scenes of ’ska this’ and ’ska that’ over the years.

iheartthemusic: What does the future hold for The Planet Smashers?

Matt: Some more touring, we just started again so this is the first little bit we’ve done. We did Warped Tour last summer and there is always talk of what we are going to do next. We’re going to write some songs and discuss – if they suck we will throw them in the garbage can.

iheartthemusic: So after having now officially been to a smasher show, I have to say it was well worth it. The crowd was intense, but intense in a good way and everyone seemed to know the words to all the songs. Having been the only non-tattooed person at the venue, I definitely stuck out. As soon as they hit the stage I got lost in the shuffle and heavy dancing that accompanied each new song. Matt was right, water was definitely needed! I am now a true fan and will be sure to check them out when they hit up the T.dot again!

www.myspace.com/theplanetsmashers

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