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

Meet The Zolas: a two-piece hark-back-to-70s Rush-esque prog-pop-rock band with a modern, more theatrical twist. The problem? There are a few.

The duo released their highly anticipated debut album, Tic Toc Tic just a month ago, and I’m already bored. At first listen, there was intrigue, but that quickly faded as I realized these guys aren’t as innovative or inspiring as I hoped them to be. The band take steps beyond pop music, but they aren’t quite over the hurdle – The Zolas seem to linger in this middle kingdom between straightforward pop and progressive, but their trendy cabaret-influenced experimental rock album sounds way cooler as a description than it actually is.

As far as pop music goes, these guys have some things to boast: catchy melodies, some interesting hooks, good drum patterns (the drumming is their strong-point), and the overall composition is cool. The instrumentals do elevate the band above your typical pop sound and they certainly carry the music, but the defeat lies within the vocals. Zach Gray’s voice is too standard, too overbearing, and his lyrics provide little to no redemption. Yes, he has the range, but his vocal placement and style just doesn’t jive with the musical counterparts.

Tic Toc Tic sounds like a Cold War Kids/Rush/Gavin DeGraw theatrical hybrid; however, the album has neither the edge nor the tightness of CWK, the musical depth of Rush, and Gavin DeGraw sucks pop. But what’s most interesting about The Zolas is their evident potential.  Zach Gray and Tom Dobrzanski clearly have skill and talent. The instrumentals approach unusual complexity and unconventionality for pop music, but the band doesn’t seem to want to go that extra experimental mile with it. Instead they’ve chosen to plateau at this thinly veiled nuanced interpretation of pop. Sure, The Zolas’ structure departs somewhat from the boring verse-chorus-verse template, and they’ve successfully created some sort of off-broadway-meets cabaret-meets radio-savvy music , but I can’t help but think that their sound is more contrived and vapid than natural or inventive. Yeah it’s fun, fluffy music, but where’s the spirit?

Even with the ability to compose and play music well, talent ultimately depends on the quality of expression and how far the bar has been raised. Again, the potential to go beyond stagy, predictable music is so strong in this album you can hear it, so I don’t know why they wouldn’t use their wherewithal to swerve off the road to commercial and do something greater…or at least use another vocalist.

Reviewed by Brittany Smith

With two Juno nods under their belt, the guys from The Midway State have little to complain about these days. Having already toured with the likes of Shiny Toy Guns and others, including tours in both the US and Europe, it appears that there is no stopping them. They released their debut full length album Holes in July of last year and have been touring and promoting since (and getting amazing feedback in the process). They are currently on a cross-Canada tour with rock group The Envy, however as lead singer and all around great guy Nathan Ferraro told us, home is where the heart is and that home is right here in Toronto.

iheartthemusic: You have an interesting dynamic with your band because yourself and Daenen (drums) were best friends before the band started, and Mike K. and Mike W. were best friends as well, that must have made it easier to become a unit.

Nathan: It’s like a double date!

iheartthemusic: [laughs] You moved from Collingwood to Toronto to pursue music exclusively, was that a tough choice to make?

Nathan: Right out of high school a producer named Gavin Brown called me up and he said, “Nathan I got a demo of yours and I like what you are doing and I really want to work with you.” I was very excited and as soon as I graduated I canceled my plans to go to university and moved down to Toronto and started living with a friend of mine and working with Gavin.  We found Mike and Mike after that and it went from there.

iheartthemusic: How did Gavin Brown get your demo to begin with?

Nathan: A guy who is here tonight actually, who is the heart of our band named Jason Kimelman saw me and Daenen play in a bar when we were 17 in Toronto and just kept in touch with us. He had mutual friends and knew Gavin Brown and gave our demo to him.

iheartthemusic: That is pretty much fate right there!

Nathan: Exactly, and Jason went from discovering us to letting me move in with him and his fiancée when I moved out here. He also fed me and took care of me. He is a pretty amazing guy.

iheartthemusic: That’s so awesome! Well he must have seen the talent that still exists today as you were recently nominated for a Juno for your songwriting. You mentioned in an earlier interview that one of your dreams was to be recognized for your writing, so how did it feel to finally have that dream come true?

Nathan: It was absolutely insane! We were about to get on a plane and Daenen called me and he was really excited and told me. It was one of those things that actually meant something because since I’ve been 14 I’ve dreamed of being there for that award, so it was cool.

iheartthemusic: Your lyrics seem to be very love oriented. Do you draw from personal experience when you are writing?

Nathan: I’ve definitely been through my share of things but I just think that there is so much good in love and romance. It’s something that is so inspiring for me and I think really just rules everything. I want to tell people that it’s going to be OK – whether you are 10 or f40 or 50, whatever is going on in your life I want people to listen or come to our show and get filled up with that feeling that everything is going to be OK. That inspires me a lot, and so that’s what I like to write about.

iheartthemusic: This is your second tour with The Envy, what made you want to tour with them again?

Nathan: Shaun, the lead singer, is a great friend of mine now because we can relate on so many levels. I wrote a bunch of songs on their new record so we spent a lot of time together during that period. They are just an amazing band and amazing guys so we love to have them around.

iheartthemusic: How was it working with Stevo from Sum41 on your video for “Change For You”?

Nathan: Steve’s great! I grew up knowing him as the funny character from Sum41, but working with him you find out that he is very serious, very professional and very creative and artistic. It just meshed very well.

iheartthemusic: How did you come up with the concept for that video?

Nathan: Well, we didn’t have a lot of money to shoot the video so we had to come up with something that didn’t involve a lot of different settings. We still wanted something to move, so we thought wouldn’t it be amazing if we could make it look like magic where when you zoom in everything changes behind me, and when you zoom back out I’m in a different place. With music and videos it’s more about the feeling, the colours, and the vibe of it, that’s what you’re trying to get across. With music videos I want people to see what they are feeling, so it has a lot to do with the cinematography and the colouring and stuff like that.

iheartthemusic: Speaking of colours, I read somewhere that you hear colours and see music?

Nathan: It’s a thing called synesthesia. Whether it’s like a car engine or water running or one of our songs, I’ve always felt like my brain connects the sound to a colour. I’ve always kind of done that and I don’t know why. I would always talk to Daenen about it and he would be like, “oh cool, whatever”. None of us knew what it was and then one day Daenen heard of it and learned about it from his family doctor or something and was like, “oh my god Nate has that”, and we looked it up.

iheartthemusic: That’s amazing! I have two siblings and sometimes have a hard time with them, so I can’t imagine having eight siblings like you! Are any of them musically inclined as well?

Nathan: Yeah I have two little brothers, Dominic and Christian, and they are both incredible songwriters.

iheartthemusic: Well your parents must be very proud to have three songwriters in the family!

Nathan: I hope so!

iheartthemusic: You have been able to share the stage with some heavy hitters in the industry, who has been your favourite and why?

Nathan: I really like Jason from Lifehouse, we got along really well and now we are just good friends. He was a great guy to look up to and I learned a lot from him. Mika taught me a lot as well. He had a lot of really great advice. You can’t really get better advice than from the singers of other bands; they are the ones who know what it is like. Record labels and managers can give you ideas of what they think you need to do, but really it has to come from within. The only other people who know that are singers.

iheartthemusic: Favourite spot that you have toured?

Nathan: I love the countryside of France.

iheartthemusic: What was the response like there?

Nathan: Awesome! Our record is coming out in Europe in the next few months, in the summer or something, so I am really excited to get back there and get to those people again.

iheartthemusic: Are you aspiring to tour anywhere you haven’t been yet?

Nathan: I would love to go to Australia, I’ve never been there. Asia as well. I enjoy touring the American South a lot. I think it’s a great culture, I love the people down there because the people have really big hearts so I enjoy it a lot.

iheartthemusic: How about in Canada?

Nathan: I’m bias but I love Toronto. I’m always so happy to come home, I love this city.

iheartthemusic: Where in Toronto have you played that you loved?

Nathan: We played a show at Tattoo recently which was fun. I love The Phoenix and Koolhaus was cool, but mostly because I grew up going to shows there. I saw all my favourite bands play there so being on that stage is weird.

iheartthemusic: Favourite venue in Toronto to go see a show?

Nathan: I actually love this venue [Mod Club]. Have you ever heard of Jeremy Fisher?

iheartthemusic: No I haven’t.

Nathan: I came here a few weeks ago to see him and it always sounds amazing and is just small enough to feel connected. I don’t really like to go and see bands at places like the ACC, although I love bands like Coldplay and Kings of Leon where you have to go there for that.

iheartthemusic: What’s up next for you?

Nathan: The European release and then touring there. Whenever we are not on the road we are working on new songs just because we have a bit of time  so when the second record comes we aren’t scrambling.

iheartthemusic: You did some reporting for CHARTattack, so having been on both sides of the interview, is there anything that you wish you could ask yourself?

Nathan: I always just tried to keep the questions honest and asked what I wanted to know. Like when I was interviewing Simple Plan, I was thinking about when that song “Your Love Is A Lie” came on the radio because I remember thinking it was so catchy and different for them; I was always wondering what inspired that, so when I was interviewing them I asked them about that.

iheartthemusic: So there is nothing that you want to be asked?

Nathan: I don’t want to be asked about my hair, for one thing.

iheartthemusic: Well there goes my next question… I’m just kidding!

photography provided by Matt Vardy

The members of Gentlemen Husbands are as lovely as their name suggests. Don’t be fooled by their country sound, these guys know how to rock! iheartthemusic caught up with Derrick Ballard (vocals/guitar), Ryan Hutcheson (guitar), Jed Atkinson (bass) and Dan Farrell (drums) after a wicked set at The Horseshoe Tavern, where they brought their small town flavour and big time sound to centre stage. Whatever qualms you have with country music, or the country/rock combo, set them aside and start picking up what they’re throwing down.

iheartthemusic: I understand that your favourite Toronto venue is The Horseshoe. Since we’re here, what is it about this place that you love?

Derek: The Horseshoe definitely is amazing. It’s got an awesome reputation and it’s got good turnouts and an amazing sound.

iheartthemusic: I read that when you guys first started you wanted to appeal to the CMT crowd.

Jed: I think it was a misunderstanding because I didn’t want to.

Ryan: Everyone else in the band did except for him [Jed].

iheartthemusic: So how did you find this particular sound?

Jed: It was sort of a huge learning curve for us. It took almost a year and a half to get where we are now, mainly because it’s totally different to what we’re all used to playing.

Ryan: We had a really slow, slow start. We had a bunch of back and forths until we finally got going. We’ve been playing shows for just over a year now and as of January 1^st, we became a four-piece. So we had a fifth member for that whole time, his last show with us was New Year’s Eve.

iheartthemusic: That tends to happen in the music industry unfortunately. So this is your first venture as a four piece, how does it differ?

Dan: It’s substantially different. If you heard the country song, the slow one, that’s old. The last three songs we played were pretty new, so you can hear the evolution.

iheartthemusic: Tell me a bit about this new three song EP you are working on.

Ryan: It’s not done yet. The songs up on our MySpace are from our six song EP that we have no more copies of. The three song are supposed to be finished now, but they’re not. Jason Martin, who did the new Cold War Kids album, is mixing it for us.

iheartthemusic: When can people expect to be able to get a copy?

Ryan: It was supposed to be mid-March, then it switched to mid-April, and now we’re saying mid-May. It’s done, but we’re just adding some finishing touches and getting it mixed.

iheartthemusic: Can I ask about your band name?

Derek: It was just two words at first; I just kinda thought “gentlemen”, “husbands”. These guys didn’t really care much about names and I didn’t really care much. They all kinda sound stupid.

Jed: I think it was the punchline to a really racy joke Derek told us and we decided to go with that. It later wound up that it kinda suited Derek’s lifestyle.

Dan: It means something too.

Derek: Yeah I Googled it one time, and I’ve never been able to find this again, but it said it meant a farm father or a family man.

Ryan: Gentleman Husbandry.

Derek: Yeah, it’s like a lifestyle.

iheartthemusic: So not only does your name tell a story, but so do your songs. What’s the writing process like?

Ryan: He [Derek] used to be the main songwriter and we would just take what he wrote and turn it into whole band songs and structure them together. We quickly figured out that that didn’t work very well, so now we write how we used to write.

Dan: It’s very collaborative.

Jed: Derek is the sole lyricist though.

iheartthemusic: Where did you get “Tapanga” from?

Jed: “Tapanga” is about a collection of things, but the title is from Boy Meets World.

iheartthemusic: I had hoped it was a shout out to the show! Now, on your blog there was a very sincere attempt, by a former member, to encourage fans to become more interactive and get in touch with you guys. What was the response like from that and do you still encourage interaction with fans?

Ryan: There was definitely a response, mostly younger people. We are always surprised by how many teenagers like us. We don’t really play pop punk or the stuff that 14-year-old girls really like. We did recently have a little onslaught of young girls come up and get free shirts and everything.

Dan: Yeah, that was right next door to my house.

iheartthemusic: They found you?

Jed: They definitely found us!

Dan: Yeah, I think they lived in the neighbourhood and we were just standing outside with all our gear.

Jed: They definitely searched us out!

Dan: Well, we were waiting to go to a show and they kept yelling “Gentlemen Husbands” and running away.

iheartthemusic: For those who don’t live down the street, where can they get your stuff?

Jed: Coming to a show is the best way to get our stuff.

Ryan: We were giving out hard copies at every show and then we ran out. You were supposed to be able to download them on MySpace but for some reason that feature doesn’t work anymore. So we’re gonna figure that out. If you want to pay, you can get them on iTunes.

iheartthemusic: Is there anything you really wish I’d asked?

Jed: How many zeros do you want at the end of the cheque?

[all laugh]

interviewed by Leanne Plummer

photography by Kristin M.