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

Eleven years is a long time for any band to stay together these days, but for the guys in Down With Webster (who have a combined average age of 24) those eleven years have culminated into a recipe for success. Their story is a success story not merely because of their recent signing to Universal Motown, but because they have been able to build up such a loyal following over those eleven years that it really feels like they were destined for stardom no matter what. The band consists of about ten “sometimes” members  and seven “constant” members who each have their own unique style and sound that they bring to the stage; which always results in a live show that cannot be beat! iheartthemusic caught up with four of their members: Tyler, Cam, Bucky and Pat right before their set at the PEACE DOT LOVE Music Festival- which was good timing for us as they have since been touring in the US on Warped Tour. Haven’t been to a show yet? You ARE missing out!

iheartthemusic:  We need to start by recognizing the fact that you have been together for SO long!

Tyler: Yeah, it was our eleventh anniversary last week.

iheartthemusic: Did you celebrate at all?

Tyler: We did! It was also Pat’s birthday.

Pat: It was my birthday and I was kind of overwhelmed with the birthday and the eleven year anniversary.

iheartthemusic: So fastforward eleven years and you have just recently signed to Universal Motown- congratulations!

Tyler: We did, thank you.

iheartthemusic: After hearing about your signing, I was really curious to find out what the process was like deciding to go the major route and why Universal Motown was your choice?

Tyler: The initial conversations that we had with them were really comfortable: we trusted them and they got the vision of the band. We talked to them a few times probably in the fall, they came to see a couple of our concerts and then just hanging with them in the studio we got a good feeling that if we are going to let someone on our team, that they would be good teammates.

iheartthemusic: Did you always know that you wanted to go with a major label?

Tyler: It’s definitely an unknown time in terms of whether that will be the right way to go and up until a month or so before we signed, we were still contemplating going independent and retaining more control of our career. That being said we were able to structure a deal where it wasn’t just sign a dotted line and let the big machine run your bed. We cut a deal that allowed us to keep control of our website and the relationship with our fans and our songs for that matter.

iheartthemusic: Well eleven years of having full creative control of your band would have been a huge shock for not only yourselves but your fans if you were to just give that all away.

Tyler: And if I were the guy at the label I would be pretty afraid of telling ten people at any given moment that he didn’t like what we were doing!

iheartthemusic: [laughs] Your numbers totally work to your advantage!

Tyler: It does!

iheartthemusic: I really feel like your live show is key to Down With Webster. From the props, to the clothing you wear- it is all uniquely “Webster”. So where did the whole live “act” originate from?

Cam: It originated from the idea of trying to make our shows more like parties than actual shows because from my experience kids want to party more than they want to just sit at a show. Our reasoning was why not try and fuse the two together and make it a great experience for you and the audience! I mean I want to party while I’m on stage.

Bucky: Exactly!

Tyler: Most concerts we go to, the band is off by eleven thirty and then everyone is wondering where they should go next. So we basically just tried to do a one stop shop and combine the music and the party.

Pat: It’s also fun for us! We think about what we want to be doing on stage which is not to just stand there and pour our heart out into the song and that is it. We can have Kap running around with a flag throwing stuff out into the crowd. It’s great!

iheartthemusic: Do you still get nervous at all when you go up on stage?

Tyler: I get nervous and our drummer gets butterflies pacing around half naked.

Bucky: That’s my home! That’s where I live.

Tyler: Part of being in a band is listening to your music so much during the recording process, so that by the time we are on stage we are so familiar with the material that we can totally have fun with it and not have to worry about the parts or the chords and all that stuff.

iheartthemusic: It must be a nice change to be recording new material. What has the recording process been like for this next album?

Tyler: To be honest we haven’t changed our recording process from before. We had a few meetings [with the label] and they asked us how we wanted to make this album: do we want to get a ranch by the lake or do we want to go to New York and do it there? We were like no we are going to keep doing this and at different moments if we want to step the recording process up a little bit we will go rent some better equipment. We were so happy when, the day after we signed, they came up to us and asked us how we wanted to do it and we told them and they gave us the thumbs up. They actually said we were the easiest band they had ever worked with because they didn’t need to rent out crazy studios or blow hundreds of thousands of dollars making music. So now we can spend more on touring and marketing and stuff.

Pat: And partying too!

Cam: We’ve always really been involved in the recording process. We’re not one of these bands who write a song, then rehearse it a bunch and then go into a studio and record it in one day.

iheartthemusic: Don’t you have your own studio?

Tyler: We kind of have a bunch of studios amongst the band.

Cam: A lot of guys will produce the music as we write the song so they will start off the recording and then it will be brought to an acceptable level. We like to be hands on and don’t like people telling us what to do every step of the way.

Tyler: What we’ve realized is that its not the case where you sign a deal and you get hooked up with a superstar producer and all of a sudden they are operating at this different level than you are. We’ve realized that if anything we have to stay in more control now because that’s how stuff starts to deviate.

iheartthemusic: From your first EP to the new album yet to be released, have you noticed any difference in your sound or are you sticking to the “tried, tested and true”?

Tyler: I think everyone just keeps stepping it up. In terms of the lyrics, one guy will bring a new thing to the table and then all of a sudden the bar just gets put higher and higher.

Bucky: It’s still Down With Webster, its just what we are doing now.

Cam: It’s a matter of a lot of us coming into our own and what exactly it is that we do; what our strengths are. A lot of our older stuff was experimental. It was all of us getting together in Tyler’s garage and just going at it. People have now found what their strengths are and it’s much more of a piece now with guys doing what they do best constantly.

iheartthemusic:  So you are more of a unit now?

Tyler: Exactly.

Pat: I think if you had played some of the newer songs to us three or four years ago when we were playing, we would have been in awe that we were actually going to grow that much and become that type of a unit.

Tyler: I guess that’s why you don’t see many teenage bands out there who write their own music because it takes a while to form exactly what you are doing. It’s a lot of trial and error.

iheartthemusic: So being such a large band, how does the writing process work for you?

Tyler: It really changes a lot of the time. Everyone is extremely musical so one day it will be one guy bringing it and then everyone adds their part. It changes all the time.

iheartthemusic: What is your musical background?

Tyler: Some are more classically trained than others and some are self-taught. Myself, Marty, Bucky and Pat are more classically trained. Cam taught himself how to produce and make beats and rap. A few of us went to music school together. I studied music at University, Pat’s done a bunch of conservatory stuff.

Pat: I just kind of hung around music a lot and read a lot of books and enjoyed it.

iheartthemusic: You are definitely the most unique and fashionable group of guys that I have come across and it almost seems like you each have your own unique style that represents your personality, but it all works together cohesively. So how does fashion play a part in Down With Webster?

Bucky: From our own characters we wear what we like to wear.

Cam: Our stage clothes are our street clothes. We dress like this all the time; this isn’t a stage getup. Personally, I’ve always been into fashion. In high school I was obsessed with what was coming out and when. When you hang out a lot with a group of people then your taste, its not that it changes, sort of meshes together so that you look like you are from the same “team” but we are still able retain our individuality.

Tyler: We used to think that all that matters is the music, but that’s not the case. It’s the total package.

iheartthemusic: Well you seem to have that down to a tee!

Pat: A lot of time when you talk to A&R people they say “it’s great because they don’t look like they hang out together” but I think a lot of bands take that the wrong way and think that they all have to dress the same. You see a band and they all look the same and you can’t really tell the characters and we are very diverse characters and so we have to show that in the way we dress ourselves. If there is something that I don’t want to wear, but the rest of the band is wearing, why should I wear it. Everyone kind of respects each others styles.

Tyler: Sometimes if we don’t like  what someone is wearing we just steal it and hide it from them!

iheartthemusic: [laughs] That’s the best way to rectify that “problem”!

Tyler: Things disappear all the time in this band.

iheartthemusic: So only US dates for Warped Tour, was that done by choice?

Tyler: Basically it was kind of in alignment with our deal. We were the last minute addition and I guess Canada had already filled up all their Canadian dates with Canadian acts so that’s the only reason we aren’t on it. We are so excited to finally get south of the border and play in front of some different kids and see how it works down there because from our MySpace we know that we have a US fan base so it will be neat to see what the turnout will be like in different cities. We have a lot of disappointed fans in Canada unfortunately.

iheartthemusic: Well I am sure they will still all be in attendance at your next Canadian date! Anything else you want to add?

Pat: For all the fans that will miss us on the Canadian Warped Tour dates: we will probably put on a big Down With Webster show at some point this summer that is not in a parking lot at three in the afternoon!

There you have it guys- a group who look out for their fans no matter what! Make sure you keep an eye out for when their album drops this fall across Canada!

photography provided by Matt Vardy & Carl Heindl

Ask any Canadian pop/rock/punk band what music festival they look forward to the most in the summer and they will likely say Cutting Edge . Now in it’s fourth year, Cutting Edge Music Festival (CEMF) has been notorious for it’s all-star lineup of bands, great campsites (alcohol allowed!) and fun activities to do in between sets. The weekend-long festival, which is taking over Bingeman’s Fun Park in Kitchener/Waterloo for the August long weekend this year, is quickly becoming the hot ticket for the summer for any concert goer. iheartthemusic decided to get to the root of why this festival is so popular. How did we do that you ask? Well we decided to grab some drinks with two of the festival founders: Jesse Brown and Carey Kurtin and ask these guys exactly what makes Cutting Edge Music Festival so “cutting edge”…

iheartthemusic: I wanted to start by asking how you came up with the concept that is Cutting Edge Music festival?

Jesse: There is a third person who we also work with named Ryan Kruger. Ryan and myself have been doing Destiny Events, which are electronic music based events for the past several years. We used to put on the World Electronic Music Festival and a couple of years ago we thought that we would try and take it to the next level and break into the rock market. That was the year that the “Cutting Edge” stage appeared at WEMF back in 2006. We had Broken Social Scene and Tokyo Police Club before they were known. So it went kind of well and we decided that maybe it would be better if the following year we made a rock-only festival and still do our other music on the side. Long story short we’ve since dropped WEMF with last year being its final year, and now Cutting Edge is what remains and is what has leapt off. We wanted to do a kind of festival that involved camping and getting away from the city and so we tried to look at what we could do to make our festival more unique and more fun. We wanted it to be more of a summertime memory that people would look back on and I hope that this will be one of the top memories of the summer for people.

Carey: Cutting Edge, I think, stands to definitely take that light. This year a huge piece of Cutting Edge is that we have incorporated the electronic side and given people the opportunity to basically party until four in the morning. So when the main stage is done, we offer an indoor stage that stays open until 4am. It really gives you that extra edge.

iheartthemusic: So literally you are partying for 48 hours!

Carey: Yeah! It gives you the opportunity to do something that no other festival in Ontario offers.

iheartthemusic: With so many festivals going on in Ontario over the course of the summer, what is the one thing that makes Cutting Edge stand out?

Jesse: Ultimately I would like to say it’s the vibe and the participation we get from everyone involved; bands don’t just come and play their set and get of there. With Cutting Edge we encourage all the bands that play for the weekend to stay and camp and do crowd participation things. For instance, last year we had anything from rock and roll jeopardy to a VIP bbq lunch that had Axl Rose flipping your burger to illScarlett doing the 420 olympics and participating with the crowd. Any little extra thing we can do to make this festival stand out we try and do and this year with our new venue we are also introducing a full water park, go-karting track and paintball. You can go for the weekend and check out lots of bands, check out the dance stage and go go-karting all in one.

iheartthemusic: Calling yourselves “cutting edge” music, what is the criteria that you follow when you are choosing bands to play?

Carey: We have had different methods that we have used. Obviously with the headliners you go for it would be someone unique every year, but they also have a similar vibe and even hit the same market or groups of people. We appreciate great music and try to keep a very diverse lineup throughout the years. I mean we have Andrew W.K. this year who is playing his first live performance in five years! I think that’s great! We are really trying to change what’s going on from standard festivals. Obviously it takes some time to grow, but I find it very unique what we are doing.

Jesse: The beauty of doing a festival too versus a one-off live show is that a festival gives you the chance to have lots of bands. This past year we did our search for the next cutting edge artist and we had various bands compete from all over Ontario for a chance to win an opening spot at this year’s festival. This year’s winner is this band called DAME, most of them are about sixteen or seventeen and they push themselves really hard. Again it was just another way for us to discover other bands and  we are looking for bands that want to participate in the festival more than just play and promote themselves. We are looking to grow together and do something as a music community.

Carey: That search is actually how we discovered Gentlemen Husbands as well. They were the first band to play at the battle of the bands and it was a little painful for them, but we were all floored by them and that’s how you discover great bands.

iheartthemusic: So are you looking for more local acts for your festival then?

Carey: A certain amount of Canadian talent I think is very important, especially for doing a festival up here, but if you are trying to push the envelope and are calling yourself “cutting edge” you can’t just stick to one market. We try and get world acts because that is what cutting edge music is all about.

Jesse: We are bringing in international talent from England this year too on the dance side with Lady Sovereign and so we have expanded. We have never marketed ourselves as an all Canadian lineup. We will always have the Canadian element, but we hope to expand and just showcase music from all over; whatever we think is good and what we think people will enjoy.

iheartthemusic: Over the past few years I am sure you boys have seen your fair share of shit happen, so what is a memory that stands out for you?

Carey: The first year takes the cake for sure! We did barricades and everything like that which was fine for most of the day and then Alexisonfire comes on to play and kids went crazy. Our barricades were destroyed by the end of it! Every single person working there that day was in the pit with our security catching people crowd surfing and trying to hold the barricades up at the same time. It was one of the most exciting moments.

Jesse: It was a transition from going from the world of dance music to the world of rock music. With dance music you can just have the regular barriers, but with rock music you have to have the riot control ones. The other problem was that our festival being on the same weekend as Caribanna, everything is gone all over the city and so we were cut short. This year we knew to place the order well in advance so we are covered!

Carey: Last year the fire was pretty cool too!

Jesse: Yeah the campers had a huge bonfire.

Carey: It just showed kids really getting into it and having a real party weekend.

iheartthemusic: You switched up locations this year, why?

Jesse: It was mostly because we were having liquor licence issues with the other venue, so we were told it was going to be too difficult to pull it off there. Our options to have it there would have basically been to remove some of the elements that make CEMF special like the BYOB campsite.

iheartthemusic: Most memorable performance in the three years so far?

Jesse: I don’t think I have one. It all just gets mishmashed together because we are always working.

Carey: Down With Webster was really good last year.

Jesse: We could ultimately keep naming off bands.

Carey: Actually I would say Mix Master Mike was my most memorable moment because we really gave the crowd something they had never seen before. You see the look on all these people faces; it floored them, I mean they were there for Alexisonfire and he came out with a good mash up of hip hop and rock and all that stuff together and people were loving it and crowd surfing!

Jesse: It is fun to kind of catch people off guard where they have expectations and that’s another kind of crossover from the dance world to the rock world where they are always used to a full band setup. This was just a single DJ up there and people were getting into it as if it was the whole Beastie Boys playing.

iheartthemusic: Hopes for the future?

Jesse: We would like to continue to grow and be a festival that is unique; expanding our campgrounds and offering more area, more stages and more styles of music. Of course there is a building factor because you can’t just go from A to E, so we are going through the steps and getting there. It’s fun because every year we learn from the past and what works best and what is different. 

The first ever Peace Dot Love music festival took place during NXNE at the Koolhaus. It was a musical tribute to Dylan Ellis and Oliver Martin who were gunned down in a parked car in June 2008, a horrible crime that has yet to be solved. The fest was put on by 102.1 the Edge, D.O. It! (an organization formed to raise funds for youth violence prevention groups), LOVE and Peacebuilders International in partnership with NXNE (as well as some other sponsors, including iheartthemusic).

It began with DJ duo TMDP. Despite their early start time they had the crowd that was there grooving to their tunes. It wasn’t a large crowd, but that didn’t seem to affect the tunes coming off the turntables as these consummate professionals performed with the same energy as when iheartthemusic witnessed them spin to an at-capacity Circa crew. (If you missed them you can see them at the TIME Festival at Sound Academy on July 25.)

Stereos were met with a plethora of pre-pubescent screams from the throngs of teenyboppers who rushed the stage. Personally I thought it sounded like watered down radio dribble with too much auto-tune. However, I also think the latest album from Black Eyed Peas had too much auto-tune and Stereo’s song “Summer Girl” was number one on iTunes so they mustn’t be doing much wrong (but I’d be hard pressed to pick out what they were doing exceptionally right). In any case, the PG-13 prepubescent portion of the Koolhaus seemed to dig it as they screamed and sang along to every song, including “She Only Likes Me When I’m Drunk” (love the title). Perhaps it’s just a matter of taste… or lack thereof.

Feeling Stereo-ed out, I popped through the rabbit hole into the side room where I discovered a polar bear playing bass, an Elton John-looking lead singer and a percussion apparatus that resembled a mix between Dick Van Dyke’s instrumental outfit in Mary Poppins and a medieval torture contraption. The band sounded like a lot of fun… unfortunately no one was able to tell me who they were (if you’re reading this and you know the answer, let us know).

True to form Down With Webster gave a high-octane performance. This large ensemble band is an amalgamation of high energy electro with large doses of rap and rock. One of the highlights was the when the drummer had a fun video game soundtrack solo (the low light was when one of the silly members threw beer on our photographer, not cool dude!). Even when they experienced some technical difficulties they kept the crowd entertained by busting out a freestyle. And they were entertaining, I even spotted some parents grooving to their tunes.

Simultaneously We Are the Take had a work out on the stage next door. These boys played so hard they were quite literally dripping with sweat. The passion in playing engaged the crowd who seemed fully immersed (or should I say “taken in”) by the band. These guys always put on a good show and are clearly garnering a devout fan following.

Dragonette was nothing less than awesome. iheartthemusic had the pleasure of speaking to the husband and wife team before the show and learned that they were truly there to support the cause, which they spoke very well of [stay tuned for that interview, we talked music, fashion and spilling sauce on sneakers in Japan... apparently a no-no as it takes a while for the smell to go away]. Their performance was dynamic and a highlight for many of the festival goers. One word: awesome!

Closing out the night was USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker). Phew, if you weren’t tired already you would have been by just watching these two guys fly around stage, doing handstands and bouncing with the crowd. Lots of energy and a wonderful way to end a wonderful festival. With so many great performances I look forward to see how they top this next year.

Written by Emer Schlosser

Photography by Carl Heindl

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