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

iheartthemusic chatted it up with band members Ian and Nate from electro/indie group Passion Pit before their higly anticipated and sold out gig at Lee’s Palace. These two young gents did not look like your “typical” electronic musicians, they reminded me a lot of Michael Cera.  Nonetheless, it doesn’t matter if they look the part or not, Nate and Ian are passionate about the music and are rediculously talented. If you missed their show this time around check em’ out when they are back in August.

iheartthemusic: How different was it making your full length album Manners than your previous EP Chunk of Change?

Ian: Completely! Chunk of Change was Mike and a laptop in his bedroom by himself. No one really came in and said “hey, you should try this and you should try that.” He just kind of did his own thing. Manners was a full studio record, everyone was in and out of the studio having different people giving you ideas. It was two different worlds.

iheartthemusic: Creative difference as well? 

Ian: I’d say so. Our songwriting improved a lot. The rest of the band and producer Chris Zain and our engineer and everyone kind of had a lot of input on the songs, it wasn’t just Mike doing what he wants.

iheartthemusic: You guys are pretty young hey?

Ian: Yeah, everyone is 23 or 22.

iheartthemusic: Holy shit eh! You guys are talented. Manners has been so successful, did you know when you released it that it was going to be a hit or were you surprised when it flew off the charts?

Nate: Only Kanye’s like that!

Ian: We were happy with the record but we didn’t think it was going to be huge or anything. We liked it and i’m happy I am involved in this record but I wasn’t like “this is going to change the world.”

iheartthemusic: Being modest about the work is the best.

Ian: It’s always surprising when you hear anything about if you’re doing well or not. Like this whole tour has been blowing me away everyday. The fact that we’re in Toronto for the first time and the show is sold out, you don’t expect that ever.

iheartthemusic: This is your first time in Toronto?? Did you just come in today?

Ian: We got in last night.

iheartthemusic: Did you guys tour the city a little bit or were you stuck in your hotel room??

Ian: We saw a little bit driving around earlier. It’s cool, it’s like 6 different cities all in one almost.

iheartthemusic: It’s cool eh??

Ian: Yeah!

iheartthemusic: There are so many different places of the city to discover, i’m still discovering it. On to the next question, I read that Michael started the band, how did the rest of the band form??

Ian: Actually I was in a couple of bands with him already before Passion Pit started and then he started writing all of these songs on his own and he did a show which was just him and a laptop which wasn’t that great. This is when he released the original “Chunk of Change.” I came up to him and said “hey, we should play again and play the Passion Pit songs but with a band,” and it kind of just went from there. So then members started joining and then we were swaping members but I think the line- up we have now have been together since August 2008.

iheartthemusic: Going strong??

Ian: Doin good!

iheartthemusic: Were you all from the get-go on the same page creatively??

Ian: Everyone has their own completely different genre that they’re into.

Nate: We’re still not on the same page but I think that’s what makes the album as eclectic as it is, that everyone has their own “oh that’s too this” or ” no I like this.” Than it comes down to an agreement or settlement.

iheartthemusic: What kind of bands were you in before? Were they all kind of the same indie/electronic??

Ian: No, that was the thing, other than Nate who is an amazing electronic DJ/musician no one else really did electronic music before. Actually like Mike, Ayad and I are all guitar players. This playing elctro-pop music was something completely new.

iheartthemusic: Are you influenced by electronic music??

Ian: The past couple of years this band has opened me up to a lot of new music but it’s not the only music I listen to.

Nate: I think for our palette and estetic, electronic music is very influential of how we sound the way we do and why we sound the way we do. But I think song form wise pop music is really the main influence and what we kind of study. That form is what we do and what we all grew up on.

iheartthemusic: Was it a dream and a passion from a young age to create music?

Nate: It’s a pipe dream and for some reason i thought it’d be okay to go to music school and it worked out somehow. I think the odds of winning the lotto are lower.

iheartthemusic: Did you take music in post-secondary or did you take music throughout your childhood?

Nate: Yeah, we’ve all been training for a long time but most of us met at music school in Boston. So when you get to that stage of “what do you want to do with your life?” and it’s not like the little kid “what do you want to do when you grow up?” It’s actually what do you want to spend all of your time on, I think we made the decision a long time ago that it would be music and we’re really lucky.

iheartthemusic: Yeah it’s super lucky! Do you have any other inspirations do you have?

Ian and Nate: Film.

iheartthemusic: What are you watching right now?? What is your favorite film that came out recently?

Nate: “Wild Zero,” well it’s not recent but it’s a Japenese B Zombie movie that’s really, really cheesy and bad but really amazing at the same time. Guitar Wolf is the main character and that’s his real name.

iheartthemusic: Yeah!

Nate: Guitar Wolf. It’s the name of a Japenese rock band, it’s kind of a throw back – they are all kind of 50’s pompedors but they all play like hard, noisy garage rock but are also movie stars.

iheartthemusic: So I should go check that out then.

Nate: Yeah.

iheartthemusic: Okay, let’s talk about your stage show…

Nate: Costumes, choreography….

iheartthemusic: What should the audience expect from it?

Nate: We sweat a lot, jumping up and down, lots of energy. Hopefully it makes people move and they get into it. It’s not like a sit down theatre type of band. We’re a little bit sloppy it’s because we’re really into it and we’re too hyper.

iheartthemusic: Do you guys think of your show as much as the effort that goes into your albums?

Ian: Yeah, definately.

Nate: I think more because this is transient, you know it’s never going to happen again. Hopefully people want to keep coming back as for the album if it sucks the first time it’s going to suck the second time and the third time.

iheartthemusic: True enough. So, when your fans leave your show what do you want them thinking or feeling??

Ian: That guitar player was so good! i don’t know…

Nate: Just happy.

Ian: Yeah, I want them to be in a good mood.

Nate: Hopefully they can’t sleep.

iheartthemusic: They can’t sleep cause they are…

Nate: so excited!

iheartthemusic: They’re going to follow you around like groupies.

Nate: No that’s terrible please don’t do that, do something with your life.

Ian: Eat pixie sticks or something.

iheartthemusic: Pixie sticks are good, I don’t know when the last time I had one was.

Nate: They should want to go skinny dipping.

iheartthemusic: Oh my!

interviewed by Kristen Tignanelli

Shoved in a little crowded space backstage at The Horseshoe Tavern, iheartthemusic got up close and personal with bandmates Tomas and Matt from indie rock band DD/MM/YYYY.  I chatted it up with the talented twosome about such things as their music (duh!) and their love of the old school Nintendo jams.  These two talented gents are making truly inspiring and unique music and their stage show is a must see.  Check out the Toronto indie rockers when you can, they will blow you away!

iheartthemusic: I really like your approach to music, which is kind of no approach at all, which works amazingly – not the same old shit.  Is there a method to your madness?

Tomas: We’ve been around for so long that there are so many different formulas. We always bring something to the music where someone will instigate something and someone will write a part. Like Mike, he’s an amazing bassist and when I present an idea to him on guitar he’ll write the perfect bass line and we evolve together; we learn how to play together and that’s the way we feel about drums too. When you have five guys constantly mixing like that the madness is that everyone has ideas and everyone wants to communicate them to each other and some just want to respond to an idea.  It’s complicated that way, but it’s not at the same time, it’s just like hanging out with your friends and saying, “I’ve been working on this idea, let’s try it!” and you do. We wrote the song “777″ so fast, the whole song is basically three two note cords that I play on guitar, but how we play it stretches out for the whole song and it changes but you wouldn’t even tell. 

iheartthemusic: Do you use the same formula for every album you make?

Tomas: We do the same thing, we just keep switching members.  For the first album it was just me on guitar and Matt on drums; one of our members Mocher wasn’t even in the band at the time.  So there is an evolution of our band that I think that anyone who has followed us for that amount of time is probably really aware of how much we’ve changed and how deliberate those changes are.

iheartthemusic: You guys are known for using non-conventional/abstract instruments.  What new instruments did you use on your most recent album Black Square?

Tomas: We use a lot of synthesizers, but the synthesizers aren’t really that unconventional, it’s just that we use delay pedals and certain layers like looping layers. I think the weirdest instrument we have is Mocher’s omnicord, which is like a keyboard with sonic strings that are not real stings but you can play them like a string and they have these little chords you can play like autochords.

iheartthemusic: Where do you find that?

Tomas: It’s kind of rare.  You can find it on the Internet on eBay or certain junk shops or trade shops. It’s a cool instrument! It’s not a cheap instrument either it’s got a really good personality for a synth. That’s the thing about our band, although we’re writing kind of weird music we’re actually using really traditional instruments. I play guitar and drums, Mike plays bass, we have a keyboard player and Jorden is a trained pianist… In a lot of ways we’re responding to the tradition of rock and roll.

iheartthemusic: And you use the other instruments to add depth to the traditional ones.

Tomas: Our sound is a bit more unique.  We’re doing these things like layering a guitar and a bass and a keyboard just like anyone else does but maybe it’s our rhythms that change the feel of them.

iheartthemusic: Also, and I don’t know if I’m saying this correctly, but don’t you guys change intervals throughout the song?

Tomas: I know what your saying, yeah, it makes sense. That’s also part of it, sometimes a part of a song just demands to be in a different time signature because of the feel and that’s a really personal thing. It’s complicated because there is so much of us in the music. I think the most successful thing about DD/MM/YYYY is that a lot of our personalities and sensibilities are in the music and those choices of time signatures aren’t just to be flashy or technical they’re there to insert more soul… I think our music is very danceable too, so it’s all about feel, if it’s moving you it’s successful that way.

iheartthemusic: I also hear you guys rotate roles? Do you just do that in your stage show or on the album as well?

Tomas: We rotate for our show and for the album.  Ultimately the big goal for DD/MM/YYYY is to be seen as a collective not unlike Broke Social Scene.  We have different music but we have very similar sensibilities in some regards.  In terms of music I’ve always loved drums and rhythm, I’ve always loved guitars and synthesizers. Oh look Matt is here!  Would you like to join the interview?

Matt: Sure.

Tomas: [Recapping what was said......]

Matt: I totally agree! [Laughs]

Tomas: Do you want to elaborate?

Matt: Well, I don’t want to be redundant, but some people say that your sound is defined by your limitations like how good you are.  Maybe if you’re really good at guitar you do a lot of guitar solos or something. So for the changing instruments, it’s like not all of us are as good at one instrument vs. the other, so the songs are bound to be different sounding.

iheartthemusic: You mention Frank Zappa as being an influence. What other things influence you, and it doesn’t have to be an artist or musician?

Matt: The answer is video games. We’re in the van all the time on tour and one of the dudes has an iPod with full out video games, people think we’re insane!

Tomas: All the good Nintendo music wasn’t made coincidentally it was made by a specific composer and I can’t think of his name at the moment.  The guy who made a lot of Nintendo music is a musical genius in a lot of ways because he incorporated all of these pop songs that have existed, they sound like Madonna or sound like Prince and then make them into a video game song that’s all just little synthesizers. It’s like DD/MM/YYYY, we’re incorporating all these pop influences and pop sensibilities and somehow converting them.

iheartthemusic: This is like old school Nintendo, right?

Matt: Yeah.  Like once you get into stuff like Play Station, you have Garbage on the soundtrack, like literally the band Garbage.

iheartthemusic: If you could choose, what is your most favorite thing to do: compose, tour, or make music videos?

Tomas: Write music.

Matt: Yeah, easily writing music.  You loose sight of it when you play if you play the same songs night after night. It’s still fun but it looses something.

Tomas: I don’t think that’s true, I think that sometimes you get a song after playing it certain amount of times, after sixty times you get that song finally,not how to play it but you begin to understand it as a musician or as a band member at least.

Matt: Let me rephrase, we’re a lot more giddy while we’re writing it and than afterward I still love the songs and everything but I don’t have that giddiness about it.

iheartthemusic: What do you want your fans to feel when they leave your gig?

Matt: Just like confusion I guess. I want people to be like “what was that?”.  My favorite is when someone says they liked it but they don’t know what happened.

interviewed by Kristen Tignanelli

photography by Joyce Wong

The Horseshoe Taven hosted one of the most anticipated nights on the Saturday of NXNE boasting a slew of amazing talent crammed into the same legendary location. The line up was unreal, and I mean that in the best possible way. What I loved most about it is that there was such an array of diverse artists, no act at this NXNE event was even remotely similar to the one before, which was refreshing to watch.  From the melodic and ethereal Woodpigeon, to the unique and unusual DD/MM/YYYY, there was a genre for every music lover out there.

First out was folk rock band Woodpigeon hailing from Calgary, Alberta. Their sound is not pretentious, it’s disarming and soothing and a touch melancholy, which is savoury to the ear.  Their layering of instruments also added a unique dynamic when accompanied by their hauntingly beautiful lyrics. Their sound is modern yet timeless,  pure genius in my opinion.

Tokyo Police Club was unfortunately not performing at this year, but if you are a fan you must check out Ruby Coast.  They are poppy indie rock band that sound… well… exactly like Tokyo Police Club.  Nonetheless, they are a talented bunch who play fun, upbeat, cheerful tunes that you can shake your tail feather to.

If you love beachy, breezy, Bob Dylan-esque folksie tunes you’ll fall head over heels for Mr. Jason Collett. This dapper gentleman engages the crowd with his calming voice and takes his fans on a poetic journey through his lyrics. His music transcends time, as do Woodpigeon’s, in that their songs are effortlessly timeless and could be listened to 50 years ago, now and in the future.

If what you fancy is indie Brit pop you need to check out Hot Panda.  They are a band out of Edmonton, Alberta that seamlessly infuse instruments such as accordions, harmonicas, and keyboards into their musical mix to make a sound all of their own.  Their sound is quirky and energetic and if you don’t have the urge to groove out while watching them perform you’ve got issues!!!

The best performance at the Horseshoe by far was from band DD/MM/YYYY.  This band pushes musical and performance boundaries with their unique brand of indie rock and thier unconventional stage show.  Their music is experimental mixed with doses of pure rock and roll and a dollop of crazy, which I mean with the best of intentions.  Their stage show is similar to their musical stylings: hectic, confusing and brilliant.  They are a force to be reckoned with and are easily one of my favorite performers coming out of Toronto at the moment.

As I left The Horseshoe Tavern, I stumbled upon a great performance at The Velvet Underground: Triple Cobra! Straight out of San Francisco, Triple Cobra was the best performance of the night by far.  I’m not the biggest fan of their music, which can only be described as glamorized cock rock, but their stage show was brilliant.  The performance value was through the roof, from the light show to the scantily clad Vegas-style back-up dancers, this band is a must see!

All and all, Saturday night at The Horseshoe and Velvet Underground tickled my musical fancy.  Can’t wait until next year!

Written by Kristen Tignanelli

Photography by Joyce Wong

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