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

If you haven’t already heard of The Envy don’t fret, it may be because when they played Toronto last they went by a completely different name: Crowned King.  Now under their new moniker they’re currently on a cross-country tour with good friends and label mates The Midway State. Having seen The Envy when they played under the name Crowned King, we were anxiously awaiting the new lineup and killer tunes that their recently released EP, Don’t Let Go, has been blasting from our stereos over the past few weeks. Their sound is a mixture of rock and pop and their live performance is anything but boring. These guys brought the house down at Mod Club on April 17^th and we were front and centre to get in on some of that action. Lead singer Shaun’s vocals were flawless, and with their rock star look and West Coast attitude, everyone appeared to be extremely excited to have them on stage.

iheartthemusic: So the band as The Envy has only been around for a few short months, but Shaun, you played in another band for quite some time, right?

Shaun: I played in another band for the last eight years called Crowned King, which taught me a lot about the music industry and touring. We toured all around the world -we went to Asia, Australia and all over North America – and I learned everything that I wanted to know about how to do this. Then when I started this band, it was just like here is what I learned and let’s take it to the next level. Some of the songs that I had written at the end of Crowned King are now The Envy songs. It’s a new band with hopefully a good future ahead of us!

iheartthemusic: You guys just released your debut EP as The Envy, that’s exciting!

Shaun: The EP came out about a month ago. We launched our EP by playing at a bunch of high schools in Toronto. It was really cool.

iheartthemusic: So how did you meet the rest of the band?

Shaun: Near the end of my old band I was doing a lot of songwriting and working with a producer named Gavin Brown in Toronto and he introduced me to Steve [guitar].

Steve: We’ve been working together for about two and half years now.

Shaun: We started working together way before The Envy, and then when it came time to start this band, myself and Steve just kind of headed it up and found some really amazing guys from Toronto. Our drummer Izzy just moved over from France and he’s a total prodigy on the drums and Bodan, our bass player, has played in bands forever. Johnny, our keyboard player, was in Crowned King with me so it feels like a really strong group. I’ve never had this much inter-band charisma.

Steve: We all have one goal.

Shaun: We all have our heads in the same place and I’ve never really been in any situation like that in my life, where everyone is like here is what we are going to do and let’s do it. Everyone is so on board.

iheartthemusic: That’s awesome! You are now on tour with The Midway State, which is your second tour with them. How did that relationship form?

Shaun: We are actually labelmates and I had been writing with Nathan a lot, so when it came time for a tour it just seemed like the obvious choice, and then when it came time for this tour we were like let’s do it again.

Steve: It worked really well before.

Shaun: This is our first tour as The Envy, though.

iheartthemusic: What do you hope people will get from your EP?

Shaun: I was saying to the guys the other day that right now I really love the new Kings of Leon record and everyday when I wake up I just want to turn it on, like I have to hear it. So I guess I hope that people out there who have our EP, or eventually our album, will, before they go to bed or when they wake up, have it in their head and they need to hear it because they just love it. That was the goal and hopefully it connects with people like that, which would be amazing!

iheartthemusic: You guys just came back from a trip to Vancouver for the Junos and apparently you had some bus troubles south of the border. What happened?

Shaun: We toured across Canada with The Midway State and went out for the Junos and did all the Juno fanfare stuff. Then they went to Halifax for this Death Cab For Cutie show and we decided to take the shorter route home, which is drop down over the border and head across the interstates. We ended up breaking down like five times and by the fifth time we broke down it was in Billings, Montana, which is this amazing little town. It’s about 200,000 people and is a total up and coming town with clubs and casinos.

Steve: Nurses, doctors, scientists.

Shaun: Just a weird, weird place and we knew right away when we got there that it was the friendliest place we’ve ever been. So when we found out that our bus repairs were going to be over four grand US, which is like five grand Canadian, we were like shit we’ve got to put on a benefit concert on to raise some money. So we called our manager and told him that we were going to throw a concert. We went to Kinko’s and made tickets and fliers and started to go around town distributing them. We went to all the happy hours at all the bars and started to talk to everyone.

Steve: People just started latching on all of sudden.

Shaun: The newspaper even ran an article, and then the next morning the main radio personality guy was pounding on the bus while we were sleeping. He told us to go with him and we ended up doing the morning show. By the next day every radio station was telling the story and promoting the show and when the show finally came around, it was packed!

Steve: While we were promoting it people were telling us that they were already coming to it.

Shaun: The whole town showed up and it ended up being this unbelievable show and we raised a ton of money to fix the transmission.

iheartthemusic: And get yourselves home!

Shaun: Exactly, and here we are!

iheartthemusic: Do you think it was easier because it was a smaller town?

Shaun: Absolutely, it was also a small town in North middle America, just starving for something to do. We stood out; I mean, we don’t look like the average Billings, Montana homeboys.

iheartthemusic: You guys also recently shot a video.

Shaun: Yes we did. We are still putting the pieces together and will be probably putting it out with the album. The album isn’t out yet, but should be out in the fall. The video is for a song called “Don’t Let Go”, which is on the EP and should be on the record.

iheartthemusic: Do you want to divulge anything about the video?

Shaun: It’s a really dark video. A guy named Frank Borin did it, he actually did some of The Midway State videos, but he also did Red Hot Chili Peppers, Good Charlotte, Eminem – some big bands. He came up with this idea and it’s all about how the band is lit. His videos look so slick and it was shot at night in this old abandoned shipyard, which has since been torn down. It was shot in North Vancouver so it’s a bit nostalgic for me because it’s where I am from.

iheartthemusic: What’s going to happen next?

Shaun: We are going to the Maritimes this summer, then to the middle of Canada for all of August, and then September we will be touring Ontario non-stop.

iheartthemusic: Out of everyone that you have been able to share the stage with, who has been your favourite and why?

Shaun: Well, as The Envy we have mainly played shows with The Midway State and on our own.

Steve: Mobile was pretty cool.

iheartthemusic: What is your favourite venue to listen to music and why?

Shaun: This venue, The Mod Club.

Steve: It has the best sound and the best vibe.

Shaun: I just heard The Midway State sound check and I can’t believe how good the sound is. For me, that’s such a big part of it.

Steve: So much impact.

iheartthmusic: Favourite bar in Toronto?

Shaun: I love The Gladstone, go out for some karaoke. I’m new to Toronto so I don’t know if that’s the cool answer. Where I don’t like is The Drake. We had the worst night there the other night.

Steve: In a matter of five minutes I was told that I couldn’t stand in a certain place because they will loose their license.

Shaun: It was also full of people who I wouldn’t normally want to hang out with. No more Drake for us.

iheartthemusic: No Hideout action?

Shaun: The Hideout, where’s that?

iheartthemusic: It’s across the street from Tattoo Rock Parlour and is probably one of the best grungy bars in Toronto and it plays live music most nights.

Shaun: Well thank you because that’s where we will go. I also went to Wrongbar the other night, which was pretty sweet.

iheartthemusic: If you could share the stage with any band, who would it be and why?

Shaun: I would love to open that Kings of Leon show on Tuesday night!

Steve: If we could open for U2 that would be pretty sweet as well.

Shaun: U2 has always been one of my staple favourites, I love Coldplay, Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters, the new Kanye West record or have him do something on one of our tracks.

iheartthemusic: Any crazy fan moments?

Shaun: Sheri Love from Billings, Montana. I can’t really divulge too many details, but let’s just say that we hung out with her for a night and the next day we got a call from the Billings Police Department and she was claiming that we stole her wedding ring. Which was absolutely impossible, like how do you steal someone’s wedding ring?

Steve: She wrote this lengthy letter to the police.

Shaun: For a day she was telling everyone that we robbed her.

iheartthemusic: And she was a fan?

Shaun: She was someone we met, pretty much a 45-year-old cougar.

iheartthemusic: That’s crazy, you have to watch out for the cougars! Has the recession affected your writing style at all?

Shaun: When we made this record, it was made over the last two years, and every time we wrote we were trying to make what we wrote the best song. It was never about the fact that we needed an album track and I don’t know if I’m going to regret that, but it’s an album full of songs that were written to be singles.

Steve: We don’t like filler.

Shaun: There is a lot of pressure on bands these days and it’s tough to succeed nowadays. We have a really good team right now though: fans, friends and writers.

iheartthemusic: Anything you want to add?

Shaun: You can listen to our songs on the MySpace.

Steve: My favourite website is iheartthemusic.com!

Great tunes and clearly charmers as well! Be sure to check out their MySpace for tour dates near you!

photography provided by Matt Vardy

iheartthemusic got the chance to catch up with Mat (vocals) and Frank (guitar) from the Montreal band Mobile during Canadian Music Week. This is a band that are considered veterans in the industry having been around since the late ’90s. Their rock-inspired sound has been on constant rotation on both the radio airwaves and on music channels all over the country. Mat and Frank offered us some insight into the music industry by revealing what they thought of the state (or death) of the album, why they love Europe so much and the troubles they have had with our neighbours to the South.

iheartthemusic: Let’s go way back to how Mobile came to be.

Mat: We formed the band about 10 years ago, but we’ve known each other since we were kids. I met him [points to Frank] when we were six years old, so we know each other really well. We started playing music together around the age of 14 or 15 but the band that is Mobile have been together since the late ’90s. Pierre, our drummer, left in December and we replaced him with Martin, the new guy, who is great and it’s a breath of fresh air. 

iheartthemusic: You guys changed your original band name from Moonraker to Mobile, why?

Mat: Well, we were called Moonraker but there was also another band called Moonraker from the United States at the time. They were touring in Toronto so we had problems with people being confused by both bands having the same name. They also own the rights to that name in the United States so we just decided to change the name instead of going into a legal battle and losing time and money that we didn’t have. We were really looking for a record deal so we changed the name. 

iheartthemusic: Was there any reasoning behind choosing Mobile?

Mat: We were looking for a one word name and back then we didn’t know that cell phones were going to take over the world like that! What we had in mind were band names similar to Oasis. [Mobile] comes from a band that we all love, a band called  LongPigs that used to be around in the late ’90s from the UK and they have an album called Mobile Home. We were looking through albums that we all liked and Frank mentioned Mobile  and we all said yes. 

iheartthemusic: Now you are a band that hails from Montreal, where French is your first language, so why did you choose to sing in English?

Mat: I started listening to music at a young age and as I was growing up I was watching all these English bands. That was how I got into music; not by listening to any French music. [French music] just didn’t really touch me the same way that English music did. I wanted to be like Sting or John Taylor more than any other French artist. I also don’t write in French and translate the lyrics in English, which is a personal choice. It’s a lot easier to have an international career when you sing in English as well and personally,  I think the language of rock and roll is the English language.

iheartthemusic: You recently released your second album, Tales From The City. Why did you choose that as an album title?

Mat: I started writing and having ideas about the second album while we were on tour in Europe. We had been visiting all those great cities, like Berlin, and I was really influenced by traveling from city to city. So I tried to write a song about each [city] that we were visiting but it just didn’t turn out well. When I came back [to Canada] I still liked the title. We started writing the record in Montreal when I was going through a tough time personally and so I tried to write songs that were tales from the city and about people that I know that were living in Montreal and going through the same kinds of things.

iheartthemusic: You have also come out with a video for the single “The Killer.” How did you come up with the concept for that?

Mat: Well, we spoke to the directors and they totally got it. When I wrote that song I was trying to create a character because I didn’t want to write only about my personal life. I tried to invent a character that you could follow throughout the record. At some point he [the character] becomes a killer; society made him a killer. When we spoke with the two directors they totally got it and had this vision of a Bladerunner kind of guy running from something. You won’t see him shoot people because that’s not the case and you don’t know if he is going for the chick or for the kill. I don’t even know myself what he was going for but they totally captured what I had in mind as far as the image.

iheartthemusic: It’s a great concept. What has been a defining moment for you as a band?

Mat: When we signed the [record] deal. We were really excited because you strive for that, you want a deal to put your career on the right path and start writing and recording. Probably a personal accomplishment for me was when we got the gold record. That was the proudest moment I had because it comes from the fans and they are the ones that are buying your record and supporting you. We got that right before Christmas so it was really like wow!

Frank: Maybe the day I left my day job so I could say I don’t have to work anymore. That was a great feeling. My boss was very happy for me as well.

iheartthemusic: You guys have been fortunate enough to tour all over the world, so where has been your favourite spot so far?

Mat: Berlin and Dublin. In Europe you feel like people over there are very loyal music fans, whereas here the attention span for people is short. I mean you can be big one day and then gone tomorrow. Look at the UK for example, you get everyone touring there, even people that are dead here. You know that when you go there you have loyal fans that love music and are willing to see and hear new things without being too careful.

Frank: The Strokes and The Killers exploded over there before here and a lot of people don’t know that because people here didn’t care about them at the time. People are more willing to give anyone a chance over there.

iheartthemusic: Do you think that that is changing at all in Canada?

Mat: Not really, no.

Frank: One of the reasons for that is the radio. Stuff that plays on the radio is always the same and it’s very conservative, so I think if the radio all across Canada started to try new stuff, then maybe it would change but right now it’s the same.

Mat: Don’t get us wrong though, we’ve been very lucky as a band to get a lot of radio play here and are very grateful for that.

iheartthemusic: With the invention of iPods and iTunes is there a market for bands to make money off of record sales today?

Mat: I think right now it’s a generation of young kids that don’t really buy albums. For me it’s a really weird transition that I could definitely see coming but I didn’t anticipate it being like this. When I was younger you would actually have a vinyl or CD or cassette which you had to buy in order to have the song you like so much. So even if you only heard the one song on the radio and you liked that song, you would have to go buy the whole record to listen to it. Compare that to now where you can buy one song and that’s usually it. We are also confronted with people who say you should give your music away and I’m like, alright, so you want me to work a year and a half to write an album, invest my own money or someone else’s money, somehow to put the record out and actually make it, and then expect me to survive by giving my stuff away? People then say you tour. But how do you tour if you don’t have a product to sell? I’m really confused sometimes when it comes to that because the reality is that that is what is going on right now. A lot of people are not even aware that you buy or you lose money. It’s weird that people will come up to us with a CD that they just burned and expect us to sign it.

Frank: Very often we get that or we get people telling us, “oh yah, I burned your CD last night, it’s so good.” For example, if a bartender would say that to me, I would then say to him, “ok, so I’m going to help myself to a beer.”

iheartthmusic: Has it affected how you approach writing a record?

Mat: No, it’s affected the sales. It’s scary out there! You talk to everybody, especially in rock, and I think rock fans are probably not as loyal as metal fans. It seems like the metal heads are really hardcore and will buy the record.

iheartthemusic: Well let’s hope that people get out there and buy your album then! After this tour what is up next?

Frank: We are actually negotiating a US deal right now, which is exciting because we have had a lot of problems in the past with our record company in the States. It was a nightmare that kept on going and finally is over. We got out of that deal we signed a few years past and now we are about to sign a new one and hopefully release the record there in June or July. We have also already started writing new material because we want to release another record as soon as possible. It took a long time between our first two records because of all the troubles we were having with the record company overseas. It was just something that has been really tough to go through as a band, and is a reason why a lot of bands break up; because they are owned by the record company who are not willing to let them go but not willing to put the record out.

Mat: We were lucky to have Universal Canada who have always supported the band and are the reason why we were able to have a career and now we will hopefully have the same relationship in the States.

photography provided by Matt Vardy

It is quite unique these days to find a band that is musically talented, performs well AND are all related. Well, iheartthemusic found this all in the form of Winnipeg threesome Inward Eye. Anders, Dave and Kyle are three brothers who are making quite a name for themselves. They have already been on countless tours – including one that had them opening for legendary band The Who - and they were also the headliners for the opening night party of Canadian Music Week at Tattoo Rock Parlour. iheartthemusic took some time to talk with all three of them before that opening night show show on March 11th. Check out what they had to say:

iheartthemusic: Being siblings, do you feel your parents had an influence on your decision to pursue music?

David: It was pretty natural actually. I picked up a guitar when I was about 14 or 15 and just kind of played around and showed Kyle some chords. He, of course, quickly got better than me.

iheartthemusic: I guess that’s why he’s the guitarist now!

David: I guess so. Then I eventually got a bass and Anders eventually acquired some drums and we would always be jamming together. We then realized let’s play in a band together. We were sometimes jamming with our friends, but it just seemed easier this way.

iheartthemusic: You guys also got a chance to venture into the US to play some gigs there. How did that happen?

David: It started during CMW in 2005 when we played and some of the record labels really liked us and so word got down to the big wigs in New York City that they should check us out. They ended up flying us down and we did a series of showcases there which was pretty mind-blowing and we got a record deal out of it! So it was pretty good.

iheartthemusic: You’ve done tons of touring since then, such as Warped Tour, Lollapalooza and a stint with The Who, so  what is it about touring that you love?

Kyle: Playing live is the highlight for us as a band. Everything else about touring is hit or miss; you’re stuck in a van for long periods of time, eating poor quality food and not sleeping much, but in the end it’s a lot fun too and you get to see a lot of different places. The stage is the best part though.

iheartthemusic: So where has been your favourite place to play so far?

Kyle: Some of the best shows that we have ever played seem to be out West. I remember we played at the Pemberton Music Festival and that was a really good one. We played on the second stage. We had the mountains all around us and tons of people who didn’t know who the hell we were, which was good because it introduced us to a whole new crowd.

iheartthemusic: You went from playing on the second stage at a festival to opening for The Who, that must have been an amazing accomplishment for the band.

Anders: [The Who] have always been one of our biggest influences growing up, ever since we got into our dad’s vinyl back in the day, so it was just amazing. We played a show down in Austin a couple of years ago and their promoter saw us. We then ended up playing a couple of shows in Canada with them and then when the American tour came around their name came up again and it was probably the best tour we’ve ever done and ever will do.

iheartthemusic: You guys are now on a Canadian tour with Mobile and Bend Sinister. I actually got to speak with Bend Sinister last night and they gave me some dirt on you boys. Apparently you can hold your liquor quite well!

David: Yah, apparently we can for skinny boys! I mean there is only three of us, right, so we get to divvy up the booze three ways, so we’ve learned how to handle ourselves.

iheartthemusic: You also just came out with your first self-titled EP in January and you have a video out for the single “Shame.” It has an unusual concept surrounding it, can you tell us how you came up with that?

David: The director’s name was Rémy M. Larochelle and he approached us because he was really inspired by the song so we just let him have free reign with it. He drew a couple of pictures of us looking like crocodilians or something, but I think the clincher for us was the baboon beating up the priest. We were just like this is the man for us, we are going to offend some people so let’s do it right.

iheartthemusic: You were aiming for shock value then?

David: Yah, it’s great because it goes with the whole theme of the song which is about rising up against the oppressors.

iheartthemusic: You are also hitting up Warped Tour again this summer, are you excited about that?

David: It’s going to be a tough grind. I mean Warped Tour is awesome, but it’s definitely a grind. We get so much exposure and it opens a door to the whole punk scene, which we aren’t really in. We consider ourselves a rock band, so it kind of gets our foot in that door too.

iheartthemusic: How is it living together, working together and being brothers?

Anders: Well, we have done it our whole lives so we are pretty used to it!

David: We are like an old married couple; bitter and resentful [laughs].

iheartthemusic: So after Warped Tour what is the plan?

David: We are going to be hitting the road pretty hard in Canada and come back to the Toronto area and do the “401 milk run” as we like to call it; all the little areas. We are also going to be doing another little stint in New York City. We are going to be releasing our full length album hopefully in the fall, so the EP is just a little taster of what’s to come from us.

iheartthemusic: Do you want to add anything for your fans out there?

David: Please check us out on our MySpace site and give us your comments! Let us know if we are complete tools, or you like what we are doing. Be honest because we will always be honest with you!

photography provided by Matt Vardy

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