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

On Thursday (March 5^th) iheartthemusic decided to venture into familiar territory and attend The Secret Valentine Tour show at The Mod Club. Why was it “familiar territory”, you ask? Well, it seemed like the same crowd that was at the Take Action Tour Toronto show a few weeks back was in full attendance at this one too. It was all ages, which became ever more apparent as we never had to wait for a drink at the bar! We arrived fairly early so as to get a chance to speak with the boys from The Cab, one of the bands performing that evening, and noticed that a lineup had already begun well before the show’s opening act was set to perform (don’t these kids have school?). As we walked into The Mod Club there were a few comments directed at us by the girls in line who appeared to be upset that we were getting in before them! I even believe b**** was yelled at us by a 14-year-old girl. It was an interesting way to start the night!

First up on stage was a band from Florida (which was a theme throughout the night) that go by the name of VersaEmerge. What I loved about this band was that it was headed by a female vocalist. You rarely see that in a rock/pop band and so this was a breath of fresh air! Sierra Kusterbeck is her name and she exhibits maturity well beyond her years (she is only 18!), which became evident when we sat down and chatted with her before the show. The girl can sing too! She commanded the attention of the audience and it was hard to look at anything else (let alone the other band members). VersaEmerge ended their set by adding “even though this is half the crowd we’ve played for, it’s the best we’ve ever seen!” Well thank you, but considering the venue was not even half full, I doubt it was the best!

Next up was There For Tomorrow, another Florida based band that consists of Maika Maile (vocals/guitar), Christian Climer (guitar/vocals), Christopher Kamrada (drums) and Jay Enriquez (bass). These boys started off by doing the sound check that they had missed earlier. I won’t use that against them, however, as I later found out that their absence  during sound check  was a result of wanting to go downtown. Having been their first time in Toronto, you have to love a band that takes the time to enjoy the city they are playing in! So after all the tuning was done I have to say they were pretty amazing and lead singer Maika’s voice was incredible. What really got the crowd going were the MANY references to the fact that Canadian girls are so beautiful. On numerous occasions Maika announced, “I like what I see pretty girls”, which either means that their publicist had prepared them well (considering the entire audience was female) or they truly do believe that Canadian girls are hot (and why wouldn’t they!). Either way, this is a band that I am going to keep on my radar as I anticipate we will be hearing more from them soon!

The Cab was next on the bill and I got the pleasure to sit down and chat with some of the members before the show. You may have already heard of them as their single “Bounce” was featured on an episode of The Hills in the fall. When the band first appeared on the stage I was a bit thrown off by the Michael Jackson glove that lead singer Alex was sporting during the entire set, however, they made up for it with their talent. This band went straight into it, there was no chatting with the crowd or telling them how amazing they were like the predecessors. They played their first few songs without even acknowledging the crowd, which I loved since, let’s face it, it’s all about the music anyway! They also incorporated different instruments into their performance, which you don’t normally see with this style of music. Keyboardist Alex (the heartthrob of the group) added a unique touch to their sound. There was one minor instrumental setback during their set when Ian’s guitar was out of tune, but singer Alex was able to cut the silence by singing an old tune from five years ago and engaging the crowd in the process. They invited Sierra from VersaEmerge on stage to sing with them at one point which was great and the combination of Alex and Sierra’s voices sounded amazing. One thing I noticed that lead singer Alex did that I have yet to see any other bands do was introduce and thank each individual member of the band while on stage. I also appreciated the N’Sync throwback that snuck into their set near the end. These boys have convinced me that they know how to put on a show and were definitely the highlight of the night.

Last but not least was We The Kings: the headliners for the evening. I actually didn’t catch their set as I was engaged in some interviews at the time, but managed to hear a bit. What I heard was great, although it was not all original material. I believe they played a cover of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours.” I didn’t quite understand this; do they not have their own material? A source close to the tour informed me that that was typical of their performances, so I was a bit disappointed by that. After the show I was able to chat with them and they redeemed themselves in my books. They are really down to earth and truly enjoy what they are doing and all the support that they get from their fans (I still don’t understand the fee  they impose on fans who want to meet them after the show though). I will have to catch them next time they are in Toronto to garner a better understanding of what these guys are really like as performers.

photography courtesy of Jessie Lau

We were lucky enough to get the chance to sit down and chat with the threesome that makes up Cute Is What We Aim For before their show at The Pheonix. Now we didn’t quite get them all (Shaant was missing), but guitarist Jeff Czum and bassist Dave Malillo managed to squeeze us in to their busy press schedule. Although we were one of the last interviews of the day, Jeff and Dave were a pleasure to speak with and showed us that fame has definitely not gone to their heads…

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

Jeff: It was actually just a sarcastic joke between Shaant and his friends in high school. They were making fun of  people that were in the “scene” at the time. I guess, because I didn’t make it so I don’t really know, he just started saying cute instead of cool and it caught on as a high school trend.

iheartthemusic: So cool is what you are aiming for?

Jeff: I guess so, I mean we were all geeks at one point in high school.

Dave: Usually bands get stuck with names that they don’t necessarily want. I mean look at Green Day, they’ve said that they hate their name! Once you get stuck with it and people know it, that’s I guess what you want.

iheartthemusic: Let’s talk about this tour that you are on, it’s called Take Action. What is that all about and why did you want to get involved?

Dave: The Take Action Tour is all about making people aware of  the opportunities that surround them to make a difference. Its about trying to inspire people through our music and through our message to get out there and do something! Ironically enough dosomething.org are sponsoring the tour and they give people the tools to be able to influence their area and the people around them. So that’s what the tour is all about, we’re just trying to promote youth involvement. Also, 10% of the proceeds every night go to dosomething.org, so that’s pretty cool.

iheartthemusic: This tour just began but for the next two months you guys are playing back to back nights, how do you survive?

Jeff: It’s not really that bad. I love playing shows. Usually when we have days off it’s the worst feeling ever. We don’t do anything; we just sit on the bus and wish we were playing a show that night. As far as rituals go before shows, I know Dave will listen to music, I don’t really do anything. It’s just kind of a chill out period.

iheartthemusic: Rumour has it you have a pretty sweet tour bus and an interesting vacuum cleaner?

Dave: Are you talking about the Dyson? Shaant got this $200 hand vacuum that looks like a gun from Halo. But it’s beautiful. I mean it picks up everything. We also have a dog now too called Sergeant Sebastian. He’s a puglet and he’s Shaant’s. He  just got him a month ago, so we decided to bring him on tour and see how it works. It’s awesome.

iheartthemusic: You guys have done quite a bit of touring now, including sharing the stage with Fall Out Boy and Canada’s own Simple Plan. Is there anyone that sticks out for you?

Jeff: Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, Alkaline Trio. I grew up listening to them so it was awesome to be able to play on the same tour as them. I watched Bad Religion every day when they went on. It was crazy. That was the best summer of my life.

Dave: It was really special, not so much that we even got to share the stage with people, but that we got to be around those people and hang out with them. We hung out with Newfound Glory on a consistent basis, you just make friends with bands that you never thought you would. It’s really cool and really weird at the same time because, like Jeff said, we grew up listening to these bands and now they are completely accessible to us.

Jeff: I fucked myself up at the Toronto date.

iheartthemusic: What happened?

Jeff: I fell on a little pothole and I ended up popping out three ribs and bruising my shoulder.

Dave: Thank you Toronto!

iheartthemusic: Hey now, you can’t blame us for your bad luck! Didn’t Dave get into a little fumble last night while you weren’t in Toronto?

Dave: We were in Pittsburgh and this crowd were just rowdy, I mean you could tell people were looking for a fight. Someone threw a bottle at our bus – clearly they don’t recognize that it’s our home – so we just had to defend it and that’s what happened. I was defending the fort!

Jeff: I walked up later and everyone was like “you just missed it”, but I miss everything.

Dave: It’s probably a good you missed it because you would have gotten involved too.

iheartthemusic: Well we are sorry to hear that, but the scar does make you look tough Jeff! Do you guys have a favourite song to play?

Jeff: I think its probably “Hollywood” just because that’s my favourite song on Rotation and it’s the last one that we wrote. It’s a good time!

Dave: I agree with Jeff. It’s like some songs you play you are just on autopilot the whole time but that song is really fun to play.

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

Jeff: I can never think of any.

Dave: People are very nice, at least to us. They are very considerate, no one has ever attacked anyone as far as I know. No stalker situations. We got lucky.

iheartthemusic: That surprises me, especially for you Dave, considering your solo project has been garnering tons of hits on MySpace.

Dave: Yah, I guess so. I was doing that before I was in the band and that’s actually how I met these guys. It was our first tour together when I was doing my solo stuff  as Dave Malillo and then we toured like three or four times after that until it just made sense at one point to merge because we always got along really well.

iheartthemusic: What’s up next for you boys?

Jeff: After this tour we are probably going to do some international dates like Japan, Australia and the UK, I hope. We’ve been to the UK, which was amazing. Scotland was by far my favourite place. Glasgow was amazing! Honestly if I could play anywhere in the world it would have to be Glasgow. So we’re hoping to do that and then maybe write another record and get it out by the end of the year and do everything all over again.

iheartthemusic: And of course come back to Toronto!

Dave: Exactly! We’re just a hop, skip and a jump away.

www.myspace.com/cuteiswhatweaimfor

photography provided by Matt Vardy, www.mattvardy.com

One of the bands that I was really pumped to see perform on the Take Action Tour was Every Avenue. Now I have to admit, before they came to Toronto I had never heard of them.  How could I be excited to see a band I’d never heard of before?  Because I did my research and my ears were pleasantly surprised by what they heard. The band which formed in Michigan in 2004 consists of David Strauchman (vocals/piano), Josh Randall (guitar), Jimmie Deeghan (guitar/backup vocals), Matt Black (bass/backup vocals) and Michael Govaere (drums). They released their first full length album last year entitled Shh…Just Go With It and have been on countless tours since, including a recent trip to the UK opening for Boys Like Girls. I was lucky enough to catch up with Matt and Josh backstage after the show where we shared some fan moments and a nice CANADIAN beer.

iheartthemusic: How’s the tour going so far?

Josh: It’s been great so far, it’s only day four so we are still early in the tour, but all the other bands are really nice.  We’ve actually toured with Breathe Carolina before so it was great to see them on the bill as well.

Matt: Usually on a tour there’re like maybe five days to a week where there is this awkward period between the bands who don’t know each other and then you kind of get to know them and then you’re good after that first week. But with this tour it’s been like that from the first night, everyone was just best friends so it’s been going great.

iheartthemusic: Have you been to Toronto before this tour?

Matt: Yah, we played here a couple of months ago with All Time Low, which was awesome, and then last summer we did Warped Tour here. So this is our third time to Toronto.

iheartthemusic: Any crazy tour stories you want to share?

Josh: Nothing that we can put in print because my mom will read this.

iheartthemusic: Off the record maybe??

Josh: Let’s just say it’s been crazy…

iheartthemusic: Ok we’ll leave it to our imaginations! So explain how Every Avenue came together.

Josh: That’s an interesting question. We’ve been around since maybe 2004, but we’ve had a few reincarnations of the band over the years.

Matt: Josh and I were in a band in the summer of 2004 and Every Avenue was kind of just starting. At the time it only consisted of two people:  Mike and Dave. They were playing shows around the same area where we were and so we started playing shows with them and when our band broke up they grabbed Josh up and it went off from there.

iheartthemusic: Has touring helped introduce you to some new bands?

Josh: Pretty much every tour we end up being pretty impressed with a lot of bands that we are out with. You learn to appreciate all different kinds of music as well. Like Breathe Carolina is a band that is kind of different from the stuff that I normally listen to but I love them now.

iheartthemusic: Any particular musical influences?

Josh: We each have our own personal influences but as a band I would say The Police, The Cars, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Eat World.

Matt: Its kind of weird because I feel the five of us have artists that we listen to that are similar but for the most part we kind of branch out into different musical genres. Like, what I would sit down and listen to is probably completely different than say what Jimmie would sit down and listen to.

Josh: Matt is like the rap guy, I’m like the folk guy. We’re all over the place, but we appreciate everything.

iheartthemusic: Being on all these tours you  have to at leat have one crazy fan moment that you can share with us?

Matt: Not really from this tour, I mean sure, give it some time and something crazy will happen. Although in the past we have had some people give us some weird gifts and we were just like, “what is this?” Like last Valentine’s Day we were in Philly and these girls, who honestly couldn’t have been over like 14, made us these very sexually explicit Valentine’s cards. One for each person in the band!

Josh: They wrote things that made even me blush! I’m not offended easily and I was even just like, “this is awkward!” Another kind of weird fan moment  is when people know so much about you and you’ve never met them. Like at Bamboozle last year, I had just broken up with my girlfriend at the time and so many people were asking “what’s going on with you and Ashley?”

iheartthemusic: Well that’s what happens when you are famous, I guess! Speaking of fame, has there been a defining moment where you felt like you had made it?

Matt: I’ve had a few moments when I’ve been like, “wow we are at a place we’ve never been before where people know our songs.” I think for me I kind of got the “whoa” feeling when we went to Japan and just walking down the street people knew our name and would come up and talk to us and know stuff about us. My thinking was, “how does anybody in this country know who we are?” To me we are still this tiny band…I don’t get it.

Josh: I think personally there are a lot of small steps to fame and it’s so gradual but when you look back you really appreciate it. We look back and appreciate everything. Like we can’t even believe we are in Toronto and playing to this many people! Our mentality is like “we are just a band from Michigan and write songs in a garage.” We still appreciate everything and can’t believe we’ve come even this far.

iheartthemusic: So then what would that next step be for you guys?

Josh: In a year I’d like to see Elvis Costello and The Police opening up for us. I’d like to be more along the lines of Elton John and Sean Connery and be knighted [laughs].

Matt: Yah, I’d like to be knighted and be Sir Matt.

Josh: We have a new album that will be coming out this year. We’re just in the process of writing that right now and so far we have, like, 14 songs done so it should be out by this summer. We’re really excited about that.

Matt: In the next year I’d like to see us have a successful headlining tour. I think that that would confirm a lot to me. I mean every tour we’ve done we’ve always been the opening band. Even if a lot of people are actually singing the songs, you don’t know if they are coming to the show to see you or if they came to see the headliner and just happen to know a couple of your songs. So that for me would be something that I would hope we could get to.

iheartthemusic: Anything you want to tell your Canadian fans out there that they might not know about you?

Josh: I snore pretty bad sometimes.

Matt: In like the last week people keep saying, “you were snoring pretty loud last night” and I never snore! So my advice to our Canadian fans would be don’t drink and then sleep on your back because apparently that is what causes you to snore. It’s a recipe for disaster!

Josh: I want to say to our Canadian fans honestly thank you so much. That’s all I can really say. I can’t believe I’m playing in Toronto and a lot of people in the crowd know our songs. Songs that we wrote in my basement! It’s surreal that anyone knows our songs. Kids come out to shows and buy our merch and that’s just awesome!

iheartthemusic: If you want more of Every Avenue then be sure to check them out on their MySpace:

www.myspace.com/everyavenue

photography provided by Matt Vardy, www.mattvardy.com

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