So Hi there, how the devil are you today?
I feel good, a bit tired, I Had a long weekend, I played Pop Montreal and the next day one of my oldest friends got married outside of Hamilton, On. Had lots of fun though.
How did the band come together and with what ambitions?
It wasn’t planned really, it kind of came out of nowhere for me but thinking back on it, it was definitely a combination of things that sparked it. This year has been an interesting one, I recently co-built a recording studio with Leon Taheny (Dusted/Final Fantasy) that took up at least half my year and doing 17 hours of building/running around every day made me not really have the energy to write a lot.
On top of that both bands I’m/was in had just finished full length albums and when you’re not in a huge band with much back support, it can be a slow stretch to start getting the record out there and doing something with it.I didn’t want to write specifically for either bands that soon because we had each had a whole album worth of stuff that we might have to tour soon and want to play material off the album.
After a long winter/early spring of getting the studio ready one of the first weekends I had to myself I plugged in my guitar, a delay pedal and a microphone into a little amp in our new tall ceilinged live room and was so at ease and felt like I had nothing to lose of what would come out, and after a few hours I had sketches for at least 5-6 songs.
My band Beliefs is all co-writen with my roommate Jesse Crowe and I was mostly now playing drums in Elk, so it made sense to have something where it was just me creating it, I just needed to do it. I wanted to play a show and quickly Kyle Connolly in Elk offered to play bass and I asked my friend Shawn Dell (who mentioned a few times wanted to do music together eventually) to play drums.
It’s an EP so far, is there an album due anytime soon?
Its actually two songs from the record we made/are making. We went into my studio with
How is
Well I feel pretty submerged in it, I’m always playing shows around here, running a studio, producing/engineering Toronto bands/artists, going to see bands play, buying records etc so I’m probably biased but I feel its been an amazing city for me being that my life is centred around music. There’s no where else I would rather be in Canada than Toronto, there is just so much going on and so much support, I’ve never even been to Brooklyn, I have no place to even comment but I love a lot of bands from there and it seems like an amazing place for music, I feel like Toronto is our Brooklyn so there’s no need to compete, if anything maybe learn a bit from each other scenes.
How would to describe your sound for people yet to hear your songs?
Musically I have wide range of tastes so it can be hard to keep things consistent, the early thoughts were a combination of dreamy type sounds from the 80’s and 50’s and early 90’s and I think we kept that vibe on the record. Out of many things I’ve been a part of in some way in the studio it definitely feels like it was recorded in an imaginary place, which I love and have Leon Taheny to thank for, for capturing the vibe we wanted.
Even though it can sound dense and not stripped down, all the songs are usually 2-4 chords max, they are basically pop songs but I’ve always been a fan of how something sounds rather than the musical technicality of something, so playing an A chord in a particular way with a particular effect is everything for me, so a band like spacemen 3 is just as big of an influence as tears for fears are.
The photos for the band on the website are quite eerie, whose idea was the artwork and what are you trying to covey to the listener?
I basically was going to get my friend Laura-Lynn Petrick to shoot some album cover photos and then she sent me a bunch she already did and as soon as I saw that one I knew it was perfect. The image and the colour is where I want to be playing this music and what I want to see while doing it. I can’t put it into words but her photos and that one particular visually makes me and hopefully others loosely sees what the music sounds like and that to me is super important when choosing a cover/image and a band name.
Breeze is made up of members of other groups, does that make this a one off experiment or does Breeze have a long term future?
It is a one off experiment/side project I guess for myself and others in the band but I’m at a point now where I just like to make records with people and seeing where it goes, playing with different people, who never knows if/when things, will work, a place in time is everything. I’m extremely happy with the music were making in this project and with the people in it so to me that’s a huge step to get the music out there and being able to go with it.
My goal is to write and play in my band Beliefs and Breeze and so far its working out nicely, both have two different vibes which I love and love working with everyone in each band in different way. Its really nice to switch things up and makes you appreciate each band in different ways. My personal goal is to be touring in both bands 40% of the year and Producing / Writing / Engineering the other 60% but you can’t predict your life schedule, ha.
Back to college / school days … What were the albums you exchanged amongst friends and do you still play those records today?
The big ones would be Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, Spiritualized Ladies and gentlemen were floating in space, Velvet Undergrounds s/t (not the nico one), Broken Social Scene’s ‘You forgot it in People’ was a big one for me in college as well.
Talking of Records, what is you preference for listening, Vinyl, CD, Cassette, Download etc?
I’m pretty much 70% digital, 30% vinyl. I prefer vinyl on my stereo always but I need to be able to take music with me.
How necessary to you think it is to have a record label deal, or is DIY the route to go with today’s internet availability? How did you come to work with ‘Hand Drawn Dracula’ at home and ‘No Pain in Pop’ in the EU/UK?
I think no matter if it’s a label, booking agent, manager whatever, someone else helping your band is a good thing, especially if they are not in a band as well ha. I’m new to having to work with labels, its really only been in the last year or so and they are all fairly small, but I think the same goes for James at Handdrawn for Breeze and Beliefs, Tom at No Pain In Pop for Beliefs and When I was with Elk for their label indoorshoes from my hometown of St. Catharines, they’re all hard working dudes that most likely aren’t playing music but love it to death and just want to put out music that they believe in and like and they’re using as many of their resources as possible to get your music out there, but you have to meet them halfway, that’s the best relationship when they are working just as hard as you are and vise versa.
Any European tour dates on the horizon?
Beliefs will hopefully be coming next spring and I would love for Breeze to as well. I’ve never been outside North America, I’ve never travelled because all my money has gone towards gear, so it would be an amazing opportunity for me to get our music out there, meet some new people, share ideas and see some interesting places, I would love it.
Links
http://www.facebook.com/candlerecording http://joshkorody.tumblr.com/
http://breezeband.tumblr.com/ http://wearebeliefs.tumblr.com/