TLOBF Interview :: Women

Fresh from their European tour, and just prior to recieving the news that their self titled release had been longlisted for the 2009 Polaris Prize, TLOBF’s Oh! Canada column took time out with Calgary’s Women.

Your press release says you recorded the album on boom-boxes in Chad Van Gaalen’s basement. Is that true?
Matt: Yeah, or at least, a good portion of it. He does it all the time, then sends his stuff off to labels, who don’t always appreciate it. We get a bit overprotective of him because he’s our friend. That’s why we play together in his band, and why he produced our record.

Your sound is one that is pretty hard to categorize. What is the strangest description you have heard about yourselves?
Matt:We get a lot of strange comparissons, and to be honest we don’t really see it ourselves. Animal collective seems to come up a lot. And the Beach Boys, which is like “What the fuck are you talking about?”

It could be because there is brothers in the band…
Matt: I think it must be, I mean, we do sound a bit like Kings of Leon and Van Halen too.

You guys have been touring the album for almost 9 months now. How have you found it?
Matt: At the end of this tour we will have done 197 shows in just over 8 months..
Chris: and about 2 or 3 of those we thought we did, like, an OK job…
Matt: Which is a 1.5% success rate- not to shabby. It’s been amazing, we’ve played our dream shows…got to support Mogwai which was like a childhood dream. And playing with Chad is always fun.

Is he still playing that terrible Steinburger headless guitar?
Matt: He was playing in Paris and Gibson was there, of Gibson guitars. I don’t know, John Gibson or something…saw his guitar and felt so bad for him that they gave him an explorer.
Chris: People are so offended by that guitar, with the dreadlocks attached to it. He paid these hippies in Victoria 50 bucks to cut them off. He even has a lazer pointer and a rubber bat hanging off it.

The Canadian government seem to be pretty supportive to their acts for touring. Have they been supportive? There were rumours that funding had been cut because they found out taxpayers money was going to support Holy Fuck and they were worried people wouldn’t approve.
Matt: Yeah, we heard that rumour but its not true- I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been given funding, and they’ve been really good to us. We know a lot of bands in the same sort of boat as us from the US who end of getting crazy in debt touring like we do. We are so lucky to have their support and to be able to tour around the world playing these great shows and meeting amazing people.

Are you ready to go home now?
Chris: We just want to record- we’ve got so much new material.
Matt: For about 5 months we are going to sit down and record. We’re going to try and get a couple of records together. It’s all about just experimenting. There is going to be new sounding things for sure, but we aren’t going to go in a new direction just for the sake of it.

Are you going to bring the accordion out Matt?
Matt: Yeah I might, ..er…maybe not…I don’t think so.
Chris: I’m going to play the tabla, and the zither. We’re going to get so Worldy it will BLOW YOUR MIND.
Matt: In truth the softer stuff is getting softer and the noisy stuff is getting noisier. Especially live.

Do you think that is a direct result of touring with Mogwai.
Pat: Those were the loudest shows I’ve ever seen. It forced us to really get our shit together. It really helps when you play with a band that are so much better than you. It’s like ‘Hey, let’s try”.

As well as being in Chad Van Gaalen’s band, Matt has also just released an album under the Pale Air Singers moniker. Do any of you have other bands?
Chris: I played my friends guitar in a park once, does that count? …We were all in the same band out of high school playing math rock. It was all singing through your moustache and being able to count between 1-10 with your shirt off… Then we branched off for a bit and did different stuff in different bands. Then for the last year and a bit this has been our ‘full time job’
Mike: yeah, Matt did ‘Pale Ale Singers’ before any of this happened…

Matt: Pale Ale Singers? I always thought it was a stupid band name.
Chris : You said Pale Ale singers
Mike: Yeah. That’s what it’s called, right?

So the rest of your bandmate are really supportive of your other projects then?
Matt: Yeah! We recorded for a few weeks a couple of years ago and I didn’t think it would ever see the light of day. Flemish eye decided to put it out recently. It’s was just really a fun record to make.

That seems to be a driving force behind a lot of Canadian bands: Fun. A lot of UK bands seems very ‘business’ orientated.
Matt: In Calgary, Flemish Eye, the label we are on is all friends, including Ian who runs it.
Mike: Yeah we used to go and see him in this awesome band he had called Fake Cops..they were like Ex-models or something. We played a few shows with him, so it was never a business relationship.
Chris: He’s very professional and we’re not so that’s how it works…it was never like he came to us and made us sign a contract…we still don’t have a contract with him, and he doesn’t want to sign one. The relationship is just way way nicer that way.
Matt: But I think there a lots of cities like that, I mean, take New York, it’s like everyone there knows each other, putting out each others music ‘cos they like it.

Yeah, the guys putting tonights show on do that. OIB records?
Matt: Cool, They’re doing The Fair-Oh’s record.
Patrick: Sex is Disgusting.
All: What?
Mike: The label working with The Fair-Oh’s, it’s called Sex Is Disgusting. Or Art Fag. Or I thought it was.
That’s almost as bad as ‘People Like You Records”, it’s short for “I used to fuck people like you in prison”.
Matt: Oh Yeah. That’s a Roadhouse reference. Fact. Right before Patrick Swayze rips his fucking jugular out. It’s probably his third best film…
Chris: easy….
Matt: AAAND Back to the interview…
Mike: It’s like simultaneously not caring but at the same time not caring about anything else. Touring constantly and it’s all you are doing, and recording constantly. Not being full of yourself, or networking and begging people to check your myspace or whatever.

Is there anyone you particularly tip from Canada that we should seek out?
Mike: Well, me and Chris used to be Azeda Booth, they’re our best friends.
Matt: Even though we stole two of their members. There’s a lot of trash rock going on on the west coast. Toronto’s more polished.
Chris: West coast is like a lot of DIY punk rock kids who grew up listening and going to see No Means No. Now the scene is officiated by these 33 year old dudes who are insanely punk rock but business savvy at the same time. They really get stuff done.

No Means No are the only band I know that can tour the country in one direction, and then go back the other way as a completely different bands (The Ramones meets Ice Hockey “Hanson Brothers’). Not that many people get the hockey thing over here in the UK though, although they still play here. Are you guys big hockey fans?
Matt: Yeah it’s awesome. I follow the hockey more than anyone else in the band. I can’t help it, I sit and watch and then I realize what I’m doing. Watching grown men getting paid millions of dollars running round on frozen water with blades tied to their feet, with 20,000 people whoopin’ and hollering…
Mike: and throwing octopuses. But thats kind of like rock music though. Grown men playing different instruments at the same time….without the blades on the feet. Back to the bands, there is Nu Sensae, and this awesome band from Toronto called Metz. They’re like old school 90’s math rock
Chris: A bit like drive like Jehu kind of thing. They were the best band we saw the first tour…dd/mm/yyyy are pretty cool too.

Finally, it can be quite difficult to look you guys op on the internet…you and another Canadian band called ‘Live Nude Celebs’…you don’t make it easy!
Mike : FREE NUDE CELEBS? That’s Jordan from Azeda Booth’s other band… we also have friends in a band called Puberty. We should all do a show together with that band Girls….it would be the hardest show to promote ever…you might get the wrong crowd.
Matt: Seriously though, what Celebs would stoop that low…

And with that the band continue on a lengthy discussion of night vision cameras, deciding that it’s probably just shot at daytime through a Becks bottle…

Women on MySpace