Interview: No Joy
Meet You At The Show: How did No Joy get started?
Laura Lloyd: Jasmine had moved to LA last fall, basically to escape the winter. I was supposed to go with her but some things came up, so I stayed here. I guess we felt really separated, so we started writing songs about how depressed we were over the winter back and forth over email. Then she came back to Montreal because we had our first show in December, so we finished the songs together in person, and it kind of just went from there. We got a bassist and a drummer, played the show and she never went back to LA.
MYATS: Are you both from Montreal? How long have you both been playing music before starting the band?
LL: I’m originally from Victoria, B.C., but Jasmine grew up here. We did some other stuff together and with other bands, but at the time our focus was to do something completely new and forget about whatever we had done in the past.
MYATS: I remember first hearing you featured in an Urban Outfitters Music Mondays playlist, and now there’s already been quite a bit of buzz about your debut full-length album. It seems that you’ve been getting some hype, even outside of the Montreal scene, before even releasing a full album. How does it feel for your “debut album” to be anticipated like this?
LL: It’s really surreal – it’s kind of weird, too, because I never expected anyone to like this band. This band was really started out of the fact that we just wanted to do something that we liked, so the attitude going into it was basically, “fuck what anybody thinks, let’s just do what we want.” So, it’s really kind of surprising that people do like it… It’s caught us off guard. It’s awesome, I’m glad people like it for what it is and not for something it isn’t. In that respect, we aren’t trying to please anybody, but we’re glad that we are.
MYATS: What influences or inspires your sound? What kinds of things do you find motivate you to write music?
LL: I’m not sure if there are any bands that really influence us. Obviously, there are similarities between our band and a lot of 90s alternative and shoegaze bands, and that’s all stuff that we like, but when we started the band it was never like, “let’s channel this band” or “let’s sound like this.” I just wanted to write some heavy, sad songs. I know a lot of people say they were listening to a certain record when they were writing their record, but that wasn’t the case from us. When I was writing songs I wasn’t really listening to anything other than the songs I was writing. I can’t really pinpoint any kind of influence other than, at the time, it wasn’t music that influenced us but the moods we were in.
We just kind of realized this yesterday, but it seems that winter follows us wherever we go. The band started in the winter because we were trying to avoid the winter, we were miserable because of it, and that’s why [one of our first songs] was called “No Summer”. Everything revolves around the winter for us, so, as much as we try to escape that, it keeps coming back, and I think that’s the vibe our album has. For a band that hates the winter, it’s funny how big a part it plays in our music.
MYATS: What was it like recording the new album? How was it different from recording your first release?
LL: It was a lot different, because we recorded the 7” in a studio with Graham Van Pelt, who’s in Miracle Fortress and Think About Life. We only had two songs at the time so we recorded them, and I think you can tell in those recordings that they were kind of improvised. We had never played a live show so going into that was weird and uncertain, but it came out totally awesome and we were really happy with it. But when it came time to do the full-length [Ghost Blonde] we were on a tight schedule because our label wanted the album done for fall, and we didn’t have a single dollar to our names to go into a studio to record, so we did it ourselves in our own studio space. We used all our own microphones and laptops and everything. It was kind of a weird experience because we kind of didn’t know what we were doing, but at the same time we had a bunch of ideas and we had the space to explore whatever we wanted and to figure it out on our own.
We sent it out to have it mixed by [Sune Rose Wagner] from The Raveonettes. He pointed out a couple of things like, “I see you guys put like 8000 guitar tracks in this song. Is it cool if we don’t use all 8000?” He did an awesome job. He really cleaned it up for us, and it helped a lot having an outside perspective. We love The Raveonettes, but, more specifically, the production on their albums and the way they sound. They have some really cool hollow sounds that I’ve always envied, so that was our first choice and we were really excited that it worked out. You can definitely see his influence and his take [on the mixing], which is very cool.
MYATS: How do the songs come into existence? Do you have a particular process for writing songs together?
LL: Usually it starts with one of us coming up with something, writing a riff, and then we just bring it to each other and build off that. A couple of the songs on the album were kind of improvised, like the title track, “Ghost Blonde” – we kind of made that one up on the spot and recorded it live, in one take. We didn’t know how it was starting or how it was ending, so when it ended we were all just staring at each other, like, “What now?” We were recording so we couldn’t speak, so just kind of shrugged and stopped the song. So, there are a few songs like that, that kind of came alive on the spot, but the other ones that are more structured were planned in advance.
MYATS: One thing I’ve noticed is that your vocals really seem to blend in with the music, so that it’s often difficult to tell what’s actually being said. Was this a deliberate choice?
LL: It was definitely deliberate. The vocals aren’t as important as some people think they should be. Some songs are built around lyrics, absolutely, but for us it was never about the vocals. We were toying with the idea when we started the band about doing a lot of instrumental songs, but the voice is really just another instrument that can be buried just like any other instrument and can come forward just like any other. There was never supposed to be a prominent vocal harmony and lyric thing; we try to kind of blend that in with the rest because, for our band, it’s just as important as every guitar tone we have.
We both think that you kind of lose the magic of the song when you hear lyrics too clearly – not always, of course, but especially with this kind of music. With this genre that we do, if you hear the lyrics too loud it takes away from the song’s meaning. It should really be obvious with the patterns and the melodies of the songs what we’re trying to evoke, and you can interpret the vocals any way you want rather than having them tell you what the songs mean. It’s kind of like, “choose your own adventure!”
MYATS: Why did you decide to call yourselves “No Joy”? Your music doesn’t seem to be entirely joyless.
LL: We get that a lot and I don’t really have an answer, because it didn’t really come from anything. We were toying with ideas for a bunch of names and this is just the one that stuck out and made sense to us. I wish there was a deeper meaning behind it, but there really isn’t! People often say it’s surprising that we have some upbeat songs, but the title of the band has nothing to do with the type of songs we write. I don’t like to overthink these kinds of things because, I think, once you find something that sounds good to you, you just stick with it. It doesn’t have to have a meaning behind it.
MYATS: You’re about to go on tour with Best Coast – what are you most looking forward to about the tour? What do you do to kill all that time on the road?
LL: I’m really looking forward to playing venues that I never thought I would be playing – we’re getting some big rooms that are kind of intimidating. We’re definitely excited to play to a broader audience because I think Best Coast has a bit of a different audience, though I think we overlap on some areas. The tour is also with Wavves, which is her boyfriend’s band, so we all know each other and we’re all friends so I think it will be a lot of fun to be out on the road with people you like. I think we’re going to have a stupid amount of fun. To kill time on the road, we basically eat a lot and we watch a lot of 90s teen dramas, like 90210.
MYATS: Beyond going on this tour, what is next for No Joy?
LL: Well, that’s just a small portion of the tour we’re doing in the next year; I think right after that tour with Best Coast we’re going to head out to Europe for a month and a half or so, then down to SXSW, and then back to Europe for festivals. Then maybe we’ll be back in town for the summer to sit down and start writing and recording some more.
Interview conducted by Natasha Young
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No Joy play Casa Del Popolo this Saturday, November 27th. Tickets are $8.00 in advance or $10.00 at the door and can be purchased online via Blue Skies Turn Black by clicking here. Ducktails, Grimes and METZ will open.
