Q&A with Electric Spoonful
Electric Spoonful (Photo: The Photo Ninja / @thephotoninja13)
A Halifax music scene staple, Electric Spoonful has a reputation for their wild shows that guarantee fans an unforgettable experience. On September 30 - Less than a year after the band won a Nova Scotia Music Award for Loud Recording of the Year for their EP “2 Poor 4 a Two Four,” the band released their follow-up EP "Still 2 Poor". On October 7th, they're throwing an EP release at 2 Crows, complete with a special brew crafted in their honour. The Boom at Noon recently caught up with the band to discuss the EP, release show and the signature Electric Spoonful concert experience.
The band has close ties to Gus’ Pub - it’s almost like a home base for the band. Why did you choose to hold the EP release at 2 Crows Brewing?
CJ:
We've done a lot of shows across the last couple of years. I work there, and so did TJ and Rudy. We love to play there but we wanted to try something different. We've seen some awesome shows at 2 Crows, and it’s a really good vibe - they're awesome over there. They’re gonna make a beer for us for our show, so that's also super cool. We're really excited for the show.
Were you involved in the beer-making process?
Rudy:
We figured out the flavours and the name.
TJ:
They gave us a list of their beers to use as a base and said you can choose two or three things to throw into it. So we chose their Pollyanna - nice and strong and hoppy and then we said we wanted to do mango and orange and call it the Electric Pale Ale.
Will be beer be on tap or in cans? How can we drink it?
Jesse:
Yes, it will be on tap.
Rudy:
They’re making two kegs, I believe - and we’ll drink it all!
What will the atmosphere be like at the show? It has a smaller capacity, right?
Jesse:
Yeah, it's 50 cap, I believe. So it’s a lot smaller than Gus’, but that's part of the reason why we want to play there. We like the intimate shows. We've all played the basement shows and friends' parties at their houses and stuff and kind of missed that atmosphere, so that played a little bit, I think, in the switch to 2 Crows on top of the fact that we love their beer and love everything that they're doing for the local scene right now. Only a few venues have that small, intimate feeling - we miss it, so we're looking forward to that.
Your last single, “Drunk’s Not Dead (& I’m Not Punk Enough),” makes a bit of a political statement. Can you tell us more about that, and will there be any more of that on the upcoming EP?
Rudy:
I think one of the things we started saying when we first started - we're never gonna get political. We're not a very serious bunch of guys. Our stuff is kind of steeped in comedy, I suppose. I wouldn't call us a “comedic band,” but there are a lot of jokes and we just have fun. That's the main thing about Spoonful is that we just want to have fun and want everybody else to have fun. That's why the song even has a lot of jokes and whatnot and it's not super serious, but the housing crisis is an issue that most of us and all of our friends and everybody in the city, not just musicians, are having to deal with - not even just the city, the entire country. It's just kind of hard to not mention. It affects the music scene not just by musicians not being able to live in the city but by venues closing every five minutes it seems like.
Jesse:
I felt like we were really just angry at a lot of things. The best way to take this out is to put it in the music. So we added all the thoughts that we were feeling, and we got our most political song to date.
TJ:
I think we also said that you know things are getting serious when Electric Spoonful is writing a political song.
What was the what's the songwriting process like for the EP, and was it similar to how you wrote your other music?
Jesse:
Yeah, we generally have this kind of pattern, it seems. It’s unintentional, but we usually write with two people at a time. So it'd be like me and Rudy or TJ and CJ or Rudy and Gabe. So two people usually get together and drink all night and wake up with a song. I think only one of the songs we all wrote together was “Drunk’s Not Dead,” and the other songs are all combinations of the two of us. It’s an interesting process, but it works.
TJ:
There's a lot to producing the songs, too when we bring the song to the band, we will sit down and practice and then we'll come up with ideas like, oh, what if we speed this part up or add this here and there to make it more interesting. So it kind of starts as two of us, but in the end, we all kind of come together, and everybody writes and pieces it together.
Do you typically do lyrics first, or is it different depending on who’s working on it?
Jesse:
It definitely changes. I find it usually starts with a guitar riff or a bass groove or a just concept where we're just like, ah, that'd be funny. This would be funny - like with “Storebot,” we were like, oh, with the legalization of weed, all these drug dealers are out of a job now, and it kind of started with that, and we just did like a random jam. We got together and jammed, and then that came out. Sometimes it's those grooves or the riffs, and sometimes the lyrics and the concept. It changes depending on the vibe.
Do you write with the live show in mind?
TJ:
Definitely, yeah. That's a big part of it, for sure.
You are known for your wild shows - what are some of the most memorable moments from past shows?
TJ:
For me, there was one show that we did at Gus’ where I crowd-surfed while doing a guitar solo, and then I walked up to the bar and did a shot of rum and then I ran back on stage, all while Gabe broke a string and was changing it. A distraction was happening while he was getting his guitar fixed up.
Rudy:
There are a lot of memories I could think of. Before some of the guys in the current lineup, but like just cutting our teeth on tour. The first tour we played - I'm not gonna say the name of the bar… but a real shitty bar in Montreal, and it was a little dive bar that wreaked like piss. There was a guy clearly tweaking out, and he actually pulled his ‘explicit’s’ out. The bartender was standing there and just like ‘Yeah, that's just Joe - he just does that!’ The bartender didn't even flinch.
Jesse:
Generally, the vibe is there’s always somebody covered in beer or blood. Well, all of us are covered in beer. If it's not us, at least a couple of people are.
TJ:
Another one of our favourite things to do is buy two pitchers of beer before the show, and then in certain parts of certain songs where we know somebody can stop playing for a second - We'll take that pitcher of beer and pour it into people's mouths. There are a few action shots of that on our Instagram that are both beautiful and tragic.
Is the recording process as fun as the live show?
Rudy:
I personally hate the studio and I think a lot of other bands love it. We don't, really.
Jesse:
Speak for yourself
Rudy:
That’s because he does one take, and that’s it.
Jesse:
I have the easiest job, I’m in and out right away. We’re definitely more of a live band than a studio band. We definitely all enjoy the live performance more but it can get pretty interesting in the studio, especially when you're up till 7 a.m.
How does the new EP “Still 2 Poor” compare to “2 Poor 4 a Two Four”? Are they similar?
CJ:
Yeah, very similar. The first was all over the place genre-wise and we were recording with some different people. This one, we recorded with the same people but it's all different genre stuff, lots of different hits and themes, but all very funny, like the first one. It’s kind of like the sister EP.
Rudy:
It’s probably just an extension or a spiritual successor.
Jesse:
They're both supposed to kind of complement each other.
Rudy:
We were gonna release it as an LP and get vinyl made at some point. But I think there's a vinyl shortage or something right now, so it could be a while.
Tj:
The biggest similarity is that it's really still hard to describe what genre we are. We bounce around so much. When we were in Exclaim! Alec, the writer, was having a really hard time and was messaging me like, ‘What do I use as like for fans of?’ and I was like, ‘You know what? I have no idea.’”
Rudy:
I think a lot of people back in the day were like, this is our genre because we have to stay within those parameters, and that's something that we’ve never done. I think a lot of other bands are starting to do the same thing where they're just like, I'm not gonna pigeonhole myself into this one genre for the rest of my career. We take a Neil Young look at it - we can do whatever the hell we want.
Catch the band playing the songs live at their EP release show at 2 Crows Brewing on October 7 - admission is just $5 at the door. Be sure to get there early because it’s going to hit capacity quickly. Those in the Sydney area can catch the band the following day - October 8, at Gobblefest Music Festival.
