U of G alumni set to perform with musical group in NXNE 2014
NXNE is one of Toronto’s many culture festivals that feature emerging and new indie artists at different venues throughout the weekend. This year’s festival will take place from June 13 to 22, and a few of U of G’s alumni will be playing in bands at this year’s festival.
Among these alumni, is Michael O’Connell, front man for one of Toronto’s indie rock bands, Culture Reject. O’Connell was once a U of G student, and was highly involved in Guelph’s music scene during his time at the university. During the time that he spent studying at Guelph, he was involved in a band called Black Cabbage.
“I love it. We actually got together I think 5 years ago to play Hillside. It was good, it was like a reunion for us and we hadn’t played together for almost 10 years, and it was beautiful. I loved it. But it was a lot of people to manage and a lot of schedules to manage. It was good while it lasted,” said O’Connell on reuniting with his university band.
“There’s a license that you can kind of be your own freak in Guelph – you’re allowed to. And I think that’s a really great license,” he said of his time in Guelph. “A lot happened in Guelph, a lot of bands were playing and a lot of bands were collaborating. Politically it was a pretty active community and the fact that the university and the downtown core actually have relationships really meant that there was a really rich culture and discourse and dialogue around important issues like labour, sexual identity, homophobia, racism – a lot of stuff was possible to talk about, you know? So I learned…through those years, how to have hard conversations – conversations that can be uncomfortable. Slowly I started realizing that I wanted to start including that stuff in my music.”
O’Connell is involved in a project called Sketch, which, according to their biography on whitewhale.ca, involves “creating beats and opportunities for at-risk youth in Toronto.”
“It’s really vital work, first of all because I get to work with a massively vibrant population of people who I really would not know in different circumstances. That’s a joy in and of itself,” said O’Connell of this project.
Sketch has really helped O’Connell progress not only as a person, but also as a musician.
“I’d say it shapes me both in the content of what I’m writing – the lyrical content of my writing. I think that I can’t help but have been influenced by everything that I’ve sort of been saying just around people being part of a conversation or not. That became a big part of even the name that I chose. The name Culture Reject was about that – was about who’s in the conversation and who’s not – and I think most people go into any social context and determine whether or not they’re an insider or an outsider,” explained O’Connell. “Then there’s the joy of making music with people based on their whims and their tastes. I make everything and work with anything from speed metal to gangster hip-hop to old folky banjo music to really super classic R&B, like old hippie music – every kind of music that you can imagine, especially in the pop realm, happens at the studio … I’m super influenced by just the music and the fact that I get to collaborate with artists and help them make the music that they want to make.”
Culture Reject released their self-titled debut album in 2009, as well as an EP entitled Forces just last year. O’Connell assured the Ontarion that they are planning another release in the near future.
As for playing in NXNE this summer, O’Connell says he and the band couldn’t be more excited. “We’re always excited to play in Toronto- I think NXNE will be a really fun thing to be apart of.”
Guelph is very proud to be featuring one of the city’s own progressing artists. Stay tuned to The Ontarion’s website for the full interview coming soon.