Toronto punk band offers a high-octane Thursday evening
On Nov. 13, The Beaches played at Van Gogh’s Ear, alongside Vancouver band BESTiE. The two bands have been sharing the road on tour this year. BESTiE took the stage first, filling the room with positive vibes alongside their indie surf-pop music. The Beaches, a punk-rock band from Toronto, blew the stage away with their set. The girls put on a raw show, and the audience at Van Gogh’s found it hard not to dance and move along to their tracks. Both groups’ stage presence was powerful, and the bands used their energy to demand the audience’s undivided attention.
Although Van Gogh’s didn’t carry the busy Thursday night crowd that they usually do, the small crowd worked in The Beaches’ favour by providing an intimate space that allowed for the band to become involved with their audience. Playing mostly hits from their latest EP, Heights, The Beaches’ punk-rock style and edginess reflected closely to that of The Runaways. The girls carried the stage with smiles on their faces, clearly and genuinely enjoying performing for the crowd, and making it obvious that they love what they do.
Overall, the show was a success, and there’s no doubt that both bands gained a new group of fans before they ended their night in Guelph.
I had the privilege of meeting and sitting down for dinner with The Beaches before their show. Named after a neighbourhood in Toronto’s east side, The Beaches have been emerging in Toronto’s music scene this past year with the release of their latest EP, Heights. Before Heights came their self-titled album in 2013.
Consisting of members Jordan (Vocals, Bass), Kylie (Guitar), Leandra (Keys, Guitar), and Eliza (Drums), I had initially discovered the band when they performed at Riot Fest in September, which made our meeting even more exciting. Read on to check out what the band had to say about being an all-female punk-rock band, as well as being individual musicians.
Danielle: Your self-titled album came out last year, and your latest, Heights, was released this year. I’ve listened to both, and there was obviously a huge difference between the two. Your self-titled album reflected a lot of shouting and directed hatred towards something or someone, and in Heights, your lyrics are still dark, but the vocals are a lot more toned down. I wanted to talk about that. Do you agree that there’s a big difference between the two albums? And what do you think accounts for this difference? Maybe a growth in yourselves as musicians?
Jordan: The reason why I think they are very different is because, with the first EP, we were working with a producer, who had a lot of control and say over the end-product of the sounds. With the EP that we did ourselves, Heights, we basically did that all by ourselves, with the help of James and an engineer. So we edited the songs, wrote the songs, produced the songs, did the cover-art, did the video. I think that’s why the sound is very different.
Kylie: Also, Leandra just joined the band. She wasn’t in the band for the first EP – she joined as soon as we were releasing it. And so that influenced the sound because it became a lot more synth-influenced and the writing process just completely changed when she joined the band. Also, I think she [Jordan] experimented a lot with the lyrics, and it changed.
J: I tried to work with a lot of visuals, like imagery, when I was writing this new EP. How I write a song is that I listen to the music and sort of imagine what the music video would look like, and then I take images from what I see and incorporate them into an idea and get the lyrics that way. So, I guess, I can thank Leandra for giving me slightly less dark ideas [laughs].
Leandra: I inspire her to be a happier person. [laughs]
D: What brought you guys together as a band in the first place?
L: They were sisters [Jordan and Kylie] so they started as a sister act.
Eliza: I think I was in grade seven. I remember the day when Jordan came up to me and was like “yeah, we’re looking for a drummer in our band and we’re going for this all-girl thing. We had boys but they went their separate ways”. So I ended up just going to the studio and playing for them what I could do, and I guess they liked me. So then it became the all-girl thing.
D: So I’m gonna talk about the lyrics a little bit. And you’re [Jordan] the main lyricist? Or do you all take part?
J: The lyrics come from me, but they all edit them. Like, if I say something that doesn’t make sense, they’ll be like “that’s terrible, change it.” Sometimes I have trouble with rhythms and Kylie will fix it.
D: I’m going to talk more about your new EP, Heights. The song “Little Pieces” really stood out to me just because some of the lyrics was very misogynistic, with some very bold statements. One line that jumped out at me was: “Told me I was made to breed, as long as I’m allowed to bleed.” I thought that line was really clever. What is the song about?
J: I’m glad you got that. Sometimes I just get really frustrated and angry, and I take all my anger out on other people, and I don’t really have a solid outlet for it, and that’s sort of what “Little Pieces” is about. Sort of letting your craziness just take over you. And with the verses, I tried to write about things that make me upset and make me angry, so that’s where that line came in. The first part of the verse is about getting too drunk all the time, and what that does to you. All of these things that young people have to deal with that really f**ks you up.
D: The next track I wanted to talk about was “The Dance.” I also sense oppression and feeling trapped somehow, and I was assuming feeling trapped as a female because that’s what I got when I listened to the song. The one line that you repeat a few times: “I guess I’m just someone’s daughter.” I want to talk about that line and what the song means to you guys.
J: I wrote “The Dance” after feeling really frustrated when we weren’t really going anywhere for a while, and then there was this other band of young, hip guys that didn’t work as hard as we did and were getting a lot of attention because they were more popular because they were guys and how easy it was for them. After wanting to write a song about all the things that I have that haven’t gotten me there. Being a female, being young, and having a different sound. It’s being oppressed by what you are, but you can’t really change because that would be counterproductive. You just have to wait for people who accept you and for good things to happen.
D: Since we’re on the topic of being a female rockband and female musicians and emerging in the music industry, because you guys are getting pretty popular now, have you faced any negative stereotypes that you can think of? Or anything negative you’ve experienced just from being a female musician?
E: I remember a story in particular. I won’t say which bar, but it was a bar we played at in Toronto. First of all, we got there and we were underage, so it made sense why they were weird about it, but we got there a couple of hours early to set up and do sound check and stuff, and they were like okay, you can go in and set up stuff but you have to sound-check as quick as possible and come back ten minutes before your set, which for a band is kind of not fun because you want to be in the venue and focus and center yourself. But I mean, that’s the law. But once we were in the venue, we were in the back room setting up and the security yelled back saying no fans allowed, bands only. [laughs] And we were like, well we are the band tonight, we’re playing here. And they just kind of shut up after that. But they just assumed that because we were four girls that we were fans of whoever the band was.
J: Sometimes people come up to us after and are like “wow, I didn’t expect you to be good because you’re a girl band, but you were really great.” They don’t mean it as a rude thing, they’re trying to compliment you but it doesn’t come out that way. But that exists, you know? That idea of female musicians isn’t just gonna go away. We sort of knew going into this that we had to be better than male musicians that were way older than us, because those are the people that we want to be in the same realm with. I guess it has made us better because we’ve had to practice really hard and sound really great.
D: Do you feel that maybe you have to work more to gain respect doing what you’re doing? Not just the fact that you guys are females, but you’re also young, too. So that could work against you as well in some ways.
E: But also for us, in a way. The element of surprise is a thing. People look at us and assume something, but then when we play we completely surprise them. There’s a way to look at it positively. We can surprise people.
D: What made you guys individually decide that you wanted to perform?
E: When we started out, we weren’t performing right away, we were practicing all the time, so to me that’s what it was when I joined- just playing music all the time with my friends, which was fun. Why would I not want to do that? Music has always been in my life, my dad is also a musician. I’ve been exposed to it. I think once I started performing I learned how much I loved it.
K: I was always really shy when I was younger, so as soon as I started performing, it really helped me open up as a person, and when I joined the band I gained a lot of confidence from performing. It just became a lot easier to be in the real world after I started doing it. I used to have a lot of problems talking to people – I was a weird kid. I’m still weird. [laughs]
J: This is going to sound terrible, but I like getting attention, so that was part of it. But another part of it was that I was also a really weird kid. As you can tell, when I write songs it’s also in a very dark, weird place, but it’s also a special place for me to go, and the only two times I get to be that person is when I’m on stage and when I’m writing songs. It’s a very freeing experience.
L: I grew up playing classical piano just by myself in my room, so I always hated performing and speaking in front of anyone and all of that, but after joining the band it brought me out of my shell a bit and now I really love it. I couldn’t not do it.
D: Going back to Heights, in general what were you trying to communicate to your fans with that album?
L: Well, the new sound. After I joined, I listened to their stuff and just added new elements.
K: We just wanted to show with that album how we have evolved, and how we have grown as a band, hence the title Heights.
J: Also that we could do it all ourselves. It was something that we set for ourselves.
K: Yeah, it’s a very indie EP. I don’t mean indie as genre, but indie as in it was all us. It was independent.
E: Our friend from Rosedale did the art. It was very close to home, and it was a kind of project. It was like a child [laughs].
J: And we named it after our high school, Rosedale Heights.
D: What are your plans for the future? Any new music?
K: We’re writing right now. We don’t have any release dates yet, we don’t know what’s in store for us, but we’re working on writing and touring.
J: We’ve been collaborating a lot with different writers. With our first EP we didn’t get to collaborate, it was more of a dictatorship. With the other EP, it was all us, so learning to collaborate with other people and write something together has been a really cool experience.
D: What’s going on right now with your tour? You were saying you’ve been travelling to different universities?
K: Yeah, we’re playing right now with a band called BESTiE. They’re playing here in Guelph tonight. We’re playing in some university towns just because we felt like we should get out and have a tour. We haven’t for a while and it’s nice to get back into it.
Many thanks to The Beaches for taking the time to talk! Come back to Guelph soon.