Claudia Idzik: A lot of people are surprised that you guys are actually a husband and wife duo. I didn’t know that until a few days ago, which is cool. I was wondering if you guys ever have any weird moments either writing, recording, or performing because you’re a couple?
Drew McTaggart: Always.
Danielle McTaggart: I think the weirdest thing is when you have a disagreement and then you have to perform together. It’s almost like, we have some times where that has happened. We don’t have too many disagreements.
Drew: We’re getting better. We always focus on trying to think about making it better, and when we do have it- like touring, especially, because we spend a lot of time with everyone and we’re performing. Writing, though, I find the studio and writing tough just because we’re both very open with each other and our opinions will be flying in the room and sometimes you get a little bit feisty.
Danielle: It is interesting being a couple and being married and doing projects together and doing everything together. I think because we know each other so well we know now when to let it go or how to deal with some of our emotions and things. I think anyone that is in a band together is also somewhat married to each other. At least we both know that we have each other’s backs one hundred percent and there’s no hidden agendas of any kind. And also, any time we write music together or work on any project together, it’s like, who cares if Drew wrote 99% of the song and I wrote 1% of the song, because it’s all going to the same thing. Whereas a lot of bands will fight over what percentages people get, or if everyone gets the same, or who’s pulling their weight and who isn’t.
Drew: We always have to take a step back and know that we’re on the same team, we’re for each other, and we want to make each other better. That’s why we’re married with each other.
C.I: Do you find that “mixing business with pleasure” ever comes into play at all?
Drew: Definitely. I think the biggest thing is that some people would have a hard time, maybe, working with their spouse. A lot of people go to that side of it. We have personalities that fit really well to be doing this together and we’ve learned to share the load and separate when we need to separate, like, in tasks and stuff. The hardest thing is because we’re doing music 100% – that’s everything. That’s our job, that’s our passion, it’s so much of our life and we’re doing it together, it’s hard to shut that off when we need to spend time with each other. Which is something we’re working at too, like not carrying our phones because social media- there’s always a little blip that comes up and as we start growing as a band that seems to be more frequent so we have to learn how to balance that and learn how to take time with each other.
C.I: You guys are incredibly active on Twitter though, which is great. I’ve seen you reply to fans.
Danielle: We like social media. It’s a perfect outlet to connect with fans. It’s like texting, basically, your favourite bands. It’s like reaching out to people you love and sometimes you get it back. We love that when it happens to us, so we think about it with our fans.
Drew: And we love talking with our fans – which essentially is another way of communicating. Some bands it’s totally fine because they just are inside the music more than the social aspect of it. Which is okay, because everyone is different. There are extroverts and introverts. It just happens that we just love doing that.
C.I: Which is great.
Danielle: Yeah, it’s cool.
C.I: How did you decide to form Dear Rouge as a couple together? Was it before you guys got together, or after you guys got together?
Danielle: It was a really organic thing. We were dating, and I had gone through some hard times with music and just frustrations with the business side of it. I felt a little jaded, and Drew was like, ‘Well, you can’t stop doing it. Why don’t we do a project together? Like, why don’t we write a couple songs, go into the studio and not have any pressure behind it. Let’s just write it, and do it, and not think about where it’s going to go. Anything like that’ and I was like, uh, okay, let’s try it. And so, we ended up just being like let’s do something fun. Let’s do something that makes us happy. And that’s when Dear Rouge started. And then we got married, and then basically started trying with it. It’s a longer story than that but it was that organic beginnings kind of thing.
C.I: What’s it like to be constantly touring? Because I’ve seen you guys so many times in the past few months and it seems like you guys are non-stop playing. What’s that like?
Danielle: It’s fun.
Drew: It’s great. As a band our trajectory has been upward and every time we go out it seems like there are new fans or there a new reason to go out, or supporting another band. It always feels really nice to go out and we always try and be grateful that we are busy and we’re not hoping to do something. We’ve always just been really, really lucky at having shows to play and people wanting to see us so it’s great.
Danielle: Yeah, it’s really cool.
Drew: We try and keep our heads down and work hard.
Danielle: And being out in a van all the time has its challenges. But, I think that we really, now more than ever, because you say Drew, ‘it’s growing,’ it feels more fun. Because it’s like, everyone is more excited all the time. Shows give you energy. When you have good shows, you get energized. When you’re first starting out, you have to know that no one is going to be giving back to you at that point. You just have to give, and give, and give, and give. And now it kind of feels like people are giving back to us and our fans are making us feel so special and it’s this wonderful relationship. It’s getting easier to drive 16 hours because you’re going to get to see those people that you saw six months ago who you really love. So it’ good.
C.I: Does it ever get monotonous playing the same cities? I know you played the Indie88 birthday party a month ago, and you also played the Mod Club yesterday.
Danielle: Toronto never gets old. Toronto is a big city and there’s so many people and it’s a wonderful place.
Drew: I think it’s on the band to bring a different show. The set that we played at Indie88 was totally different than our set last night. So, even for us playing to the same people who have maybe come to both, we’re giving them a reasons to maybe come to repeat concerts, you know. I think that’s a big challenge that we always talk about- like, whether we’re putting a cover in, or changing the arrangements, or taking out songs, putting in new songs, trying out new material. If we work hard and do our part as a band to show a change, then it’s okay.
Danielle: Some cities are tougher to revisit, to be honest. There are some that are really tough cities. We won’t name any but, there are a few that I feel bad that I’m like, I feel bad for people that have to live in this kind of weather. There are some really intense cities along the way.
C.I: I’m from Winnipeg, and it snowed there today.
Drew: That’s a tough city.
Danielle: That’s crazy to me! But it is that time of year. All of Canada is really special and what a great country to be in. We’re hoping to get out and see other countries. We’ve gone to the states a couple times now. We’re going to Europe in December and we’re excited for that.
C.I: I was just going to ask you about Europe. How does it feel to have fans that listen to your music out there?
Danielle: It’s funny, we’re just starting to get tweets and things from out that way. It’s cool, the world is pretty small now. And you know that, because you see things catch so quickly. Europe is an amazing place so I would love to catch in Europe and be there all the time. It would be so great. We’ll see what happens over there.
C.I: Are you excited for any cities in particular?
Danielle: Well Drew and I are going to Paris four days before the tour starts because we were like, ‘Why wouldn’t we?’ I love Germany. I’ve already been to Germany quite a few times and I’ve heard the music scene really great for new bands and stuff so I’m excited to play shows there for sure.
C.I: Are you guys just focusing on touring, or any new music in the future?
Drew: After we did our first album, we wrote a lot of it in a certain period of time. We really tried to be aggressive, even if we’re home for a little bit, or if we’re on the road even, to write, so that when we release the next album we feel very confident and we don’t feel rushed. So we’ve been writing quite a bit while we’ve been touring and we’re going to do a fair bit more over the New Year. It’s something that you always have to be doing. You can’t just tour, and then write – you have to always try and be inspired.