Pop-rockers come to Guelph
Hailing from New Brunswick, east coast rock band Partner has now settled into a new chapter in Ontario, pairing the move with the release of their debut album, In Search of Lost Time. The band, fronted by friends Josée Caron and Lucy Niles, breaks barriers with humorous stories of friendship, lesbianism, and drugs.
The Ontarion asked Caron and Niles about touring and their influences.
Claudia Idzik: So you guys have been compared to the likes of Weezer and Ween. Do you agree with those comparisons?
Lucy Niles: I mostly agree with the Ween one, conceptually. People compare us to Weezer because we both use a lot of guitar tracks. But I think-
Josée Caron: We’re pretty different.
LN: Yeah, like our goal’s different than Weezer’s, more similar to Ween’s.
CI: So who would you guys compare yourself to if you had to? Or are you just your own thing?
JC: We like to think we’re our own thing, but-
LN: At the same time we like to compare ourselves to lots of other people.
JC: I don’t know about “compare” — like things that we love about other people that maybe show up in our stuff because we love it, like Melissa Etheridge.
LN: Yeah, it’s more about trying to harness an energy that we’re inspired by. We could be compared to a lot of people in that way.
JC: People compare us to literally lots of things like-
LN: Like Beck.
JC: Thin Lizzy. What else? What are some wild ones? Barenaked Ladies.
LN: Yeah, a lot of people compare us to Barenaked Ladies.
JC: Yeah, I guess I would compare us to Barenaked Ladies, if we had to.
CI: For your album, did you just go into the studio wanting to put something out about smoking weed and finding friendship?
JC: It wasn’t so much about wanting specifically to discuss those things but wanting to create that space where we could discuss those things. That’s the thing that’s important to us.
CI: Are there any small cities that have ever surprised you with the audience at all?
LN: It’s not as much surprising but more just like-
JC: A gift.
LN: Gratifying. We recently played in Burlington, Vermont. That was sick.
JC: You never know what you’re going to get. A big city can disappoint you, of course it can. A small city can embrace you. It’s all just up to the … I don’t know.
LN: Up to the fates.
JC: Yup.
Partner plays the UC Courtyard and eBar on Oct. 27.
Photo courtesy of Red Bubble