Jonathan St Michael talks friendship and band dynamics
This week, Kazoo! Fest, an annual indie music and art festival, takes over downtown Guelph with over 50 musical acts. That line-up includes veteran performers like Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and experienced younger bands like Mauno and Luge.
It also includes No Boys, a quartet of U of G students who have played less than 10 shows. Their inexperience doesn’t indicate their ability, however. Singer-guitarist Jonathan St Michael, bassist Anne-Marie Walters, lead guitarist Emily Reimer, and drummer Trevor Cooke have worked hard to develop an adept, jangly indie-pop sound perfectly matched to their cathartic, emotional tunes. With a debut EP out now, No Boys are only going up.
I spoke to St Michael about the origin of No Boys and why he writes the songs that he does.
Will Wellington: Am I right in assuming that you are the main songwriter of No Boys?
Jonathan St Michael: Pretty much. In terms of chord structure and lyrics, I’m the main songwriter. When it comes down to actually implementing the songs, Trevor, Anne-Marie, and Emily do their own parts. Obviously, we bounce ideas off each other, but I structure the songs.
WW: How did you start writing songs?
JSM: My dad’s always played guitar, and I guess, as a way to impress him, I picked up guitar. He’s always kind of been like, “Oh, it’s not that great,” and then I’d be like, “Alright, I guess I’ve got to get better.” I feel like everyone plays guitar in high school. I played in a band, but they went in more of a punk direction, and I like more indie stuff, more “pop” so to speak. I wrote some songs by myself, and then contacted Trevor because I knew he wanted to be in a band. Then we started working off that last year.
WW: The songs that you’re playing with No Boys, those are the ones that came out of that post-high school period?
JSM: Most of the stuff we play now is actually stuff that I’ve come up with in the past year or so. A lot of the stuff that I wrote post-high school is more acoustic, and more angsty. But I’m trying to bring more jazz or pop elements to No Boys to make it more of a band dynamic and less of a solo thing.
WW: How did you guys get to arrange the material?
JSM: Trevor had originally been playing in more metal ensembles, and punk and hardcore. I came from more of a punk background as well, but neither of us wanted to stay within that genre. We were both trying to push toward something else. A lot of the stuff we first started playing was punky, and then we started slowing things down a little bit and started vibing with each other more. And then we invited Anne-Marie to come with us — and this was her first time on bass as well, so she was trying to figure it out, and it was a little bit frustrating to work through that. But once the summer came, we had maybe four or five songs that we had practiced. Since the start of the summer, we were able to truly get some momentum. This year we don’t really have that much time, because it’s the school year. But whenever we have time it’s like, “let’s get together.” We have like three new songs that we’re going to try to do for Kazoo! Fest, because our set’s been pretty much the same for the last couple times. The one driving force is just being able to get together and being able to articulate what direction we’re trying to go in, and how hard we’re willing to work, how much input each of us is willing to give.
WW: What do you try to do in terms of your guitar playing in the band?
JSM: It’s always an interesting dynamic in a band. I want my guitar to be heard, but I also want it to be a precursor for Emily’s guitar and for Anne-Marie’s bass to become more prominent.
WW: You said that the older songs were more angsty. What are you trying to get at in the newer songs?
JSM: A lot of the lyrics are personal because it’s easier to draw from personal experience when songwriting. I like to discuss heartbreak and being lonely — they are angsty, but less so a teenage angst, and more [about] getting into your twenties and experiencing what love is like, interacting with that kind of framework.
WW: What’s “Brandon” about?
JSM: Oh, that’s one of the more angsty ones. One of my friends—
WW: Is his name Brandon?
JSM: Yeah. We’re still friends now, but we used to be pretty close, and as the years have gone by we’re not as close anymore — [I’m] commenting on the loss of friendship, and growing up.
WW: To me, it’s really cool that you write songs about friendship, “Antonio” being a great example. What’s “Antonio” about?
JSM: Probably the biggest source of inspiration for that song is my roommate, Antonio. All the lyrics are based off of inside jokes. The opening lyric is “What’s your favourite episode? / I’ll make it easy, top five.” Because the first time we met, he was like, “Hey, what’s your favourite episode of Spongebob?” and I was like, “Uhhhhhh,” and he was like, “Okay, I’ll make it easy for you: top five.” That song is just an ode to Antonio.
WW: When you played at Silence, there was something you wanted to do at the end of your set for one of your friends in the audience. What was that you wanted to play?
JSM: “Fastonio” — which is “Antonio,” but faster.
WW: Is there a reason you write about friendship, as opposed to romantic love?
JSM: I’ve always found that a lot of my personal issues don’t necessarily stem from romantic love, but more so a loss of friendship. Friendship in the modern day is kind of hard. I mean, you lose friends, you gain friends, and it’s kind of tough maintaining friendships. Everyone has friends, everyone can kind of relate to growing up, maturing, and the loss associated with that. With “Brandon,” the change that occurred in that friendship was something I felt I needed to express and if anything those emotions came out quickly, they felt natural, they felt organic. Songwriting is a form of storytelling, essentially. With certain songs, you get an idea, an emotion, on paper and you try to build something around it. With “Brandon,” I already had the big picture of it. It just came out, it came out quickly, and I didn’t feel like I necessarily had to revise it just because it was something that I’d been feeling and I’d already validated the emotions.
WW: How has playing shows and figuring out that people like your stuff affected your motivation?
JSM: This is going to sound obnoxious, but as much as I’d like to play for other people, a lot of the time I play for myself. I don’t play anything for other people’s enjoyment. If they like the song, okay, but if I don’t like it then I’m not going to play it. A lot of the time, I’m trying to impress myself, and if other people enjoy that as well then I’m glad that they can tag along for the journey. And I guess it’s interesting playing in front of people like Luge, and opening for Mauno for Kazoo! Fest. I feel like, if I can impress them with the kind of music we’re playing as well, that’s a big ups for the band, but at the same time if they don’t necessarily like our stuff, I’m not going to be disheartened. I’m still going to be playing the stuff I want to play.
WW: You guys make music that’s very beautiful and emotional, but you also joke about being a basketball team, and your Instagram handle is “noboyz420.” How do those two sides of the band come together?
JSM: Certain songs speak for themselves: [on] “Antonio,” we’re just having fun singing about my roommate, and then songs like “Secongary” or “Brandon” change the tone a little bit. But at the end of the day we’re just a bunch of friends making music, trying to have as much fun with it as we can. We take ourselves seriously enough, but at the same time, it’s okay to make a joke out of your image.