Guelph band talks future plans and working together as friends
I surrendered my heart to Guelph’s music scene when, in my third year, I had the chance to conduct my very first band interview in the back room of the beloved live music bar we Guelphians know as eBar. Feeling like I was, for a moment, apart of the music and witnessing first hand the magic of a band brought together by the City of Guelph, I wanted to know more. I realized that there was something so real about the city, and felt that the music was at the heart of that authenticity.
So I bring you, Tune in Guelph; a biweekly column dedicated to all things music. Anything from interviews, to album reviews, to music news will be published. By the end of this year, I hope music lovers will know a little bit more about the activity of Guelph’s music scene, and the impact it has on students and artists.
Friday, Sept. 26, I had the opportunity to sit down with Guelph’s emerging indie band Tear Away Tusa. The group was performing at DSTRCT in downtown Guelph, hosted by GAIN Music.
Having just returned from a recent tour, the group currently has three original tracks out on their bandcamp page, and is expecting to release an EP very soon. Consisting of members Erin Tusa, Shane Rodak, Sam Schwartzbein, Ely Weisbrot, Adam Kurgatnikov, and Danny Berezowski, Tear Away Tusa has been rocking the Guelph music scene and making their name prominent. For the record, they put on a great show last week.
Read on to check out what the band had to say about their music, future plans, and working together.
Danielle Subject: You guys can start by introducing yourselves.
Erin Tusa: I’m Erin Tusa of Tear Away Tusa.
Shane Rodak: And I’m Shane Rodak, also of Tear Away Tusa.
D.S.: And do you both write the music?
S.R.: We all sort of contribute, you know. Every song has its own origin, but you know a lot of the time I’ll just have a stupid little idea – a skeleton – and we’ll just come together and we’ll make it something real.
D.S.: And are you guys both from Guelph?
S.R.: Erin was born and raised in Guelph, I was born in Toronto, went to school in London and now I live here. I live, breathe, sleep, [and] eat music now, and that’s why I came here.
D.S.: And what brought you guys together as a band?
S.R.: Well me, Sam [Schwartzbein], and Adam [Kurgatnikov] were in a band in high school, and then Sam and Adam came here for school and I went to London and the band broke up. And then Sam met Erin.
E.T.: Yeah, we met in the music program at the University of Guelph. I was studying opera, and Sam was doing jazz guitar, and we just had class together at one point. [Sam joins the interview] Speaking of the devil [laughs]. So yeah, we met in the music program and we jammed one day in class – free improv – and from there he just approached me and said “I think you would be a great fit for some of the things that we’re doing with my other friends because we’re not all in the music program.” And yeah, we jammed one time and the rest is history.
S.R.: Yeah, we all kind of got together, and then about a year or two later Danny B [Berezowski] just sort of appeared. He was at first like an extra, he would play with us here and there, and then eventually became a full time member. Now he’s my roommate, and I’m proud to have him in the band.
D.S.: Erin, because you’re from Guelph, how has the music scene affected your music, and you as a musician?
E.T.: Well, I was really heavily involved with church [laughs] growing up, so that sort of roped me in to begin with. From there I did a lot of choir. So that’s sort of what got me going in the first place, and then jamming with people from my high school and also doing a lot of talent shows and sort of getting together with people that way. It really just affected me positively.
D.S.: And your digital album is called Into The Digital Age. Let’s talk about the title. Are you guys sort of making a jab at digitalization? What’s the meaning behind it?
Sam Schwartzbein: I wouldn’t called it a jab, but I think we were, at the time, really going for a back to basics approach to music without effects and without computers.
E.T.: We tried to get that soul.
S.R.: I guess in a way it is sort of a jab- it’s sort of like this juxtaposition. It’s very simple, back to basics, R&B sort of album at a time when, when we first started out, that was right when like Avicii was booming and all of these big DJs were hitting the scene and that’s when we started making music. So it was sort of contrasting that.
E.T.: from there we’ve expanded our sound and really honed in on it and have added some effects, but we still like to keep that foundation. Back to the basics, really.
D.S.: Let’s focus on the third track, “Music In The Digital Age.” The lyrics sound as if it’s directed towards someone, with hints of resentment, and having had something taken away from you. How do the lyrics tie into the title of the track? What’s the connection?
E.T.: It is about a gentleman. [laughs]. I wrote that also actually for a class in school called something like Music In The Digital Age.
S.R.: The textbook was called Music In The Digital Age.
E.T.: Yeah, whatever [laughs]. So I wrote it for that class initially, and everyone else in that class was doing different projects, different computer sounds, and synths and I just wrote this song literally on the piano with my voice and sent it in as the final product of the project, but it was centred around somebody. So that’s sort of where it started, and then at the time that we got together as a band, like Shane said, music was very electronic-based. So we just found it all kind of ironic that the class was named that, I wrote it for that, I wrote it bare bones, and then we came together. We did keep it pretty bare bones from there. Everything just tied together ironically.
S.S.: And the album title came from the song.
D.S.: And you participated in GAIN’s music fest earlier this year, which is pretty awesome. Did you guys have a good time with that?
S.R.: It was amazing.
E.T.: Great crowd.
S.R.: You know, just like us, GAIN is a business that’s coming into its own right now. Every year they’re just getting stronger and they’re learning just like us. We’re growing together and it’s cool because we’re on two different sides of the business, and we’re learning a lot from each other.
D.S.: What can your fans expect from you guys?
S.R.: This year we’re definitely looking to come out with an EP. Our fans can expect us to be playing all around Southern Ontario.
E.T.: We just got back from the East Coast and we went out there on a little bit of a tour. We hope to keep playing all around.
S.S.: We’ve been writing new stuff, and we’ve been progressing our sound. We’ve been adding a lot of new tone colours.
E.T.: We’re really honing in and finding our sound as a band.
S.R.: So our fans can expect an EP with a lot of new songs that they haven’t heard yet.
E.T.: And sick-ass live performances.
D.S.: How do you guys keep the dynamic going and stay together as a group?
S.R.: We are at a very strict regimen, practicing. We try to stay very organized. Also four out of six of us live in the same house, so that’s sort of base-camp for us.
Aside from our strict regimen of practicing and our meetings, it’s amazing we all live together because if we just happen to be chilling at home, I’ll be playing something on the guitar, and Sam will be like that sounds kind of cool, let’s go with that. It could be like midnight and we could just go with that. Erin lives a block away, so does Ely. We live and breathe it all the time.
E.T.: It’s pretty cool as a band, I would say, that we can basically live together and create music, and stay sane.
S.R.: You’re still sane? [laughs]
E.T.: [laughing] It’s really cool that we can make this music together and vibe off of each other in such close quarters. There’s really something to be said about literally 10 days side by side in a van with these guys, literally in a minivan, all of our equipment in there as well, and we are still alive to talk about it today.
S.S.: We genuinely enjoy each other. And we’ve all grown up together, in a way, so we know each other deeply.
S.R.: Too deeply [laughs] our best and our worst.