Interview: BRAIDS
BRAIDS are an absurdly good-looking foursome of Calgary transplants who have been buzzing up a storm all over Montreal since their debut opening for Deerhunter about a year ago. This past Saturday night, the group brought their unique brand of “texture pop” storming onto the POP Montreal stage at Club Saphir, and despite their being beset by technical problems since before their soundcheck – the band were hardly able to conceal their irritation at the incompetence of the sound man – they delivered an intensely tight performance that far outshone all the other nobodies vying for the festival stage. Highlight: the band, having just barely (and fleetingly) managed to overcome difficulties with the stage sound seconds before their set, gave each other a ritualistic air hug to overcome their stress.
Before the show I was given the opportunity (after a brief discourse regarding the price of cappucino) to sit down with Austin, Taylor, Jung Mi and Raphael and have a delightfully casual interview. In addition to being enlightening as to the sensibility, attitude and unique personalities of the band, the interview was probably the best-soundtracked interview ever recorded, with Oasis’s “Wonderwall,” OutKast’s “Miss Jackson,” and “Theme to Madagascar” all making appearances over the cafe sound system, in addition to the gleeful giggling that inevitably followed any extended conversation among the four of them.
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CK: So, you guys are from Calgary, and I understand that you guys moved here a year ago. You all came to Montreal for university or whatever. Did you find that… I know that in Calgary your name was Neighborhood Council. Did you change the name to BRAIDS on coming to Montreal?
Jung Mi: For our first show, yeah. For the Deerhunter show we changed it.
CK: There was definitely a reputation around you guys, in Calgary at least, as Neighborhood Council. Did that precede you at all coming here?
All: Nobody really knew us.
Taylor: We had only played out of town, like, twice as in Calgary, right outside of Calgary.
Jung Mi: So no one really knew us. It’s only since we’ve moved here.
Raphael: The only people that knew us as Neighborhood Council were people from Calgary and Edmonton because those were the only places we had played.
Austin: And there was a little bit of internet press around us back then, but not really.
Raphael: It was all just like, “Oh, they’re so young. That’s really cool.”
CK: I hate that.
Raphael: Yeah, me too… and that New York, whatever. Stereogum.
CK: I was going to ask about that, because Stereogum is New York City blog, and they are very particular about the bands they support. It’s a very impressive credential to be pointed out by them.
Taylor: We didn’t really know who they were or what was going on, we were just like really new into everything and stuff and so we were like, “Yeah sure, we’ll do an interview with these guys!” And then we checked MySpace and it’s like thousands of plays.
Jung Mi: Our friend Mark Hamilton, he’s been promoting all the Calgary bands that he really really supports, and he’s in Woodpigeon so he travels around the world and that kind of thing, so I think I remember they did a blog on some city and they’re like, “This city is the best place for all these bands.” And then people start e-mailing them and saying “No, it’s our city, it’s our city” and then Mark was like, Calgary is the place, right? And he gave them a list of bands that he likes, and Stereogum really liked us and so they decided to uh…
CK: That’s great, though, that’s definitely a boost. Especially in the American indie market which is so fickle.
Raphael: Well we didn’t have an album so that was hard to really, not even capitalize, just kind of…
Taylor: I think it came at a bad time because we didn’t really know what we were doing back then, and then we can’t really ride that anymore because we’re not even called the same thing so nobody has any connection with Neighborhood Council and BRAIDS, so yeah it was a nice thing to get us a little bit of a boost and it’s a nice credential to have, but I don’t know…
Raphael: Well we changed our name to BRAIDS, not because we didn’t like it, but because we changed entirely musically, right? So back then the Neighborhood Council was, when Stereogum wrote, I feel good about it, I don’t regret that they didn’t write about us now.
CK: So what prompted the change? You just said it came with a musical change as well, so what do you suppose is different now musically than…
Taylor: Well right at the end of Neighborhood Council it was like a lot of same stuff we’re playing right now, or like two or three of the songs have carried over, but we created that name a long long time ago, back when the music was much much different, and so I think like we felt like it was outdated for the last six months of our existence under it. So the musical change came much earlier than the name change.
CK: Right, I guess more my question is like, what would you say you sound like now? If you had to describe yourself, which I know every musician hates doing that…
Taylor: We have to do that now?
CK: Well you can be as abstract or flippant as you want…
Taylor: Groove-based aggressive pop. That’s mine.
Austin: I think you gotta throw “textural” in there somewhere too.
Taylor: Yeah, that’s it. Textural groove-based aggressive pop. Texture pop. Texture pop?
Raphael: Texture pop!
Jung Mi: We’re trying to create a new genre.
Raphael: No we’re not!
Jung Mi: Yes we are! Texture-based grooving… generic… indie rock! (Laughs)
CK: Okay, I want all four of you to answer this question: If you could name one band that you could compare yourself or would like to compare yourself to and one band you really don’t want to be compared to.
Taylor: Are we gonna go one by one?
Raphael: Don’t say that one.
Austin: For either?
Raphael: No, just don’t for tonight.
Austin: Why not? It’s the truth.
Raphael: God dammit.
Austin: I don’t want to be compared to Animal Collective anymore.
Raphael: Oh, Austin…
Taylor: Who do you want to be compared to?
Austin: Azeda Booth.
CK: I knew I was going to hear that.
Taylor: What about you? I’m interested, this is exciting.
Jung Mi: I don’t know. Go.
Taylor: I feel like we should be compared to Animal Collective. I feel like that’s who we sound like.
Raphael: No we don’t!
Taylor: No, we do. We sound like Feels. And I like that. That’s like, good.
CK: Honestly, you’re better off sounding like Feels than, like, fucking Merriweather or something.
Taylor: You think so? Interesting. Yeah, no, the feeling on Feels is like, fucking mad. Who do we not want to be compared to? That’s hard, I need to mull it over.
Austin: Sonic Youth! People keep saying we sound like Sonic Youth. We do NOT sound like Sonic Youth. I have no idea where that’s coming from.
CK: You know what? I can hear it.
Jung Mi: We don’t know where that’s coming from!
CK: But hey, that happens to everybody. I mean, the Strokes got compared to Television and they were like, “We don’t like Television.”
Jung Mi: Well I mean, I never listened to Sonic Youth so…
Raphael: I mean I really like Sonic Youth but I don’t think we sound like Sonic Youth.
CK: I wouldn’t think to compare you guys to Sonic Youth. Now that I’ve heard it I can definitely see it.
Taylor: Okay, go. You can say the same ones.
Raphael: Well I just don’t like it. Because people keep saying that we’re copying Animal Collective, and I don’t think that we are, and that’s why I was like, don’t say it, because as soon as it comes up in an interview, like… No I mean, like, do whatever you wanna do, just…
Jung Mi: I hate it when people, like, after shows they’re like, “Oh I don’t like this band, because they sound like this band.” Which is totally, like, not credible at all. I think that’s really silly. And so, when someone says “Well I don’t like BRAIDS because they sound like Animal Collective, but I like Animal Collective, but I don’t like BRAIDS because they sound like Animal Collective.”
Austin: I would say that we draw as much from Animal Collective as every band in pop music history has drawn from the Beatles.
Raphael: I think I’d like to be compared to Caribou. I feel like a lot of the lines we write are very, very Caribou, and the melodies and the guitar lines, and not so much the drumming, but also I think that I strive for intricate compositions during the recording process… and also we all really, really dig him… not vocally. Vocally, of course, like… Bjork. And Avey Tare. Who wouldn’t I want to be compared to? Metallica. Hey, Katie?
Jung Mi: Hey, yes.
Taylor: Who compares us to Metallica?
Raphael: Nobody. We came up with it in the kitchen. It was really funny. Because we were talking about the whole Animal Collective thing and we were just pretending if somebody was interviewing us, they’d be like, “So what band would you compare yourself to?” Korn.
(Laughter)
Jung Mi: And so Raph was like, “So your vocals, who do you draw influence from? Barry White.”
Raphael: That was if the interview went bad, but this is interview is going good.
Jung Mi: I don’t know, I can’t answer that question! It’s hard!
Taylor: It’s okay.
Jung Mi: If I were to compare myself to a band… I don’t know. There wouldn’t be a single band, but I’ve been listening to a lot of electronic music lately, and there’s just some stuff, some artists that can create such interesting textures and environments without using… I don’t know, I don’t know how to describe it. But you know there’s no singing or anything like that, there’s just this environment…
CK: It’s really evocative.
Jung Mi: … that’s really evocative, that you can get lost in. So, I think electronic music is something I’d like to be compared to. That feeling! The entire genre of electronic music… but I don’t know. And, like, things I wouldn’t want to be compared to is just like… again we’re talking about genres… is just like… “indie rock.” (Laughs)
Taylor: Yeah… but that’s just such a huge blanket that it’s…
Jung Mi: But that’s the thing, is that I don’t want to be labeled as just, like, this thing.
CK: As what? Did you say “indie rock” or “angry rock?”
Jung Mi: Indie rock.
Raphael: What do you mean by “this thing,” though?
Austin: I mean, we’re going to get into a ridiculous conversation. But like… I’m not gonna say it, just because…
CK: I have a feeling I know what you’re going to say, like…
Austin: I mean, what is indie rock?
CK: Exactly.
Jung Mi: No, but that’s what I mean, is that’s the thing. I don’t want to be compared to indie rock because it’s like, what is indie rock? It’s not just like…
Austin: It’s not just, like, independent music anymore.
Jung Mi: It’s not. That’s why I said, I don’t want to be compared to it, because I just don’t…
Raphael: But all this talk is extremely pretentious, because there’s no knowing, and that’s exactly what pretension is, is not knowing. So it’s just like, genres are there just to help make an iTunes playlist. That’s it.
Jung Mi: Help make an iTunes playlist. That’s not what I wanted to hear!
CK: It’s so you can make a mixtape and not put two of the same one next to each other.
Taylor: Yeah, and that’s… it’s just like it’s, at the end of the day all that matters is the music you’re making so it’s like, if someone boxes it a certain way then that’s fine for them, like if that’s how they understand it, then that’s totally cool.
Raphael: Indie music just seems to be music that isn’t entirely conventional anymore. You know, that isn’t just like, (click, click, click, click), like Azeda Booth isn’t indie rock, and sure there’s some kind of shitty ones, there’s like Bloc Party, and they’re really “indie rock,” like they’ve got the whole indie rock appearance. But like, overall, indie rock is pretty fucking cool, you know? There’s like a lot of bands, you know, within that.
CK: Well, so let’s broaden the scope of this discussion a little bit, because you guys all started playing together in high school, right? For it to have gone on this long there must have been a pretty strong nucleus that, you know, if you’ll pardon the expression, binding you all together still, and you’ve chosen to stay together after high school and pursue a career and everything. So, what were the inspirations to start playing together and the initial spark that started whatever kind of created chemistry you guys have developed?
Taylor: I think we all just kind of wanted to be in a band at the time.
Raphael: It was just really fun. I think it was just the idea… I don’t know, I don’t really remember that.
Jung Mi: I do. Exactly. Okay, so this is what happened.
Raphael: Go for it, Katie.
Jung Mi: Me and Raphy met in grade ten. We became best friends. Raphy was dating Austin at the time. And then Raphy broke her leg so she ruined her dancing career. Then she picked up the guitar. Then she asked me…
Austin: I actually convinced her to pick up the guitar.
Jung Mi: Okay, so Austin convinced her. And then I… and then me and Raphy decided that we would form a band and that we would play one show before we graduated high school.
Raphael: Called Little Bear (?) and Vaseline.
Jung Mi: Sure. And then… (laughter). And then Austin and Raph and… Taylor, I think? You all decided that you wanted to start a band.
(All mumble mumble mumble)
Austin: Yes.. and then, we (gestures at himself, Austin and Raphael) were playing for one rehearsal, and then Raphy said, “I have a friend who plays keyboards,” so maybe she could play to.
Jung Mi: This was at the end of high school, this would be like our…
Taylor: There was a battle of the bands or something.
Jung Mi: Yeah, maybe we’ll try it out. I mean, we’re all interested in music. So we tried it, and we liked it, and we decided that we would take a year off.
Raphael: And you know it was so weird because we had only been playing together for, like, four months, and then we were all like, “Fuck university!” even though all of us were pretty motivated. I decided to like, not go to theater school.
Jung Mi: We felt like there was something there. It worked really well.
ALL: And there was!
Raphael: It was just very interesting, like I always question that a lot too, like how did it all come together?
Austin: Really, ah… I think, like… the feeling that sort of brought us together was, like, um… like, I had just met Taylor that year, and I had gone through some like, really weird friendships in my life, and… Taylor was like the nicest person I had ever met, basically. And so I had been playing with another kind of music with Taylor, like we played in jazz band together at school. And so I just wanted some way that I could, like, express myself with him, and like, Raphy and I were in love because we were dating at the time, for like two and a half years, and that was really nice.
Raphael: Yeah, that was great! (Laughs)
Austin: Yeah, so it was just really nice to just, like… you know we can play music, no problem. Playing with people there’s like this connection that you have that is completely unparalleled. And especially when you love somebody, or somebody is your extremely close friend, or the excitement of meeting somebody that really intrigues you that you don’t know yet and you really want to know them, there’s no better way to do it than through music. And it’s like, when you play with people it’s just this ridiculously strong chemistry the first time that you play and you can’t describe it… you can’t just throw that away, you know? You have to do something with it. And it bugs you, because when you’re not playing you just wanna be playing…
CK: Yeah, that’s the worst, is going to a show and you’re like, “Shit, I wanna do that, right now.”
Jung Mi: Yeah!
Austin: Yeah! And like, after the first time we played we were just like, this is SOO much fun! I know it’s a bit goofy but, all of our personalities just came together so nicely, and like, I barely even knew Katie, like we had met a couple of times through Raphy…
Jung Mi: Every time we jammed we kept things on the spot.
Austin: Yeah, and it just worked, and it just felt so good. And so there was this drive to always be playing, because every minute I wasn’t playing with these guys I just wanted to be playing with them.
Raphael: Yeah, people were always surprised as to why we practiced so much, and it was just nothing other than it felt really great. Like when we decided to not go to school we played so much music.
Austin: So, I guess just to sum it up, one of the reasons that I started playing with these guys is I like the closeness.
CK: So I get the impression that this is clearly much more than a band, it’s much more than just music to you guys.
Jung Mi: Oh no, it’s a family.
Raphael: Yeah, it’s like a family. It is a family. (Laughter) It’s like dating four people, all the time.
Austin: Just without the sex.
Raphael: Yeah. It’s extremely platonic.
(All giggle nervously)
CK: … Who are you trying to convince, here? (All laugh) No, I totally feel that. And I mean, I haven’t seen you guys play yet,
Austin: Are you going to come tonight?
CK: Oh yeah. I’m really excited to see you guys and, everything I’ve heard about you guys before meeting you tonight is just the intensity of your performance and this exuberance characterizes BRAIDS and that makes them so much fun to see. And it’s clear just from hearing about you around Montreal. I mean, I had heard of you before I got here.
(Some jocular comments about the soundtrack)
Jung Mi: So yeah, just to conclude that… I think when you know that there’s a connection with a group of people it’s really hard not to explore that, because if you don’t, it’s so hard to find a group of people that work so well, you know? You know, you work with many people and there are some people that it doesn’t work out on. You can’t work with everyone, it’s hard.
Taylor: We kind of lucked out on the first try. With this kind of music band for the first time that’s self-directed…
Jung Mi: We all grew together at the same time, and we wanted to grow in that direction. We didn’t like, grow this way (gestures convolutedly)…
Raphael: Yeah, we grew this way (makes a gesture implying convergence).
Austin: And I mean just to give an idea… I mean, we should probably just move on from this topic because we’ve been here for hours…
Raphael: Hours. (Laughter)
Austin: Just to give you an idea of the kind of bond that we… there used to be another member of our band, his name is Vincent Mann, just a stupidly good blues guitar player. Like, me and Taylor never see him, but every time we see him it’s like, he’s just such a good friend still. Like, last year I saw him maybe four times, and he was living in Montreal, it was ridiculous. I saw him four times last year and every time I saw him it was just so much fun, and we just picked up exactly where we left off and to think that there was so much of that vibe that there was like… nurtured. Our relationship together. That’s the kind of thing that happens when you play music with someone a long time.
CK: Yeah, that’s just good luck.
Raphael: We fight. That’s how it’s a family.
Jung Mi: I think that – oh, sorry.
Raphael: No, it’s okay.
Jung Mi: I keep on interrupting.
Raphael: I know, you’re talking so much tonight, it’s so great. But for instance, we were just freaking out, like we were just freaking out in that venue.
Austin: Yeah, that’s true.
CK: Freaking out about what?
Raphael: Everything. We freak out sometimes.
Jung Mi: Sound.
Raphael: We get stressed out about thing.
Austin: When we walk into a venue and things just aren’t going so well… even though we’ve done this so many times, we just lose our heads.
Taylor: Not always. Today was just a day where…
Austin: Like, touring, was fantastic. Everything went so great. But now that we’re like, back in the swing of school and everything, you get so stressed out and shaky, and then you go to play a show and I always bring so much shit into a room.
Raphael: Yes, he does.
Austin: Things never go right in the soundcheck. Let’s be serious.
Raphael: That’s what I was trying to say though, is that after having that, after having all of those many tiffs upstairs, we just run outside on the porch and we’re just like, okay, let’s just calm the hell down, and we just gave each other a group hug and we were like, okay, let’s go do an interview! It’s very dysfunctional but it’s really functional.
Austin: We’ve developed this thing, where whenever there is anything going wrong we just have a really big group hug. Me and Taylor opposite sides, Katie and Raph go on opposite sides, and it’s just so, it’s so great. I think that’s something that if ever a group of friends is fighting, just give them a group hug. It really helps.
Tags: Interview
