Dane: We’ve got Sarah (vocals/guitar), Dylan (guitar), Stephen (bass) and Cian (drums) here. First off tonight’s set was amazing! And you’ve just released your debut, it’s a self titled album. What was the process of recording your first album like?

Sarah: A little long!

Dylan: Yeah, we kind of did it in three parts. We originally though we would record an EP, then some labels got interested and it became a full album.

Dane: Any favorite pieces of gear?

Dylan: yeah well.. I don’t know technical you want to get…We recorded at Candle Recording studios in Toronto and they have a lot of great gear. A lot of pedals! The Roland Jazz Chorus was used a lot on this record for a lot of the guitar sounds

Dane: Are these songs written from personal experiences?

Sarah: Yeah, most of them – pretty much all of them are written just from my personal relationships, growing up a bit, family relationships and just emotional feelings.

Dylan: Girly stuff

Sarah: Yeah, girly stuff!

Stephen: It’s not girly stuff it’s human!

Sarah: Sorry, not girly. It’s human girl stuff!

Dane: What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not playing music?

Dylan: Play Red Dead Redemption 2 and smoke weed

Stephen: (laughing) smoke weed

Cian: or play Deception Murder in Hong Kong, it’s a board game that was voted runner-up the best board game of 2015. The best party game.

Sarah: We play it a lot

Stephen: Dylan plays a lot of Red Dead

Sarah: We just watch him play Red Dead

Stephen: And just looking at gear on the Internet, I love doing that haha!

Dylan: All buttons in

Stephen: All buttons in, that’s … that’s my stick time

Dane: There seems to be several talented dreampop bands coming from Toronto in recent years (Alvvays, Elsa, Men I Trust etc.) how would you describe the music scene back home?

Dylan: Aww fuck yeah Elsa! I love that you mentioned Elsa, I’m actually working with Johnny on a new record. I don’t know if I’m supposed to like.. yeah, he’s announced that he’s working on some new stuff

Dane: We’re getting something exclusive now!

Dylan: Yeah. It’s like a solo record and all the band members are still involved in it. It was really fun and um… It’s great, I can’t wait for it to come out.

Sarah: It sounds really good

Dane: So that kind of ties into the other part of my question, how would you describe the music scene back home.

Dylan: There’s a little bit of everything

Sarah: It’s very diverse

Stephen: We were talking about this recent I think, after drinking? Toronto is a bunch of smaller, not really cliquey scenes, but smaller pockets of different kinds of music and they all intermingle at the different venues. It’s like a big scene made up of different friend/group scenes kind of a deal I guess. It’s a very welcoming place for the most part, I’d say

Dane: I need to visit Toronto

Dylan: It’s hard to find the right places to go, it isn’t the best looking city, but once you find the right places you’re good to go.

Stephen: Venues close down all the time too

Dylan: We lost the Silver Dollar

Dane: Is there any themes or message on your debut album lyrically or otherwise that extends across the album?

Sarah: Well, I think we might’ve answered this question before

Dylan: Maybe “Not So Proud”?

Sarah: Yeah “Not So Proud”, that one I can say was pretty much about looking up to somebody, learning a lot and looking up to them like an idol. A lot themes are just how interactions make me feel and where I stand with myself, my insecurities and how sometimes women feel more insecure. It’s everything, I don’t know how to say it!

Stephen: Human nature?

Sarah: Yeah, I guess so. But the theme of it also was to sound very soft, nice and upbeat but then the message behind the songs is also a little dark but it might not sound like it because it’s very uplifting music

Dane: How did Tallies meet and become a band?

Dylan: Me and Sarah met in school

Sarah: We met in college at a recording engineering program and started doing our first EP as a school project.

Dylan: We were in a band before based in Ottawa and then moved to Toronto and then kind of revamped the band playing under the same name, then changed the name and changed the sound through a process of steps with the records. It was like, the first step we were still the old band but our sound was going somewhere else and it kind of went in a different direction and it wasn’t the same band anymore so we renamed ourselves.

Stephen: Everything’s been going pretty well since then

Sarah: Cian and Dylan know each other from a Rock Camp, that’s where they met

Cian: School of Rock Camp. We were twelve. Then I met Stephen in university in Halifax and we formed a band there – that was short lived – then I joined the former version of Tallies immediately after I graduated. Then about a year later we got Stephen?

Stephen: Well, I did some tours with ‘yall

Sarah: You was like our fill-in, yeah

Stephen: I was the fill in bassist for a while

Dylan: Once we got you we were all ready to go

Stephen: We were in Cian’s basement and I kinda had a feeling they were like “do you want to join?” And I was like “yeah!”

Dane: They proposed to you?

Stephen: The rest is history as they say

Dane: That’s interesting, how was your sound different when you first started?

Dylan: I guess it was a throwback to the ’50s and ’60s before and I think that’s still pretty evident in the songwriting, maybe not so much in the sonic aspect, but it’s still in there a little bit. We love that style of music

Stephen: I saw ‘yall play as Thrifty Kids and it was very “Doo Wop” influenced, like fifties pop

Dylan: In high school we used to put on The Crests and Deon and The Belmonts and all the Doo Wop stuff a lot. Not a lot of people liked it but we did.

Dane: As long your having fun

Stephen: In Barrie Ontario?

Dylan: In Barrie Ontario not a lot of people liked it. It’s a small town north on Toronto.

Stephen: We did turn a lot of people onto it though that’s for sure

Cian: That’s true, something you wouldn’t expect

Dane: Who would you say is your musical hero or heroine?

Sarah: We could go one at a time…

Dylan: Johnny Marr, Robin Guthrie..

Dane: Johnny Marr was the last gig I saw before you guys.

Dylan: Fuck man, I wish I could’ve made it

Dane: The man knows how to put on a show

Dylan: I saw some of the videos and his voice, he just started singing in the 2000s! It’s funny that he was just hiding that voice this whole time.

Dane: Maybe he taking notes standing behind Morrissey

Sarah: For me, I would say Harriet Wheeler the singer of The Sundays. I love her songwriting and young Bjork. In the Sugarcubes, I’m not the biggest fan of Bjork now but I loved what she was doing back in the day

Dane: We’re still waiting for the Sundays reunion

Stephen: Mine would be Ben Wallers of the Country Teasers. They’re like a country post punk band and that’s like I’m into now really. They have very poignant political lyrics that are made to offend but also made to make you think. I just really like the songwriting. I was into very angular post punk music and then I heard this band and their songs were written very much like classic country but with very dissonant aspects to them and I was like, oh I guess you can do both of those things. That has nothing to do with this band, but that’s who my musical hero is

Cian: And similarly I would say Nilsson

Stephen: and Orange Juice! They’re sick

Dane: Just orange juice the drink? It’s pretty good with breakfast haha

Dane: What inspires you as musicians and songwriters?

Sarah: Just everything

Dylan: Once you get a voice memo of a band practice. It never even feels good when you do it, but then when you listen to it back on the drive home from practice you’re like ‘oh shit’!

Stephen: Yeah, yeah

Dylan: and that excitement is like a drug and that’s definitely like..

Sarah: You can’t stop listening to it, you can’t stop playing it. You’re totally right

Dylan: You try to think, okay where are we going to take this voice memo to an actual recording or an actual performance. You know, shaping it from there is just addicting.

Dane: I spoke to Stephen briefly earlier about this, but do you have plans to tour later, perhaps outside the US and Canada?

Sarah: Yeah, in March we are doing a tour in the U.S. going down to South By (SXSW Festival), we’re doing Savannah Stopover on the way and then New Colossus in New York which is a new festival. There’s a lot of Canadians, there’s like 130 Canadian bands?

Stephen: I think it’s 133 total, but it’s a lot

Sarah: I think it’s like 30 Canadian bands, I feel like that was the number. Anyways it’s a new festival.

Dylan: It seems like a lot, it’s going to be a lot of fun

Sarah: and after that in May we’re going to the UK for the first time

Stephen: We’re also going to L.A. though after South-By right?

Sarah: Yeah, that’s in the US but for the UK we’re going to Focus Wales

Dane: Is that another festival?

Dylan: Yeah, it’s a festival in Wales and we’re going to try and work some other stuff around that and just try to play as much as we possibly can.

Dane: Nice, that sounds like a lot of fun

Sarah: Hopefully we’ll find Johnny Marr

Dylan: We’re going to find all our heroes.We’ll collect them like Pokemon!

Stephen: We’ll take them home with us!

Dane: So the final question, is there an artist or album that changed your life?

Dylan: I think “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”, that song changed my life. I listened to that song probably like five times a day for a year straight and then it went down to four for the next year, but that song definitely changed my life. I kinda want ever song I make to sound like that song

Sarah: I’d say The Sundays. The first time I heard them I loved how simple and beautiful the music was, but you could hear it was complex at the same time so I love that. Ever since I heard them I was like, I want to do that. Somethings along those lines.

Stephen: There’s a couple. Not really a song, but the first time I heard Orange Juice, the band, that was when I started playing bass differently in this band. The way they play melodies passing under the guitar is very interesting. It’s very much like playing lines, but it doesn’t interrupt the vocals and it accents the guitar and I used that a lot after my girlfriend showed me them. I try to write in a similar way for this band for sure

Dylan: Lead bass!

Stephen: Lead bass but without stepping on anyone’s toes

Dane: That’s it, find that sweet spot

Cian: I guess the most relevant for me is Heaven or Vegas by Cocteau Twins, specifically “Cherry-Coloured Funk“. My friend put it on for me late one night really late and I just realized it was the greatest song to put on…at night….really late. Haha And then I showed it to

Dylan, so I that’s the most relevant

Stephen: And I think I showed you Orange Juice too? Weird

Dylan: It’s all coming together

Dane: Well thank you for taking time to answer some questions and best of luck on the rest of your trip down south.

(Tallies show pictures courtesy of Dane Di Pierro)