Slow Down Molasses are a band from a far far far away land called Canada. They’re pretty cool, have all it takes to be THE coolest and I’m more than certain they’re on their way to the top… A few days ago I had an e-nterview with them, and below you can read/ see/ hear the result…
Hi guys, thanks for e-meeting me at such short notice despite your super busy rock n roll schedule.
So, tell us a little bit about yourselves, how you all met and started the band.
We are from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. A city of 250,000 people in the middle of Canada (i.e. 3000km from Toronto, 2000km from Vancouver). There is a great, small, tight knit, music scene here, so inevitably we met through music. We’ve all played in many bands, promoted shows, written about music and been to innumerable local shows, so inevitably we stumbled into being in a band together.
What got/ influenced you all into making music and choosing this path?
I think I (Tyson – singer/guitar) can likely speak for everyone that we are all just huge music fans. A couple of us (Levi & Jeanette) grew up taking music lessons and playing music, while another couple learned how to play on our own either through playing in punk bands (Chris & Aaron) or for me, sitting my parents basement playing one chord and making feedback noises. I never actually picked up a guitar until I was 17 and if you would have asked me even at age 21 if I’d ever play in a band that tours and puts out records, I would have said there is likely no chance of that. I grew up in a small city and there just were not any local bands, so I never even realized that it could be a thing I could do until I moved to Saskatoon for University.
Sounds like it was simply meant to be. And how would you describe your sound for those who haven’t heard your music?
Hmmmmm, shoegazey, dreampop? Noisepop? Hazy, guitar & synth music? It’s always hard, but those terms all seem to get tossed around a fair bit.
Can you tell us a bit about Canadian music scene and how you’re doing back home?
Canada has a fantastic and incredibly diverse music scene. It’s such a big, sparsely populated country that there are many, many individual scenes that exist. Saskatoon, the city we live in, has really come into it’s own with a really great music scene. Lots of bands finally releasing albums and touring and everything from heavy/pysch stuff from bands like Shooting Guns and Powder Blue to really great hiphop from producer Factor and MCs like Kay the Aquanaut and SoSo.
Do you prefer recording or performing live? Why?
I really do love them both. Lately we’ve spent more time playing live than being in the studio and have been playing most of our new album and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had with music. This line up of the band is the most focused we’ve ever been and it tends to be quite a chaostic, intense live show.
What’s the most exciting experience so far in your music career and why?
We’ve been pretty lucky, especially considering how we come from a place so isolated from the major music industry centres. Likely the biggest highlight so far was getting invited to play End of the Road Festival in Dorset, England. It’s an amazing festival that seems to book all my favorite bands and it was the first time we got an invite to play outside of North America, so that was a pretty huge thing for us.
What’s the most embarrassing experience in your music career and why?
Oh my, I’m not even sure. We’ve had all the same unfortunate things happen to us with instruments breaking during sets and what not, but likely the hardest, most potentially embarrassing thing for me was playing a theatre for a benefit concert, solo in front of a huge room and my guitar kept cutting out as I’d play the first could chords, fortunately I was doing a set of Will Oldham covers and the first song was Ohio River Boat Song, so after a few times attempting to start it with a cutting out guitar, I ended up just singing it acapella. It was terrifying and embarrassing, but it actually kind of worked out. Turns out that song is a great one to just sing without and instrumental backing.
If you could team up and perform with any other living act/band/ artist, who would it be and why?
Mogwai, the Dirty Three, Mats Gustafson, the Delgados, Slowdive. So many! All of them are bands I absolutely adore and all of them seem like they’d be interesting folks to be around and to see how they work.
Your new single will be out soon… What made you choose that particular song and what are you expecting from it?
It is likely the most immediate, upbeat song on the album and in the past we’ve been known as more of a chilled out, folk band and as much as I like lots of that stuff, it doesn’t necessarily represent how we play now, so we were really hoping to put something out that better represents how we sound now and how we play live and Summer Sun does a great job of that.
You’ll be coming over to the UK to perform soon. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Yes, we are super excited to be back in the UK. It’s been a couple years since we’ve been over. We have been invited to play a couple European festivals (BIME in Bilbao, Spain and Nouvelle Prague in Prague) are will do some European shows around those, then end the tour with some UK shows. We’ve been in the UK from Nov. 10 to 14 with shows in Brighton, Oxford, Glasgow and London (and maybe one more!).
Current Tour Dates:
Tour Dates
Sept. 20 – Quai Des Brumes, MONTREAL, QC (*POP Montreal)
Sept. 26 – Amigos Cantina, SASKATOON, SK (CFCR 90.5 Fundraiser)
Oct. 29 – BIME, Bilbao, Spain
Nov. 2 – Rotown, Rotterdam w/ La Luz
Nov. 7 – Nouvelle Prague, Prague, CZ
Nov. 10 – The Prince Albert, Brighton, UK w/ Elliott Brood
Nov. 13 – Bar Bloc, Glasgow, Scotland
Nov. 14 – The Sebright Arms, London, UK
Nov. 28 – O’Hanlons, REGINA, SK
Nov. 29 – Amigos Cantina, SASKATOON, SK
Big thanks to the one and only Slow Down Molasses!
For more info about the band, please click here: Website
For those who’d like to listen to the new single called “Summer Sun”, please click here NOW:
