 Interview and intro by: Sari Delmar / Photograph by: Stephanie Conley/Sari Delmar(Live photos) Die Mannequin & Hot Hot Heat: "A Bunch Of Kids" The first thing I hear over the phone connection after being put through to talk with Steve Bays, the singer of Hot Hot Heat, was “Hey kid! how’s it going?” Being referred to as a kid by someone I never met was definitely new but it kind of gave me a refreshing feeling and I couldn’t help but smile and respond pleasantly. It was a few days prior to Canada Day (-which means, Edgefest 1) and I was at home chatting with Steve over the phone and getting really excited for the weekend’s events.
Fast forward and there I am with two good friends by my side at the Molson Amphitheatre ready for a day of childish fun. We made some friends while chilling in line and Canadian Pride was in the air.
Over the phone Steve talks about how simply being a kid works in the bands’ benefit. “The first song for our new CD, [came about when] we were just fooling around and played a crazy metal song. Then we kept playing it and it was just a really fun metal song, we actually added a melody to it and now it’s all of our favorite track on the new CD. I actually think we’re going to be making the first video for that song. So many things will just start as a joke and end as something completely good. Like now I just don’t care about anything anymore, except the music. We’re just a bunch of kids.”
When I say I’m a journalist, it feels weird because what I do does not feel like work in the slightest way. When at shows I can always pick out the journalists. Some take their jobs very seriously. You can spot them at the side of the stage, tapping their toes, or preparing their tape recorders back stage ready to capture their informative interviews. Now don’t get me wrong! I am not saying I am better than anyone or that they suck, it’s just a completely different style of work they will produce. Me, when I’m at a show I always make sure to ditch the tape recorder after the interview and chill in the audience. I love making new friends and at concerts you already have something obvious to connect over. I’ll usually take care of business and then resort to the pit to dance, sing a long, and look silly. I’d much rather take in everything from that point of view, like being one of the kids in the crowd, than being some sort of processing machine. That’s just how I do it, and how I always have. Maybe things will change when I get older, I hope they don’t.
About an hour into my day at Edgefest 1, I find myself in a bathroom stall (no really) interviewing Care Failure from Die Mannequin. Die Mannequin was playing the smaller Next Big Thing stage and they wouldn’t let me backstage to do the interview without a pass, but chilling in the bathroom really wasn’t that bad. It made for rad pictures.
“I’m like perpetually 4 years old and like 40 at the same time. Like if you try to live your whole life like you’re a two year old it can be pretty amazing. It’s kind of weird, I think that I kind of missed out on having a childhood and I think a lot of people do. So it’s kind of like going back to that now in a way. Well just in like the way you live and talk to people and the way you experience things, I try to do it like I’m forever a kid,” Care says.
And you can tell that she has a lot of fun. The band’s inception was a result of teenage carelessness. Care explains, “Well this is probably our third show as a band. Like the other guy that’s playing bass now, his name is Brandon. So our drummer now, Pat, I met him like when I was 16. When my parents kicked me out of the house, we were messing around with some bad stuff, and I went to him. I was sleeping on the couch at the time, it was like a house with six boys and there was this guy Pat. So he was like yea you can stay in my room. He had a room that was like, no jokes, 6 by 6 right? And A little bit bigger than this [We’re in one of the handicap stalls], but there was like a bed right here and a stereo and that was it. And that’s how I met him, he let me stay there for like a year and then we just started the band.”
A word of advice from Steve (Hot Hot Heat) was along the lines of: Friends first. Band second. “The best way for a band to stay together is to just be friends. Like yesterday we practiced for four hours and then they all came back to my house and sat around until 4am.”
Recently Steve has made some big changes in his life. Going through a disastrous heart tangling relationship ended up in him relocating and realizing that being a kid is really the only way to be.
He explains, “Throughout the last CD I had a girlfriend and we were so in love and everything, so lots of those emotions are on there. Now this new album will be very different, mainly because we have got a new guitar player and because I got my heart totally broken. The new album is definitely a lot darker and people shit on me for writing about love, but it’s really the only thing that matters. With all these changes I just wanted to start over, so I moved. Now where I live is called ‘Crystal Corner’ in Vancouver, because there’s a lot of crystal meth around. And it’s a one bedroom apartment on the floor level. I just sit around and write music and leave the door open. People pop their head in, there are some crazy people.”
Going back to being a “free man’, if you will, was just what was needed to salvage Bay’s juvenile spontaneity. “I’m happier than ever right now. I just want to focus on making music and having fun. We never really pay attention to what other people say, we just want to please each other and what goes on around us doesn’t really matter. Like we just always screw around. I think the only time we actually play the songs the way they are meant to be played is at an actual show,” he says.
Care lives a very much so, foolish and “unprofessional” lifestyle. Hell! Halfway through our interview we were interrupted by her inner kid. “I have to fart so badly…Watch out for that.” I, the interviewer, was left laughing my ass off and wondering if I should start living less uptight. I mean, there can’t be anything better than not worrying about others’ expectations.
Her down-to-earth approach has been turning the heads of some pretty significant people. She just recently finished up some recording time with MSTRKRFT (Jesse F. Keeler and Al-P) for her new demo and couldn’t be more psyched. She tells Truth, “I feel most at home in the studio. It’s always a good experience. Some people you just mesh really well with. You feel like you have to play it up a level. Like you know what I mean? If you’re with someone who will raise you up, or challenge you I guess, then you have to play up to it and challenge yourself at the same time. I like that a lot better in the studio. I always liked DFA (Death From Above 1979). Like I’ve only liked a couple bands that come out of Toronto to be quite frank, there’re not a lot of people with larger than life ideas. Some people get really scared of larger than life ideas and Jesse is certainly not one of those people, same with Al.”
Later in conversation we discuss the importance, for someone regularly in the spotlight, of being laid back and knowing when not to care. “In a way as much as it’s good to listen to people, you have to try not to. You have to stay grounded and be able to laugh at yourself. Everything else doesn’t matter. Like you play with your friends and you all have each other. You tell each other when their being a fucking dumb ass and then you should all be ok.”
Care also admits to being wrapped up in her own fairy tale. She explains, “It’s kind of weird, it’s like an undeniable thing where you feel it in your bones and it’s just, well you become a slave to yourself in a way, like I love doing it but in a way I don’t even have a choice, like it’s way beyond me.”
Though not to that degree, I could definitely feel the chills in my spine when Neverending White Lights hit the stage, -even more so when Hot Hot Heat made their bone-shaking appearance and during Our Lady Peace’s set I’m pretty sure I thought I was going to explode. Luckily I didn’t and I am in good health to tell you about it, but everyone who’s seen live music done right knows that music induced feeling. That feeling that nothing in the world, none of your priorities, matters and you wish you could live in it forever. With a great day filled with unforgettable experiences and damn moving music I walked away from the amphitheatre fulfilled and exhausted.
Don’t fret! I ended both the separate interviews in true Truth.Explosion manner:
Truth.Explosion: So what is the “truth” about Die Mannequin?
CF: You know what? Like the truth about Die Mannequin is we are who we are. I don’t really know the truth in anything, you can meet someone and like I don’t know what the truth is in you. But in the band and the music itself … the truth is that we just do what we love. It’s really cheesy, but it’s true.
TE: Last question, what is the “truth” about Hot Hot Heat?
SB: I think that, there’s lots of bands that really stand up and have really strong opinions and I think it’s okay to not really know. Like I can think something one day and the next [day] be completely different, like it’s not that bad to contradict yourself once in a while. When you attach yourself with such a strong set of ideals that’s when things get scary. Truth be told, we’re just a bunch of kids, when you start worrying about bills, kids, and responsibilities that’s when it’s not fun. We’re just so tight and lots of bands break up after their second album but it’s so awesome being in a band that’s been together for seven years. Sometimes it’s just necessary to chill out and be a kid, to not care.
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