INTERVIEW: SEWER SPEWER: ONE STEP AT A TIME
I know you've been in Gutser for more than 10 years at this point. You also have another band called Pyrocene Death Cult. And you're running Sewer Spewer. How do you cope with going back to normal life? Let's say you play a show one night and then the next morning, you gotta go back to normal life. How do you deal with that?
There is kind of a come down after having a great experience on stage and just going back to a regular life. It is a bit hard, but I've kind of gotten used to it just because I don't really consider myself a rock star or anything. I'm not expecting everybody to be amazed by what I do. My co-workers don't really seem to care that I'm doing all this. I'm just a regular person every other day, but it does take up a lot of my time. I feel like I'm always very busy. I don't have a lot of time for friends. I'm trying to maintain a relationship too. It's a lot sometimes, especially during the summer when there's a lot happening. I think I've been able to figure out a balance. Sometimes I'm more busy than others, but it's all about finding a balance between a personal life and this kind of music life, whether that's going to shows or performing at shows.
You work for a printing company. Is that your main source of income?
Yes, so I don't make much money off of Sewer Spewer. I went into printing about a year and a half ago. I studied it in school because I wanted to have some kind of connection to the music scene while still making money. So the place where I'm working right now, they print t-shirts and a lot of those t-shirts are for bands. So that's kind of how I keep my connection to the scene while still taking a paycheck. Before that I was in radio. I kind of fell off about two years ago and I was trying to look to change my career. That's why I wanted to go into journalism because people always say, “Oh, you have such a nice radio voice, you should go into radio”. I did that for about four years, but my last job in radio was just so stressful. I was looking for something else after that.
I listened to the interview you did with Phil two years ago on his podcast “Le Clash”. Your bandmate James mentioned that sometimes when you play a show during a weeknight, it can go either way. Either the place is packed or barely anybody shows up. Does the crowd size and how the crowd reacts affect your performance at all?
I think when a room is packed, the band just sounds better in terms of the acoustics of the room and there's more energy. Playing in the middle of the week on a weeknight, I did it a couple weeks ago with my band Pyrocene Death Cult. It wasn't a full room, but I really want to make everybody feel welcome and I want to give them the best experience possible because they chose to show up. And what really helps me is I have a wireless microphone and that allows me to get into everybody's face and try to go as far back in the room as I can to get up close and personal with each person who showed up. I want to give them that experience because I know there's a million other things that they could have done. Even if we're playing a show on the weekend, there's so many other shows happening. The fact that people chose to go to that show, they deserve to be entertained, so I'm going to do just that. I think it's important for every band to be able to perform to any kind of audience, whether it's three people in a crowd or a packed room. They need to be ready for both of those experiences, especially if they're going on tour and playing in cities they've never been to before. There isn't really much of a fan base there yet, so they need to be ready to play to an almost empty room. And the next time they go to that town on tour, it can get bigger and bigger. That's how a lot of independent bands get their fan bases.
What would you say to a band that plays to a small crowd and thinks, “No one's here, whatever, we'll just play for the sake of playing, but who cares?”
I don't think that attitude really works. Those bands won’t last very long if they're always bitter about not playing to a full room. You need to start somewhere, you need to play to smaller audiences in order to build a bigger audience. You're not gonna start off selling out rooms unless you have some kind of reputation already when you start. But for the most part, musicians who are just starting out, it's only their friends, maybe their partners who show up. That's kind of how it goes at the beginning, and you have to just keep doing it until it eventually pays off.
Who knows, maybe you can manage to win one person over, and that's already something, right?
Exactly. If we can get one person just to listen to our music afterwards, then that person can tell their friends and then who knows what can happen? Even if it's let's say ten people, maybe those ten people are really excited to see you, and then there's a really good show.
You play a really important role in the music scene in Montreal. What would you tell someone who maybe is not aware of the Montreal music scene or is just not interested. They think “Oh, they're just small bands, whatever”. How do you encourage them to perhaps get involved a bit more?
It depends what that person likes. If they're only interested in going to big shows at big venues with a thousand people in the audience, you have to tell them “A lot of these bands had to start somewhere”. They had to play smaller venues until they got where they were. Unless they had a lot of money in the beginning and had a lot of connections. There's a lot of bands right now in Montreal who did start off very small, who are now playing to huge crowds. Faze just played the Bell Centre last weekend. I remember seeing them in basements way back in the day. So they've kept doing it until they play to a whole arena full of people. Béton Armé started off very small too. They just have such great energy and are really becoming popular around the world. They play in front of these huge crowds now. They still play like a few small festivals here and there. I still get to see them in smaller rooms. That's another example of a band who started small that just kept on doing it and built a fan base from there. I would say to that person, “If you want to see a band before they get famous, a small room is the perfect time to see them”. Even Angine de Poitrine, friends were telling me that they were seeing them in small rooms like Turbo Haus with about 12 people there. And you'll never be able to see them like that ever again. At least not for free, because they've gotten so huge. So this is the perfect opportunity to see these bands before they become incredibly popular and their tickets cost way too much money.
I know you scream. Do you remember the first song you heard that had any screaming in it? And did you like it right away or not?
It must have been a band like Slipknot or something like that. When I was just discovering Metal in high school, I remember it scaring me at first. But it still intrigued me. I kind of feel the same way about horror movies. Maybe as a kid it really scared me when I first watched them, but I wanted to overcome that fear and explore more of it. I remember wanting to imitate screaming or be able to do that as far back as high school. I found a video from 2006 when I was in grade nine of me singing like that. I've perfected my technique over the years, but I just remember being so fascinated when I first heard something like that.
Do you remember the first time you wore makeup on stage?
I think it started off as a joke. This does kind of go into my gender identity in the future. At the beginning I thought maybe I want to be in drag on stage. Wear a leotard and have my friend do my makeup as a joke. And then I just kept on doing it and I guess it made me realize a few things down the line. I really like the look of my makeup in general on stage. My band Pyrocene Death Cult, we wear corpse paint. I think I really liked the look of Gene Simmons from Kiss when I was younger, and a lot of corpse paint is kind of based on that. I think even in high school I started experimenting with that. I would get Halloween face paint and try to do it in secret. I remember my mom walking in on me like one time when I thought I was alone at home doing my makeup. It’s something I've been doing for a while. I'm just very intrigued by the look of it, and I try to do a different look every single time I perform.
I know you studied theater. Would you say what you learned in theater has affected your performance on stage?
I tried to be a professional actor for a while. Sometimes I'm a bit sad that I don't do theater or act anymore but being on stage is kind of my compromise. This is how I stay theatrical in my regular life. I went to theater school and there I learned how to properly breathe when I'm singing. They did teach me a bit how to do the vocal fry, the kind of harsh vocals. They told me not to overdo it. They would always look at me when I did it and told me I shouldn't do that longer than a couple of minutes. A lot of those techniques I learned at school I applied to my own warm-up to do harsh vocals, so that helps too. And I think just the way I move on stage, I took a lot of dance classes too. I think it's just a matter of feeling comfortable on stage in front of a bunch of people. I sometimes feel more comfortable on stage than being one-on-one with a person. It's my way of being more theatrical. I don't like it when I see a band and they're just all standing in one place. I really like a band that is all over the place. I know that sometimes if you have a guitar, it's hard to move around. Whenever there's a singer who just stands in one place, I begin to get bored of that. I kind of need them to be a bit more energetic. I need them to move around. I think it's just adding to the experience of the audience. I want them to be more interested in what we're doing and be more drawn into the performance of it.
And you said that being on stage you're less nervous than having a one-on-one with someone. But do you still get nervous to go on stage at all?
I still get nervous to this day before going on stage. I think it's just always performance anxiety. It's gotten very normal for me, and then like sometimes when I do go on stage, I kind of black out. I guess I'm not very aware of what I'm doing on stage until afterwards. Then I think to myself, “Wait, did I actually say that or did I actually do that?” But feeling nervous kind of fuels my adrenaline when I go on stage. So whenever I'm talking to new musicians who are about to play for the first time and they feel very nervous, I always reassure them by saying “It never really goes away. You just learn how to use it”.
You mentioned sometimes you black out. Are you the kind of person who will watch videos of the show afterwards?
Yeah, just because I want to see how I looked on stage afterwards. Maybe that'll improve my performance for the next time. I always like to go through Instagram videos afterwards and look back because I want to see what the audience is seeing and I want to know that it was entertaining for them.
Having done Black Metal, Punk and Ska, is there a music genre you haven't tackled yet that you would like to try at some point?
I can't stand to do Ska anymore. I do miss playing trumpet. I wanted to do something that would challenge me a bit more. I was wondering if I should go into Folk. I think Jazz is a bit too complicated for me. I also was thinking of doing Noise because that's all experimental. It doesn't really take much. I mean sure it takes skill, but like the song structure is a bit a bit more loose. A lot of my friends really don't like noise. I'm still very intrigued by it, and I really like how experimental it is. So I think if I were to go back to playing trumpet, that's what I would do. I guess in terms of genres, I feel like I've done everything I've wanted to do. Maybe I would explore a bit more Post Punk or goth because I do like the sound and the overall mood. I would like to learn how to play synth and do something similar to that, but I think for the most part I'm happy with what I've done so far.
Referring again to the podcast that you did with Phil, you talked about Gutser TV and those skits you did. And you mentioned having so many ideas, but also having a budget for all those ideas. So I was wondering if you have an unlimited budget, what would you like to do with that budget, whether it's for Gutser or Pyrocene or anything music related, any project, like recordings, anything.
It would be great if we had a budget that would allow us not to work because I feel like our schedules are the main reason why we're not making more videos like that. We did release a video last week but this is something that we recorded last year when we had the time for it. And ever since then, we have a whole document of all these half-baked ideas. We don't really have an idea of how to execute them or how to pull them off. So I think a lot of that money would maybe go towards somebody who will know how to pull it off, maybe a director or writer who could help synthesize our ideas into something that would work on camera. Before it was me filming everything and editing. I was trying to steer the dialogue or story into a certain way. I don't necessarily come up with the ideas, but the ideas that my band does come up with are very chaotic and all over the place, and it's really hard to make sense of them. I think if we did make a skit, I would just be like reading all of their half-baked ideas and thinking how are we gonna do this? That would be the whole joke about how crazy a lot of these skit ideas are. I think we just need a better schedule, better equipment, and maybe somebody to help us out with filming. I don't really have much experience with directing except for what I've done with those videos. So it would help it if we got somebody who's a bit more experienced who knows how to put that onto camera and how to make it work in the edit afterwards. But it's just another project to put on my plate. I think that's why we haven't done any skits in a long time. I just got so busy and I was beginning to feel burnt out by the workload of having to do all this. I need to handle everything.
And with that amount of money, do you think you would also use it for something Pyrocene or anything else music related?
I think so. We would like to do a music video too. I don't see it being super expensive, it would just be a classic Black Metal music video performing in the woods looking spooky. I think a lot of that budget would go towards my bandmates not having to work so we could focus more on the project. Work does get in the way because we still need to pay our rents. And unfortunately we're playing a kind of music that doesn't really bring in a lot of money. But we're still passionate about it. I think if we did have an unlimited budget, it would just be so we could focus on it 100% of the time and not just whenever we're not working.
I know Gutser is releasing an album literally like this weekend. Yes. So I was wondering, is there anything you would like to share with people before they listen to the album?
We started recording this album three years ago. It took a while to do. Our friend Jordan Barillaro, who worked on our first album, recorded and mixed this album too. It was good to be back with him. He really understands our sound. I think a reason why it took so long is we were really struggling with finding the right sound for the end product. But also just finding the time to sit down with all four of us and listen to it was very difficult too. A lot of these songs I wrote three years ago, and it's strange how some of them have become more relevant. I have a song about Trump supporters, but that was written in 2021 after his first term. At the time I was writing it, I didn't expect him to go back into office. So now it's become relevant all over again. I also wrote a song about gendered bathroom laws. And how it relates to trans people and how lawmakers are trying to ban them from using the bathroom of their choice or the bathroom that is related to their identity or gender. And when I first wrote this, it was still something small that was happening in the US. Since then it has really blown up and has even reached Quebec, which is talking about banning certain people from using certain bathrooms or getting rid of gender-neutral bathrooms. I feel like it's such a stupid debate to stop people from using the bathroom because people just need to go. They're not bothering anybody, they just need to use the bathroom. And all bathrooms look the same. I thought I was still a cisgender person when I first wrote that song, and then over the course of recording that song and it coming out, I've kind of come out and I identify as gender fluid now. It's kind of funny how that worked out. Maybe I was first writing this on behalf of trans people and didn't really include myself on that. Then behold, this stuff happens. So that's how it became more relevant to me. The final track is just an ongoing issue. It's about the climate crisis. It's the second song I've written for Gutser about it.
I felt I had so much more to write about it that I joined Pyrocene Death Cult, which is all about the climate crisis. I just feel it has just gotten so much worse since I wrote about it a few years ago and has just become that much more relevant. It's kind of strange these songs are becoming more relevant than when I first wrote them. At the same time, I still have fun on the album. I wrote a song about vampires just because I was watching the Interview With The Vampire show. I was very inspired by one of the characters not wanting to be a vampire and I can relate to that. So it's a mix of fun and serious on the album. And for the last song on the album, we got a lot of our friends to do the choir parts. So one night we just packed all of our friends into our apartment and got them to sing, which was a real headache for our friend Jordan. He had to mix it afterwards and deal with 50 different tracks. I think what he did in the end sounds really cool. So I'm glad with the way it turned out.
Gutster's lastest music video for their song "Lysergic Philosopher
You're a fan of horror movies. What was the last horror movie you watched, whether it's a newer or older release? And if you had to pick one song to sort of describe or represent the movie, what song would it be?
Right now there's a film festival happening in Montreal, the Fantasia Film Festival. So I've gone to see a couple movies there. The last movie I saw was called Penny Lane Is Dead. And that movie was pretty violent to the point where somebody fainted in the audience. And two days later, somebody posted an article about how people are fainting while watching Penny Lane Is Dead. So I think it's really funny that's like being used as a selling point for the movie. I don't really know how I would assign a song to that. It's hard because it was a good movie, but I found parts of it very hard to watch. There was senseless violence against women.
But if I could talk about this other movie I saw before at Fantasia Fest, it's a movie I really liked called Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma. It's by this director named Jane Schoenbrun who did this movie called I Saw the TV Glow, which was very significant for me. I remember questioning my gender identity after seeing that movie, and that led to my eventual coming out. But with this movie it's a lesbian love story in the context of Friday The 13th. So the tone of the movie is all off because it's funny, dramatic and very sweet. But it's within the context of a horror movie so it uses a lot of these horror movie tropes. There are particularly bloody scenes. But those scenes don't seem scary, they seem almost funny to me. And the character who is the stand-in for Jason is called Little Death and is pretty much a metaphor for an orgasm. So I really liked what they did with this movie. But I'm trying to think about what music would go well with that. I guess what comes to mind just because I'm thinking of Friday The 13th is “I Don't Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore" by The Menzingers. The music video for that song follows Jason from Friday The 13th, and he's trying to fall in love. He goes on Tinder and he develops a crush on this girl. But he's still wearing his hockey mask and he’s very tall and intimidating. So it's just so funny to see this music video where he's trying to fall in love, but he's still Jason and still very scary. A funny story related to that music video. There's a band called The Jasons where they all dress up like Jason with a hockey mask. And they wrote a song in response to that called “I Wanna Be An Asshole”. I just thought that was so funny when I saw that. So that's the song I would assign to that movie.
Your favourite interviewer/blogger who hopes she can have somewhat of a positive impact on the local music scene,
Ariane
LINKS TO FURTHER DISCOVER AND SUPPORT SEWER PEWER
Pyrocene Death Cult on BandCamp
Pyrocene Death Cult's Instagram
Sewer Spewer** not Sewer Pewer.. Who ever edited this article must have been half asleep.
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