Louder Than War’s Adrian Bloxham recently had a chat with No Joy ahead of their returning to the UK for the second time this year for a short tour.
Canadian Rockers No Joy have had a busy year so far, one which included the release of a new album (a beautifully layered slice of indie noise) and a tour of the UK with the excellent Cheatahs (our review of the Birmingham show is here).
They followed the tour up by releasing a new video for the track ‘Hollywood Teeth’ and, excitingly, are heading back to the UK next month – the full details of which can be found below.
I caught up with the band’s guitarist Laura last month as she / they headed home to Canada after a tour of the US, to talk about the upcoming tour, their music in general and why they like to push theirselves. After initial hiccups getting through to the band, due to their passing over the US / Canada border, I finally spoke with them on the way to Toronto.
But before we jump in with the interview, check out the aforementioned video for the track Hollywood Teeth…
Louder Than War: How are you? You doing okay?
What’s up? I’m doing pretty okay yeah!
You’re in Canada now? Is it good to be going home?
Yeah it’s good I like to be back in Canada
How’s the tour gone so far?
It’s been good, it’s been weird I think, I’ve lost track of time but we’ve been all over the country in like a week so it’s good.
You’ve been all over the US ?
Yeah, yeah, we have, been like East coast and West coast in like yeah?
So you don’t know if you’re awake or asleep I guess?
Yeah that’s kinda what I feel like today, but we’ll be in Toronto for three days now so I think I can get a grasp on time there!
Have you enjoyed the tour – and the UK and Europe tour as well – or has it been quite a lot of hard work?
I mean the hard work is like, you know, just kinda logistics, but yeah, the tour’s have been great and we really had a good time in the UK because we had a little more time off than we normally do so we got to explore a little bit and it was very nice there for once, we had hardly any rain and we were touring with another UK band so that made it all more familiar I guess.
I saw you in Birmingham with the Cheatahs and a Birmingham band I can’t recall the name of but I thought you were great.
Oh yeah I can’t remember their name either but they were good! (The band were kaleidoscopes – Ed)
In Birmingham The Cheatahs’ guitarist lent you a lead didn’t he?
He what? He borrowed… Oh Yeah! my amp died, yeah like my pedal board conked out I forgot about that! Yeah he lent me a cable.
I just thought it was a really nice moment, of like camaraderie between the bands.
A touching moment between the bands? (Smiling)
Yes I thought it was nice that you helped each other, is that what it’s like for most bands?
Yeah, leave no band stranded, if he didn’t lend me that the show would not have happened!
You didn’t look happy, but then you played absolutely wonderfully so it didn’t matter did it?
No I was very upset (Laughing). No no, it all worked out in the end!
I’ve listened to the album a lot and I can definitely hear the influence of the old Creation bands in there, with My Bloody Valentine in particular, all the stopping and starting and stuttering guitar and there’s a bit of Sonic Youth there too, but I think that you’ve moved that onwards and created your own sound it’s not derivative in any way; it’s kind of a step forward from it and I really like that!
Ok … thank you!
Live there was a lot of the mashing together that Sonic Youth did when they create a sound and just go with it, different to the album in that way, but very good.
Cool thanks, the live shows are obviously going to be more chaotic than the record, for one the record has so many different textures and sounds that cannot be created live or sound kind of different when you play them clean or whatever.
In between the songs and when you were fixing the pedals the music kept going…
We have those moments. We were playing little backing tracks or samples from the record that’ll play between songs or whatever. That’s where you’ll hear the bits that can’t be played live because they’re synthesisers or whatever.
Are you playing gigs in Toronto?
Yeah we’re playing North by Northeast, it’s a festival, kind of the opposite of South by Southwest!
Are you looking forward to seeing any other bands?
Yeah we have so many friends playing this year that it’ll be fun to catch up with them, I’m not really in the mood to discover new things but I think it’ll be more like just trying to catch up with friends that we haven’t seen in a long time. Should be good.
I like finding new music…
I think maybe if I wasn’t on tour I’d be more interested in finding new stuff but when I’m on tour it’s so crazy I don’t have the energy or patience to watch music really!
That’s fair enough…
I like to see people and hang out.
What’s next – are you recording again?
No, not yet, we have the summer off and in the fall we’re gonna be doing another real crazy tour in the US and Europe.
So are you coming to the UK again?
Yeah we’ll be back in the UK September, October. More touring for this record for the next year I think.
My favourite song on the record is ‘Judith’, the last song.
Okay.
And I also liked ‘Corpe Dium’ because it’s nasty…
The idea was to make them a little more challenging for us to play and, like, kind of see how far we could push it so those are good examples (chuckle)!
And with that Laura leaves to play Toronto and hang out.
No Joy are playing the UK in September…
- Sep 26 Liverpool, UK – Liverpool Psych Fest
- Sep 27 Glasgow, UK – Broadcast
- Sep 29 Cardiff, UK – Clwb Ifor Bach
- Sep 30 London, UK – Victoria Dalston
- Oct 01 Brighton, UK – Patterns
No Joy can be found on the internet here: nojoymusic.com. They are also on Facebook and Tweet as @nojoy.
All words by Adrian Bloxham. More writing by Adrian can be found at his author’s archive.
Photo by Joyce Kim.
The post Interview: Laura Lloyd From No Joy talks to Louder Than War About Their Latest Album, Touring And Pushing Theirselves appeared first on Louder Than War.