NXNE 2014 Day 1

0:06Hey, it's Matt here for another North by Northeast. We're gonna have such an amazing week So many great bands are performing white or still plaskets spoons St. Vincent Oldman Canyon likes of Canada shred Kelly Sydney York odds Rara and the fast romantic let's go on and on and on but today's gonna be a little different Festival has it technically started yet I mean the interactive portions have the film portion went down the other day I saw Richard Linkletters new movie boyhood where he cast a six-year-old kid followed him around for 12 years We're talking like it took him 12 years to make this movie with Ethan Hawken this this amazing Child actor just 12 years of the kid's life and now he's 18 and he shot him the whole time and it's gonna be out in the fall But they premiered it at North by and it was just awesome It's almost three hours long, but it honestly doesn't feel it anyway You might be wondering why I'm just sitting in a hotel room right now doing this well

0:52It's because Brad my camper guy who usually does such an amazing job shooting the show is dog But his foot and it's kind of broken right now So it's just me here Joe barbers coming over in a few minutes to chat about her new record Fools Gold We're gonna go see Hoxley workman. He's got a show the God that comes what it's called taking place at the Tarragon Theatre We'll go check that out in a little bit. You'll see that today on the show We're also gonna chat with Ziggy Marley. He was here this weekend over at the Luminato Festival And I thought today since it's the first day of our coverage at least at North by and we're gonna go see a whole bunch of great Bands this week performing why not talk about performing with bands? What have you learned about performance over the years being on stage like what what what has changed from a Ziggy Marley performance 20 years ago Is to know I think I'm more open open mind. I'm more willing to Let myself go more Less shy are you I'm very shy my shy person

1:41I don't see myself as I entertainer. I'm a musician and I express myself Truly when I play my music. It's just I express myself. I'm not I'm not entertaining I'm just expressing if you're entertained by my expressions then that's fine, but I'm not an entertainer So what's what's the line between their entertainment musician? Well the entertainer is somebody again like people have all type of thing was going on They're here to entertain you like mom look at this look at that Oh look at this move and the choreography and every shoe is choreographed the same way and it's like a Broadway play basically For me every show can be different. I can I move differently on it every show. I'm not I'm not a choreographed person I can do things differently. I can sing differently. I can Songs can be really differently. I can make a step differently. So it's not choreographed

2:30What about set lists? Do they change from night to night? Yeah Yeah, my love we do down the fly we can have a set is what set is only a guideline because how I feel when once a Show is going on is I can make a car and I say You know I can't in a sound quicker. I make a song run long It's yours. It's free Love is there it is what makes me feel like I've seen a great show is When everybody else in the room just disappears just fades away and it's just the performer singing to me and I suppose that's what I try to do when I perform I try to connect With individuals When it happens, it's pretty magical. I think I want to tap back into the emotions that I felt when I wrote the songs

3:22It's never hard to perform some songs. I don't I don't know if I've ever been That's not true. Maybe a couple times I mean it's embarrassing to admit that I'm like I've been so moved by my own music But I can think of a couple of occasions where Circumstances were such that I was particularly emotional performing that song and that setting to that audience or whatever yeah, of course I want to feel moved by my own songs and and That's why it's important to write good songs because you know you'll be singing them for years to come hopefully As long as people are there to listen and musically they change and evolve and grow and swell and The different musicians that I have on stage with me affect them but I think even just as I age songs stay the same age and

4:12So sometimes like a lot of my earlier songs when I do sing them from time to time I'm like who is this girl that wrote these songs this woman is like Feeling I don't know like I feel I Can hear that girl and me And I can I can still tap into the the girl that I was when I wrote it, you know, but I'm I present it in a the same song, but it's I have a different relationship to it in my early days In the late 90s early 2000s I was very committed to wanting to do a theatrical rock performance The problem was that it was somewhat out of step with what was fashionable and I think in some ways I did it for a couple years with feather boas and dressing in drag and wearing makeup and things like that and kind of

4:57Making the show quite theatrical thinking of course that like well the more energy I put into the show the more People are going to respond to it. The problem was is that like I said it wasn't fashionable in a way and Maybe it's even a Canadian thing too or is it well Where does this guy get off like jumping around and dancing and putting makeup on and with being this guy? And I think too even through Europe once our thing started to catch on it It felt almost like the press was always more about what is he wearing and he's he changes clothes on stage And he's wearing makeup and he's this and he's that and so in a way I put a lot of the performance he stuff away because it was like why does nobody ever's like I Want the focus to be back on the songwriting like in a way I wasn't jumping around and wearing feather boas because the songs were weak the songs were always strong So it was like a refocus so fast forward to this show

5:46I'm certainly not acting. It's a total like pure It's like it's like all muscles like it's just it's it's the same performance muscles that I was I had out 15 years ago in a way if you liked that so those early days like strip teas and the that whole thing like in a way That's kind of what I'm doing now and the Mounties record started I had been wood shedding to do a jazz album on drums a jazz and saxophone duet record record that's not come out it may never come out But it fact was that I flew to Vancouver with my chops really hot and then I did I didn't fly out thinking I was gonna be the drummer I thought we'd sit around and make pop songs for public consumption But it turns out we started a rock is like holy this is a rock band. Oh my god. It's a rock band the thing is is that as

6:35a producer rock music is made to to Enlighten and give an outlet to a restless and reckless teenage spirit and the first Keeper of energy to like start Renagging on his role is the drummer because the drummer needs to sound like an 18 year old doesn't matter If you're in rock music and you're 40 you need to sound like you're 18. It's just the way it is drums is my main instrument So it's the purest form of performance I have But it hurts I nearly puke two or three times in the show because I want the energy to be up and up And as soon as it gets to somewhere where I almost physically can't push it I push it harder and then I feel that that pukes are to come out my neck like oh geez

7:20And then I lost a ton of weight on that tour. I mean It's not there's nothing cerebral about it as my a friend of mine who's another drummer who saw the show said it's muscular freedom and I was like In a way Mounties for me is the purest output form of performance I have there's nothing up with this show There's lots of things. There's lots of housekeeping in theater It's like oh make sure you do this this light's gonna be on when you're over here Make sure you're in the right spot when this is happening Mounties is just pure sex puke, you know, it's like it's just pure like you know what I mean Sex puke