You signed with Twin Fang Records in 2024 and Tell Me You Love Me Again will be your first release with the label. How did you decide who to sign with? What has working with them been like?

Shiv: Twin Fang Records is great! They’re a newer label out of Toronto and it’s helmed by Sarah Sleeth who used to work for Six Shooter Records. I met her because our friend’s band, Chinese Medicine, signed to the label. They are absolutely fantastic! We love Juno in this house, we love Chinese Medicine! I met with Sarah and I had a great conversation with her. We connected on a personal level; I like her taste in music, I like her politics, and I like the way that she speaks about the music industry. She has so much knowledge. When she asked us to join Twin Fang it was an obvious yes because I can just tell that she really cares about artists. Even through the treatment of how we’ve been putting this EP together, she just goes above and beyond. It’s also nice to know that we can do this together and grow together. It was a perfect fit when it worked out.

Nicole: Shiv does all of the background band stuff for the most part so anyone who knows their way around the music industry is such a big asset, especially someone who has your best interest in mind and looks out for you. It’s so easy to be like, “Ooh, I’m a silly little guitarist! I don’t know what’s best for me!” and someone could easily do whatever they want. Sarah has respect for us as a band, for our ownership, and for partnerships, like what’s best for both Twin Fang and the band.

Shiv: Yeah, totally.

Nicole: It’s really cool that it’s one woman running the show and she kills it! That’s huge. The amount of stuff that she’s able to do on her own using her contacts and her skills and experience is awesome.

Shiv: And all her wisdom and infinite knowledge too. You hear label horror stories, so it’s nice to know that we’re in good hands.

Nicole: Soft yet firm. Like Anne Geddes holding a baby in a little animal costume.

[laughter]

Annie Jane Marie had her debut with the band playing on your Shania Twain cover in 2023 and this EP is her first full release as part of the band. What impact has Annie had on the dynamic of the band?

Shiv: Full disclosure, she’s in the other room right now and she can hear us! [laughs] She’s about to hear everything we say.

Nicole: We’re about to compliment the shit out of her.

Shiv: It’s honestly been the most amazing, wonderful experience. She brings so much elevated musicality to the band. When she first started playing with us it was to sub in for a couple gigs and I feel like we all looked around at each other like, “Oh shit!!” [laughs]

Nicole: She first subbed in for me on guitar. Annie played a couple shows playing guitar for us and when she played bass, there was so much less room for the guitar to fill up.

Shiv: She filled so much space and just made her stamp that we didn’t need for me to have the guitar anymore. The sound sounded really full.

Nicole: I’m kind of a new guitarist so playing and moving is really hard, but when you have someone else in the room who’s playing and really fucking moving…

Shiv: Thrashing!

Nicole: You’re like, “Ok, I gotta keep up a little bit or at least tread water behind this person” because you can only play as good as the person you’re playing with, essentially.

Shiv: She challenges all of us and raises the bar. It’s been really fun to try writing new things because she’s so good at coming up with catchy riffs. She’s so good at it!

Nicole: It’s really nice to be like, “Hey, you take the dynamics on this one, I’m just gonna do barre chords!” [laughs]

Shiv: [yelling to Annie] I love you, sweetie!!

Nicole: We love you, Annie!

Shiv: She’s blushing.

Nicole: And she’s hilarious!

Shiv: She’s so beautiful and she’s so hilarious!

Nicole: And she’s the best comrade ever! It’s been wonderful having her.

Shiv: Yes, we’ve been very lucky.

I read that you two met during roller derby, is that correct?

Nicole: I think the very first time we met was at my birthday party. I held a park skate meetup. I tricked everyone, I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday. [laughs]

Shiv: There were like three people there.

Nicole: No, there was more than that! [laughs]

Shiv: That was the first time I talked to you.

Nicole: I think that’s the first time I really registered it because I had to stop playing roller derby and was only coaching at that point. I was on the bench.

Shiv: She was coaching when I was playing. Out of the home teams in Toronto, she was coaching on the Death Track Dolls and I was playing on the Gore Gore Rollergirls, so we weren’t actually in practice together.

Nicole: We weren’t actually enemies.

Shiv: We weren’t actually mortal enemies.

[laughter]

Shiv: Her roller derby name was Android W.K. so in the band we still call her Android. You have a funny story about that.

Nicole: I met Andrew W.K. and got him to sign my jersey. I pinched his elbow and also smelled him. [laughs] He smelled like vanilla. I was like, “How do you smell this good??” But he also hooked up with some groupies before that, I think.

Shiv: Wow, that’s wild! [laughs]

Nicole: I was not with the Party Posse, I waited so long to meet that man! He was very out of it by the time I met him.

Shiv: I was very intimidated by you though because you’re so hot and you’re so cool! You know who you are so strongly and you are that person 100%. It could be a little intimidating but you challenged me.

Nicole: And I have a really mean bitch face! [laughs] I was also good at roller derby. That was one of the things where I was like, “Wow, I’m actually good at this!” Even my own team would be like, “Android asks a lot of us” and I’d be like, “Are we all not machines built to play roller derby?” [laughs] The answer was not everyone, people have a life.

Shiv: That kinda translated over to the band stuff. We actually originally asked a different guitarist to play with us; a friend of ours who had a little bit more experience because two of us were newbies at the time to playing music. I’d played in a band for a very brief time in university, like 6 months, but that was pretty much it. We asked this other person and they came to two practices and they just couldn’t commit the time. I thought you were too busy so that’s why I didn’t ask you in the first place but then I did ask you and it’s been so perfect ever since.

Nicole: I was just playing in the basement of Houndstooth at the time. My first show ever was with Shiv. The only thing where I’d played in front of people before was piano recitals. [laughs]

Shiv: I don’t really remember anything from our first show. I know Bif Naked came!

Nicole: Yeah, Bif Naked came! And I think we had sound issues.

Shiv: Yeah, we had sound issues through the first song.

Nicole: I think I just gave you my microphone because I was like, “I don’t really need one!” [laughs]

Shiv: You’re right! I immediately felt 1000% confident because we handled this during the first song of our first show.

Nicole: First song, first set.

Shiv: I feel lucky, and I know I’m saying that a lot, but I do think roller derby gave me a lot of tools that were helpful to being in a band. With roller derby, you’re on the track and things are happening really fast. When you’re jamming and working with your offense or when you’re blocking, you end up having to talk a lot to each other. You have to read each other’s movements quickly, especially if you’re looking for offense, because you’re moving so fast. When it came to playing music together, I feel like it made me a better musician because I was better at reading my buddy’s body language; we're really good at being in sync with each other because we’re good at reading each other’s tempo.

Nicole: There’s also a lot of extra stuff you have to do in roller derby like running the bouts, coordinating and planning team practice, and all those things.

Shiv: Finances, sponsorship.

Nicole: Ordering jerseys and ordering merch is pretty much one to one. I think that to do anything physical - whether that’s playing a sport, skating, or playing music - is to be really light. If you’re really tense or holding and barrelling down on something it makes it so much harder but if you’re light on your feet, you’re able to lift your hand off the neck of the guitar and go from one part to another. You’re going to be a lot more comfortable if that’s like a part of your body and you’re not tensing or bracing and thinking about it as something you have to overly control and be rigid with. It’s something I think about when I’m playing guitar and I’m sitting there squeezing the neck and white-knuckling it, I’m like, “Wait a minute, be more comfortable, be calmer about it”.

Shiv: That’s sick! I didn’t even think about that.

Nicole: That’s what I’ve learned. Also, I’ve been in very many jobs where they hire one derby person and then they hire like 7 roller derby people. They’re like, “I can’t help it, they’re so reliable!” We pay to play the sport, we pay to run this shit. Derby people are always reliable, strong, and organized. Usually good values too. [flips hair]

Shiv: Good values. [flips hair]

Nicole: I miss it but I could not commit so much time to it again.

Shiv: It’s such a time commitment because you have to do everything. We used to have a venue about seven years ago where we could host bouts but we lost that venue and then we lost our practice venue during the pandemic so we don’t really have anywhere to host games.

Nicole: There’s always some kind of struggle, some kind of crisis.

Shiv: Women’s sports are definitely underfunded in general, especially one that’s a very niche sport.

Nicole: It’s not very conventional either in a lot of the attitudes and in a lot of the acceptance. People can identify however they want to identify and for the most part, online discord aside, we let people play where they feel like they should be playing. Even men’s leagues are a big percent women because they can’t field enough guys who are like, “We want to commit to this”.

Shiv: There are trans men or trans masculine people playing in the WFTDA which is the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. It is a really open space and it’s really wonderful but it does take a lot of time. You have your practices once a week and then you have your bouts on the weekends and because we play a lot of gigs on the weekends, there was a lot of overlap. Then there’s the extra organizing that you have to be doing on top of that.

Nicole: And the chances of getting injured on top of that.

Shiv: There’s a high chance of getting injured.

Nicole: The ol’ concussions.

Shiv: Good ol’ concussion, good ol’ broken wrist.

Nicole: Tib fib breaks.

Shiv: I’ve dislocated my kneecap twice. Shit happens. [laughs] It definitely would be hard to balance the band and derby but people play until they’re 50.

Nicole: Some people start in their 40s or 50s. There’s no peak level people have to play at.

Shiv: It’s always going to be there.

Nicole: I joined derby when I was 19 and everyone I thought was 25 was actually in their 30s. I was like, “My 30s are gonna be fucking awesome!”

Shiv: I joined in my 20s.

Nicole: It’s one of those things where you join it and the world of, “Urgh, women lie about how old they are once they hit thirty and women need to be young forever” goes right out the window.

Shiv: “You need to have this and you need to have that”.

Nicole: All that went out the window and wasn’t true. A whole different version of the world with women that was so functional opened up.

Shiv: People making their own lives the way that they want to.

Nicole: It was so fun! [laughs]

Roller derby is definitely something that is on my list to try.

Shiv: There’s definitely bouts that happen. They normally happen in the summer when they take the ice out of hockey arenas. Hockey arenas are really great places to rent because the floor is usually some sort of polished concrete, which is what you need. You need polished concrete or wood because if you fall on something that’s not polished, it’s gonna hurt really, really bad.

Nicole: Falling on asphalt hurts!

Shiv: You should take a look! Even just go to the games. It’s the cheapest sports game in town. You can sit right directly on the track and yell and you can talk to the athletes afterwards. It’s a really fun space to go as a spectator.

Nicole: I’ve been meaning to go to a Toronto game. We should go to some. It’s been so long! I feel like it took Toronto a little bit to come back after the pandemic.

How would you describe your songwriting process?

Shiv: It’s getting more collaborative now which is really cool. For the first EP, I would generally bring a song to the group that was more or less finished and had chords and lyrics and we would kind of build it out from there.

Nicole: If it wasn’t entirely done then it just needed a few things to be developed.

Shiv: Or the bridge needed some flushing out or something. But now we’re bringing in ideas earlier and we’re all bringing in different ideas as well and we’re building them out together which is really nice. I end up writing a lot of guitar chords and riffs and you end up writing guitar chords and riffs. We’re starting to work together on lyrics more. With her project Slug, she is such a good songwriter. We have this thing sometimes where I’ll go to a Slug show and hear a new song and be like, “Shit, I wish I wrote that song!” [laughs]

Nicole: I’ll do the same thing but it’s funny for me because it’s like, “I’m in this band and I’m jealous of my own band!”

[laughter]

Shiv: It’s cool because we’re starting to write lyrics together. Annie is really good at coming up with riffs. She’s started bringing in riffs and we write by starting with that riff. Mike is always coming with different ideas. He’s really good at suggesting chord changes.

Nicole: If you need a chord that makes sense to put in with something, go to Mike.

Shiv: He’s really good at finding something a little fresh, a little different, and thinking outside the box. With “Meltdown” for example, that was one where I finished the music and lyrics and then I had no idea how it was going to end. Mike wrote the beginning of the bassline and when Annie came in, she wrote a new bassline for the chorus. She came up with the actual meltdown-y part where we have the slow, soft riff that builds up into the thrashing and the wailing. That wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t had Annie bring in that idea.

Nicole: I think something we’re all learning to do is be open to different ideas and we were just laughing about it this past weekend. I brought in a song and they were like, “Oh, instead of doing this chord we should do this chord” and in my brain, I was like, “How dare they?? One chord! What’s wrong with the G?” Even though the whole song is in G, essentially. But when you bring something to a band you have to be ready to be like, “Ok, I can’t hold onto it and strangle it”. I’m bringing it because I wasn’t going to be able to or didn’t want to use it for my own other endeavours so I was like, “I’m going to bring it here and I’m going to be ok with whatever we decide to do with it”. But in that split second of a moment I’m feeling like an angsty teenager like, “I could just take it away!! I’m taking my ball and going home!”

[laughter]

Nicole: It’s probably better if I actually listen to the people who are smart, creative, and have music theory in their brains and can build off of it and make something even better than me playing whatever I played in my bedroom.

Shiv: We’re starting to write an album now. It’s fun to feel like we have such good collaboration and energy going into the writing process. We’ve written quite a few songs at this point. It’s not easy because you sometimes have to sit there like, “Hmmmm, does this really make sense?” But it’s flowing, which is feeling nice.

Nicole: We have the problem that’s nice to have like, “Oh, what do we play?” because now we have so many options!

Shiv: We have so many songs so we’re like, “Which ones do we wanna play for this instance?”

What was the most collaborative song on the EP?

Nicole: I think probably “Meltdown”. Everyone except for Shiv recorded a guitar part on the EP.

Shiv: I played a lot of guitar on the first EP and this time I showed up for the recording and nobody needed me to play guitar. [laughs]

Nicole: Both Mike and Annie have guitar ideas

Shiv: Her riffs are in there too, it’s layered.

Nicole: I’m like, “Do whatever you want! Go for it if you think it’ll make the song better". I have no ego for that, especially with a recording. If everyone likes it then we’ll use it.

Shiv: For the bass riffs in “Meltdown” Mike wrote the verse riff and Annie wrote the chorus and the meltdown breakdown.

Nicole: And my lead is built on that. I go into rehearsal like, “I’m just gonna sit here and make noise in the corner for the next four weeks until it becomes an actual structure”.

Shiv: There’s a little trilling riff in the buildup after the breakdown that Annie recorded. Your two riffs sit on top of each other so well and it sounds so good. Sometimes I just listen to that part; I just scrub ahead and listen to that instrumental part. I love it so much! Annie wrote some of the riffs in “Bully” as well.

Nicole: She recorded on that one too.

Shiv: Yeah, she also did guitar riffs on that one.

Nicole: She did the shiny chorus part that’s in there.

“Bully” has some of the most hard-hitting lyrics on the EP. What’s the story behind that song?

Shiv: I had a relationship with someone who was a really close friend and who I loved so dearly. It was a codependent relationship for sure. I started going to a program to start trying to work on my codependence for myself. As I tried my best to define boundaries within the relationship I found it was almost like I tried to pull away a little bit and this person tried to pull me back. A lot of it was lashing out as well. The process of trying to separate yourself or pull yourself back a little bit or set boundaries is awkward and uncomfortable. I definitely didn’t do everything 100% right but I was always very honest about it and honest about what I was trying to do. I would have very frank conversations with this person. I would spend hours on FaceTime and on the phone with this person trying to explain and come to a conclusion when they felt offended or hurt by my actions.

Friend breakups can feel just as shitty as romantic breakups. There’s a different kind of love there, especially with someone who you had a very close loving relationship with for a number of years. They told me that they felt bullied by me and I was like, “Well I didn’t do that”. I tried my best to be like, “‘What about this conversation where I tried to understand where you were coming from and I tried to explain where I was coming from? How is that bullying?” She would just say, “Oh, that’s how I feel”.

I just got really frustrated. I went home after that final conversation and a couple days later I had this moment of like, “Well you know what? If you’re gonna feel that way about me, this is how I feel about that because I can’t change this version of me that exists in your head. If you think that I’m such a bully and all these terrible things then whatever, I’ll be that for you. I’ll just disengage and you can think that of me but that’s not who I am”. That’s the strong feeling that it came from. It came from a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, and a lot of friendship heartbreak. There’s been some space now so it definitely feels better, but it’s never a good thing. It was a very awkward situation. I hope she’s doing really, really well and I have nothing but love and care now, but there was a lot of anger and frustration I had for a little while afterwards.

Nicole: I think every songwriter feels a certain way when they write a song like that.

Shiv: It’s a moment.

Nicole: I was listening to it to practice some stuff one time and I was like, “This song fucking punches in the gut” especially when you get a little bit of that insight into it. It’s also a way of processing those kinds of feelings and putting it out there.

Shiv: Yeah, it’s like, “I’m not this person. I know I’m not this person but if you think I’m this person, I don’t wanna be in your life”.

Nicole: You can’t control what someone’s gonna say about you or feel about you. The best you can do is just be nice and kind when you see them. If they still want to paint you as the bully then make that story up if you want or tell yourself what you need to to move forward. It isn’t really gonna affect you.

Your video for “Danger Girl” is inspired by Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Casa Loma and the Pizza Pizza are in there. There are also lots of Canadian musicians like Bif Naked, Deshaun from Burner, Violet from Roach, Adam from Dermabrasion, and Camille Leon. How did the idea for the video come about? What was filming it like?

Shiv: I love Scott Pilgrim! I saw it before I moved to Toronto and it was something that I would watch a bunch when I first moved to the city. I first moved here in 2013 so Honest Ed’s was still here. It feels like it was a lot different of a city then than it is now. I still watch that movie when I’m feeling nostalgic about Toronto because it is so Toronto-centric, there’s so many recognizable spots. I also loved to watch it because it’s a movie about music and bands.

We were talking to the director of the video and trying to come up with ideas and I think I said, “What if we make it Scott Pilgrim themed?” The song is about lusting after a girl and Scott Pilgrim is also about trying to win a girl! In our heads, we were like, “Hmmmm, who would be a really good Ramona Flowers?”

Nicole: Both Ramona Flowers and Julie at the same time.

Shiv: And we were like, “Violet from Roach!” because she is so kind and so talented. She’s such a shredder and her voice is amazing.

Nicole: And she’s smart! She fixes pedals.

Shiv: She fixes amps too. She’s everybody’s dream girl, 100%.

Nicole: She also has a bitch face that will cut you in half. [laughs]

Shiv: It will smack you down. [laughs] It’ll leave you quaking in your boots!

Nicole: When Violet’s nice to you you’re like, “[gasps] Oh my god, she likes me!” [fans self]

Shiv: That’s how that came around and we knew we were going to have Violet in it. We were like, “Let’s see how many of our buds would be down to make a cute little cameo” because there’s so many periphery characters in Scott Pilgrim. We asked Deshaun and he was like, “What do I have to do?” And I was like, “Please just sit on the couch at Houndstooth and play a video game” and he was like, “I’m in!” Same with Adam.

Nicole: We were like, “Come get a coffee”.

Shiv: And with Camille, we were like, “Can you be our hot, unimpressed, bitchy bartender, please?” For Bif, we were thinking about who would be a good manager kind of person. She’s a friend of mine, we’ve known each other for a couple years now. We got introduced through her publicist and she’s the sweetest person you will ever meet in your entire life. She’s exactly what you see is what you get. She’s such a beautiful artist and so outspoken about the politics of taking care of each other. I’ve admired her musically and her activism and everything she does for a long time. I thought, “Oh, I wonder if she’d do it!” I texted her and she was down! That was super exciting because she’s so good at acting. I didn’t know that before but I know it now! [laughs]

Nicole: As someone who’s like, “Bif Naked is the coolest fucking person” when I was growing up watching MuchMusic the fact that she was there for the first show I ever played and in this video is wild!

Shiv: She’s so supportive!

Nicole: I learned about her history in Vancouver, especially with SNFU and Chi Pig and stuff. She was in on a scene and in on Canadian music so early as a woman, it was just crazy that she could be the way she was. She’s a trailblazer for women and girls and people who don’t identify with the norm at large. Just be a fucking a weirdo and be yourself.

Shiv: She’s really authentic.

Nicole: She’s really sweet. She’s crazy as hell in the best way possible.

Shiv: We wouldn’t be here if not for her. I wouldn’t be here if not for her.

Nicole: And I wouldn’t be here because Shiv wouldn’t be doing it!

[laughter]

Shiv: I think on a meta-level in the artistry world she opened a lot of doors for us before we were even able to make music. She blasted those doors open. Also as a supportive person, she’s given me a lot of encouragement and I cannot speak highly enough of the Queen herself, Bif Motherfucking Naked!

Nicole: I think people forget about Canadian punk Bif Naked sometimes.

Shiv: They shouldn’t!

Nicole: The music video was really fun.

Shiv: It was! It was just like running around the city and going to all these different spots. It was really fun. We were met with fairly open arms everywhere were shooting.

Nicole: And when we made a mistake, like not asking the Toronto Library if we could actually film there, they were like, “Sure, just sign this paper. Don’t worry, it happens all the time. Just ask”.

Shiv: Shoutout to the Toronto Public Library system! Everyone go get a library card wherever you are!

Nicole: Get a library card! No late fees!

I did move to Toronto the year Scott Pilgrim came out in 2010 and I had an orange Chelsea cut. I would literally get called Ramona Flowers. I felt like the coolest fucking person in Toronto! I went to Ryerson, TMU now, and all the guys who would ask for money for charities would be like, “Oh Ramona Flowers!!” Then me and my sister went and watched it at Scotiabank and I was like, “Woah, two-floor Pizza Pizza! That’s crazy!” - I’m from a very small town. She was like, “We just walked by one on Queen Street when we came here” and I was like, “Yeah but can you imagine being in it on the second floor eating pizza?? Above sea level eating pizza??”

Shiv: Upstairs!

Nicole: I think Scott Pilgrim is a Canadian classic film. Best movie soundtrack.

Shiv: Classic CanCon. Really good soundtrack as well, like, “Pick you up in my garbage truck / I’ll take you to the dump / Truck, truck, truck”

Nicole: That was one of those things where I was like, “I could write songs like this! These are simple, catchy little morsels”.

Shiv: Huge influence for us, clearly. [laughs]

Nicole: Everything is so beautiful in that movie. The design of the opening credits is gorgeous.

Shiv: The music, the look of everything, the colours, the dream sequence.

Nicole: The outcome with Nega Scott is hilarious. “Why battle your internal demons? Just accept them! He’s a pretty cool guy”.

Shiv: Scott earned the power of self-respect!! [laughs]

Nicole: It’s so good and so classically Canadian EXCEPT for the dating of high school girls - we don’t stand by that!!

Shiv: That was weird. That wasn’t ok when it came out. Most things have their asterisk. I think in the remake they mention that.

Nicole: Bryan Lee O’Malley we need an official statement.

[laughter]

You have some shows coming up. Your album release show is on March 14 at The Baby G in Toronto and you’ll be playing in Hamilton and Oshawa later in March. You’ll also be playing Pouzza Fest in Montreal for the first time in May.

Shiv: Thank you for celebrating with us! I’m so excited! We have some good shows lined up that we can’t announce yet but we’re going to try to get around Southern Ontario as much as possible and into Quebec as well. This year we’ve got our eyes on ripping over to the West Coast for a bit, so hopefully that works out. We’re excited to celebrate at The Baby G with all of our friends and our community. That’s gonna be a really great time. I’m so excited for Pouzza Fest!

Nicole: Pouzza was actually the first time I saw Annie play bass in Dilly Dally. I saw her play there in 2021 and I was like, “That girl is really cool! She’s really good at playing music and I like her shoes”.

[laughter]

Nicole: I was like, “This is an amazing set!” It was so good!

Shiv: Oh my god, that’s sick! I went to Pouzza a decade ago to go see Dillinger Four which is this punk band from the Midwest. They have a song “Doublewhiskeycokenoice” where it’s debated that Green Day ripped off “American Idiot” from that riff in that song.

Nicole: They did! I’m a Green Day hater, they did. [laughs] I buy that conspiracy theory.

Shiv: I love that band so much! I grew up listening to that band so my dad and I went to go see them. It was at the big room at Foufs. The lead singer took his pants off and was waving his dick around and I was standing next to my dad.

Nicole: “We’re both seeing a penis for the first time!”

[laughter]

Nicole: The first time I ever went to Pouzza was by accident. I was in Montreal and Andrew W.K. was playing a free show so I got to see Andrew W.K. play. I don’t remember why I was in Montreal but I was and I was like, “This is the best moment of my life!” [laughs]

Shiv: We have a lot of history with Pouzza and we’re really excited to be there and go to all the other shows as a spectator. We have some Toronto pals there as well!

Do you have bands that you’re really excited to see at Pouzza this year?

Nicole: I wanna see The OBGMs!

Shiv: The OBGMs for sure!

Nicole: I have yet to see them in Toronto in person but I’m really excited to see them. It’s cool that we’re both Toronto pals getting to see them and go and support their show.

Shiv: Also THICK! They are a band from Brooklyn and we’re going to be playing with them in Toronto before they go to Pouzza. I’m excited to see them play twice.

Nicole: I’m really surprised at how little ska bands are on this year. Normally Pouzza has a venue that’s ska the whole time.

Shiv: The Filthy Radicals are gonna be there! I love to see the Filthy Radicals! Molly is an angel. She’s so cool! I used to play trumpet in high school so watching her play trumpet unlocks something in my brain.

Nicole: I also played trumpet in high school. The Slackers are there! I loved ska in high school. There’s something about Operation Ivy, Toots and the Maytals, and every wave of ska; whether it’s first wave, second wave, or Reel Big Fish and all the white boys playing ska. I’m like, “Give it me! I love it!”

Shiv: Also Subhumans are gonna be there. Our friends Bad Waitress toured with them in the fall and they were talking about how nice of human beings they are. It made me want to go see their set so badly. I’ve heard Subhumans before but I’ve never seen them live. Apparently, they’re all really stand-up guys. Then our label mates Chinese Medicine, of course. We’re excited to be in that crowd yelling them on.

Nicole: We’re right beside them on the list! Also, Wine Lips from Toronto are coming and they were there the first year I properly went to Pouzza.

Shiv: We’re playing Pouzza 13 and 13 is also my lucky number!

[everyone dabs]

Nicole: I’m excited for Pouzza. I’m excited to see friends, I’m excited to partake in the Quebecois culture, and eat garbage.

Shiv: Insérer poutine. Some smoked meat, some bagels.

Nicole: I’m gonna go there and pretend I’m a rock star. [laughs] Like I’m the hot shit!

Shiv: You are the hot shit!

Nicole: Last time I went to bed at like 11pm every night, I was like, “I’m done!” [laughs]

Shiv: Not this time! We have Monday to recuperate.

Nicole: I’m trying to enjoy all the trips, all the big scenes and be like, “Dude, this is cool! When am I gonna get to do this again?”

Shiv: Playing music and trying to make a living out of it is damn near impossible these days. Obviously, that would be a dream to be able to do in any situation.

Nicole: It would be a dream to make thousands of dollars a month off of royalties and streams.

Shiv: To be able to be making art as a focus as a job and even doing the administrative stuff around it - I don’t expect to never do that, but to have time to do that outside of a 9-to-5 job. [laughs]

Nicole: So your free time isn’t doing admin. [laughs]

Shiv: I think what we’re trying to hold on to is enjoying the experiences of everything. For Pouzza and the other shows we’re gonna play this year and the other things we have planned. If we look back on it in 10 years and that’s all we did, we will have the best damn time and we will have the best damn memories to remember that by.

Which part of Tell Me You Love Me Again are you proudest of?

Nicole: I’m really proud of my lead in “I Want It All”. I think when we started playing “I Want It All” was the moment where I was like, “You’re the lead guitarist of this band”. Imposter syndrome, everyone has it. That was the part where I was like, “You’re the lead guitarist, start fucking acting like it even just a little bit. Play in a way you would imagine any fucking guy in a 70s, 80s, 90s hair band would play if you want”. [laughs] I don’t mean shredding and doing all these arpeggios and stuff, it was just a lead where I think it stands in front of the song a little bit. I think it hits.

It’s not complicated, it’s not crazy. I don’t think leads have to be crazy all the time. It’s really one of the first times I wrote the lead and I was like, “This actually fucks!” [laughs] That whole idea of, “I’m a lead guitarist, act like it” even comes out in “Meltdown”. I don’t think it necessarily comes out as much in the other two but for those two I have a lead where I have to play it and I have to be loud.

Shiv: I think “I Want It All” as well for me. I brought in most of it; the chorus and the verses and the pre-chorus and the starting riff but I had no idea what to do for the bridge. That was one where Mike suggested the chords for the bridge and I wrote the lyrics on top almost immediately. The bridge is in a key that, when we first started playing it, was a little hard for me to reach. I wrote a song that was slightly out of my range to force myself to sing that high. [laughs] So that always felt like a step up. But with that song in particular, there’s something that gets triggered in my brain when I listen to the end of the chorus of that song - it makes me want to punch through a wall. I’m like, “Woah, we did that!” That feels really good.

Nicole: When we were talking about what order the songs should be in I was like, “I don’t really care but ‘I Want It All’ needs to be the last one because it’s a punch in the face and you want more of it”. In it - and across the EP overall - there’s so much of your vocals that when I first listened to the final mixes I was like, “This is crazy!” Everyone has grown so much but you getting to focus on your vocals live helped us focus everywhere else. It’s such a cool EP and it’s our sophomore EP.

Shiv: It’s our sophomore EP. We do have a video for “I Want It All” that’s so good and it's going to be coming out soon. I’m really excited for when we release that, so keep an eye out for that!

That’s one of my favourite songs off the EP, it’s so good!

Shiv: Thank you! I really do feel good about that song. Sometimes we try to intentionally think about how we feel about that song when we’re writing other things. I do feel the EP is very varied with the energies that are coming out. The feeling of each song is very different. We can write something that’s in the vein of “Meltdown” - like a more complicated kind of mid-tempo sad-angry song - and then we’ll be like, “We really want something that’s a high-energy song. Let’s take this one and let’s focus on how this would sound next to ‘I Want It All’”.

Nicole: We have a big finish in our set so we’re like, “If we had to stop playing one of these two, what could replace this intensity?”

Shiv: It set the bar. It gave us another bar to jump over.

Nicole: It was a really fun song to learn and play. It was a really easy song in that venture of, “How do I move while playing guitar?” That was one that opened a lot of those doors too.

Is there anything that I didn’t ask that you’d like to add?

Shiv: Tell Me You Love Me is out March 14. Stream it, come to our shows. We’re excited for what’s to come and we’re grateful to be on this ride.

Nicole: It’s crazy like first band and this is how far it’s gone. It’s like, “What did I do to deserve this?” I must have been a worm in a past life and I made a lot of fertilizer!

Shiv: You made a lot of fertilizer and you got stepped on.

[laughter]