Photo courtesy Canvas Media
Apartment613′s Gloria Song connected with Jasamine White-Gluz of noise popsters No Joy over email this weekend for a quick chat. The female-fronted Montreal band, which recently released their debut album Ghost Blonde, brings their shoegazing sounds to Algonquin College tomorrow evening, before embarking on a tour south of the border with Wavves and Best Coast.
Apt613: With one of you based on Montreal and the other based in Los Angeles, how did you guys meet in the first place?
Jasamine White-Gluz: I don’t really remember how we met. It was either through J-Date or just through the Montreal music scene.
Apt613: Are you both living in Montreal these days?
JWG: We both live in Montreal.
Apt613: With the two of you in Montreal now, what is your songwriting process like? How do you come up with your sound?
JWG: Generally, one of us has an idea for a song and we bring it into the jamspace and feel it out. Most of the time songs are based around guitar riffs or ideas. A lot of writing happens in the studio during the recording process.
Apt613: Your epic sound clearly shows the influences of other shoegazing bands, and the genre itself has always had the presence of strong women like Bilinda Butcher and Elizabeth Fraser. Despite this, it’s still much less common to see an all-girl rock outfit, as opposed to all male groups, in the music world. How has your experience been as an all female music group? Do you believe the music community is changing in its attitude toward the role of women in music?
JWG: We’re actually pretty gender fair as a band, since live we are two girls and two guys. So we don’t fall into any “all-female” or “all-male” category, although we are definitely “all-babes.”
Apt613: What are the band’s plans after the tour?
JWG: More tours! More records! Sleep deprivation!
No Joy play The Observatory at Algonquin College (1385 Woodroffe Ave.) at 9 pm. The show is free.
