Photo of TRICKY FM with Emily Donville (left, CJSW).

TRICKY FM performed during Sled Island on Saturday, June 20th at Dickens.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Emily (CJSW)
My name is Emily, and I’m here on behalf of CJSW Radio at the 2026 Sled Island Music and Arts Festival. I’m sitting here with TRICKY FM from San Francisco. How are you?

TRICKY FM
I’m doing really well, thanks for having me.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, my pleasure. Let’s dive right in. Can you tell me your origin story, like, what was the spark that got you into electronic music?

TRICKY FM
Oh, yeah. Well, honestly, I originally wanted to start a band, like, I really do love guitar music, and learned how to play guitar growing up, but I think, like, when it actually came around to trying to organize people and thinking about getting people together for a band, it seemed kind of– it seemed kind of like a lot, and then I was like, well, why don’t I try to just like record some songs that I was like playing guitar and kind of making like weird Grouper-esque, like, early Animal Collective, Sung Tongs vibes guitar music and putting it on SoundCloud, and I was using a free DAW called Audacity, and I was like, “Oh, this is pretty cool.” And I think it wasn’t until I got a MacBook and got GarageBand, where I learned you could.. I was like, “Oh, you could like program drums, there’s MIDI instruments that I kind of like leaned more into that. And then, to be honest, one time I had, like, a.. I was taking guitar lessons, and I kind of had, like, a [guitar instructor].. he wasn’t mean, but, like, he kind of said something condescending, and it did make me cry. And then I cried to my boyfriend at the time, and then he was like, “You know what,” he’s like, “Let’s..” like, you could do anything you wanted. He was also making electronic music at the time, and he was like, “Let’s just like have fun and play,” and he taught me how to sample, just like chopping something up on GarageBand, and he was using an SP 303 at the time, and he taught me how to use it, which is what I use now, and I think just like having that experience of like you can make endless sounds, it’s completely autonomous, and it could be your thing, really made me, like, never look back, and I was like, “Let’s just, let’s just make computer music and see how it goes.”

Emily (CJSW)
It’s nice to have someone in your corner like that.

TRICKY FM
I know! Yeah, I feel like my journey so far, and I hope it continues, is like, you know, supportive pushes and like people give you tools, people give you tips, and people put you on, and it encourages you to keep going, and like try something different.

Emily (CJSW)
Totally. Tell me the story behind your name, TRICKY FM.

TRICKY FM
Laughs So it’s funny, but originally when I was like uploading stuff on SoundCloud, I was going by the name Niki FM, and there’s a band that I liked when I was in, like, eighth grade, called “Hawthorne Heights”. They’re kind of like a emo band from.. I don’t know where they’re from, but, like, growing up, they were kind of popular, and they had this song called Niki FM, and, like, the song was, like, and the museum video was very tropey, like a guy’s in love with a girl, and she’s like in a window, and he drives to her house, and everything. I don’t know, I just really liked that song, and I thought it’d be funny to make a project under that name that was very, and like, make music that was very different from that, and also, like, I kind of think of it like that trope is so played out, where it’s like the guy’s in love with a girl, and he shows up to her window with a radio, and I kind of was like wondering, like, well, like, what does the girl think? Does she even like that? Like, does she? So I was like, what if, what if, like, NIKI FM was that girl in the window, you know what I mean. Anyway, so I was going by NIKI FM for a while, kind of like half joking, half serious, and then I think just like one day I made, um, what was that social media that was like really short lived, where you could like take a photo of yourself in real time?

Emily (CJSW)
BeReal?

TRICKY FM
Yeah, one time I made a BeReal, and they prompted me for a username, and I’m like, wouldn’t it be funny if it was, I don’t know, if it was Tricky FM, yeah, and I think I just ran with it because it sounded cool, so it’s Tricky FM now, but I kind of like the idea when sometimes bands make their project name that kind of like doesn’t really have a meaning to begin with, but it’s kind of like up to you to give it meaning, and up to you to give it context, because at first, like, Niki FM was kind of like lol, but now it’s become like a pretty important thing to me.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, I love that. I like even assigning your own meaning to it, like when I saw Tricky FM, like I thought of Tricky the Trip Hop Artist.

TRICKY FM
Yes, yeah, people do reference that a lot, and I really like Tricky.

Emily (CJSW)
yeah, and then obviously radio,

TRICKY FM
Yeah, right.

Emily (CJSW)
Which can be huge for electronic music and getting it out there,

TRICKY FM
Yeah. See, I love just like adding new context all the time to it.

Emily (CJSW)
Awesome, you’re based in San Francisco, in the Bay Area. How has the music community in the Bay Area influence your personal sound or approach to the music scene?

TRICKY FM
Yeah, so I feel like when I first started playing there, I kind of just like inserted myself into whatever scene, but I feel like some of the most welcoming people at first were a lot of the.. a lot of like rockers from Oakland, so I feel like I was put on to a lot of like bills that had mostly rock bands, and then I would be like the one like freaky electronic project that was opening, so yeah, I feel like playing with a lot of rock bands to begin with, I maybe like developed a chip on my shoulder where I was like, well, I want to be as loud as them, or I want to like be able to, you know, like hold a candle to them or something, and also, and then like watching them, hearing how loud they can be, and kind of just like expressive that they– how expressive they were, definitely influenced, like, how I wanted to sound, how I wanted my stage presence to be, how I wanted like people to react to me, even though I was just one person and like my computer and some hardware. So I feel like definitely their sound and their like brashness and their loudness, and like how welcoming they were, really they really like encouraged me. They just like kept on going, like, “Yeah, okay, rock star, go off,” and I’m like, “Yeah.” So I feel like, in the beginning, I feel like I was kind of making kind of like soft, kind of more ambient, more like ethereal music, but I feel like playing with rock bands definitely made me want to be a bit more aggressive and kind of like be able to stand next to them, I guess.

Emily (CJSW)
I feel like that almost perfectly answers my next question. Like, I’ve noticed, like, through videos that I’ve seen of your performances online, you have such a dynamic presence, and, like, I think it was Sled that posted this, like, promo video of you, and you’re like in this, like, polka dot skirt with like a little like purse, and it really reminds me of like Pink Pantheress and her little like emotional support purse,

TRICKY FM
Yeah, definitely.

Emily (CJSW)
and like you’re all over the stage, like you just have such a commanding presence, and like you already touched on, you know, the Bay Area music scene, but are there any like specific artists or musical heroes, and kind of looked up to that influence your stage presence.

TRICKY FM
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the first thing I probably definitely did cop that directly [the emotional support purse], or I think I saw–

Emily (CJSW)
You’re so real for that!

TRICKY FM
Yeah, I think I also might have seen Charlie xcx do it, and just like, fuck yeah.. And I feel like people were also saying, like, you coming up with a purse kind of looks like you just got there, and then you have to leave soon, which I also really like that idea.

Emily (CJSW)
You’ve got places to be?

TRICKY FM
Yes, but yeah, musical heroes that I was looking up to that influenced my stage presence.. I mean, I love early Grimes. I love that she was kind of doing that by herself up there. I love Alice Glass, I love her presence. I’m also, I’m originally from the Pacific Northwest in Washington, and so, like, a big fan of Kathleen Hannah and Bikini Kill, and all those girls, just kind of like,

Emily (CJSW)
Kind of the riot grrls?

TRICKY FM
Yeah, definitely just kind of like commanding your presence, and you know, wearing what you want, and like demanding that everyone look at me. Basically, yeah, I love Kathleen Hannah.

Emily (CJSW)
Amazing. I got to see her perform a few years ago at Mosswood Meltdown down in the Bay Area.

TRICKY FM
Oh, yeah, dude that’s awesome.

Emily (CJSW)
Absolutely blew me away. Yeah, once in a lifetime talent.

TRICKY FM
Yeah. I didn’t get to catch her, but I had just like finished reading her book, Rebel Girl, which is amazing. But yeah, I definitely need to catch her.

Emily (CJSW)
Super cool. Your last album, “Peace, Love, Unity, Rave” came out about three years ago. It kind of focuses on core themes of contemporary womanhood, so you have love and intimacy and trust. How do these themes help shape your identity as a solo electronic artist?

TRICKY FM
Oh, interesting… Well, I feel like I kind of always, like I feel like, as I keep on doing this project, I’ve kind of always thought of it as like.. It’s kind of like a relationship with myself, because there really is no one else that’s doing it with me right now, and I’m kind of up there on stage by myself, so to be real, like I feel like I kind of have a history of being kind of codependent, kind of super needy in like relationships with people, so I feel like I’ve kind of tried to have the mindset of like replacing relationships with my music project, and I’m like I can do and be whatever I need to be in that, and it will be okay, and it’ll love me back, and I can.. If I trust it, it’ll trust me, if we have issues, we can work it out. Like, it really is a new form of type of intimacy in my life that’s like not with someone else. So a lot of those themes I feel like I’ve kind of like learned through having relationships with other people, which then I feel like I’m applying now to my craft with myself. Sounds kind of like sad and lonely when I say it out loud,

Emily (CJSW)
No, I think that’s such like a unique perspective, and I really appreciate that.

TRICKY FM
I really am in the mirror in my apartment like, “Let’s freaking do this.”

Emily (CJSW)
“Peace, Love, Unity, Rave” is a great mantra.

TRICKY FM
Thank you.

Emily (CJSW)
Are there any other mantras or phrases you like swear by, whether like you’re at a show or just like day to day? A bit of a loaded question.

TRICKY FM
No, totally fair. There are some. I’m honestly, it hasn’t.. It’s kind of new, but I recently.. I went to see my sister in LA. For some reason, I don’t know why the theme of that trip was it’s not that deep, which isn’t a kind of a natural thing to come from me to say it’s not that deep, because honestly, everything’s really deep for me, sometimes everything’s very serious, and this is like this is so important right now, you know what I mean? So I’ve been saying it’s not that deep lately, which, like, kind of helps take off the pressure sometimes. Sometimes stuff is already really high pressure, and I feel like sometimes I like to add more pressure and more meaning to it than is needed, and I feel like sometimes if you’re just like, you know, it’s not that deep, you kind of can release it and like hold it in your hand with an open palm, and I feel like sometimes that freedom and like lack of resistance can be better, especially creatively.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, like I totally agree in terms of like taking the pressure off.

TRICKY FM
Yes!

Emily (CJSW)
It’s good to remind yourself, and then once it’s in the past, you can kind of look at it, and be like, okay, it wasn’t that, deep. Or maybe it was?

TRICKY FM
Yeah, yeah. Maybe it was, but at the time we need to not. We need to lighten it up, yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
You’ve got a pretty stacked resume. I feel like I like put on my Narduar hat and went down your TikTok. So you went to school for molecular biology,

TRICKY FM
I did, yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
You also design chainmail,

TRICKY FM
Yes.

Emily (CJSW)
Which, I also do that.

TRICKY FM
Oh that’s awesome!

Emily (CJSW)
So I was so excited about that.. But you also make electronic music, and you do all these things, and I’m so curious, like, how do you balance and make time for all these different pursuits.

TRICKY FM
Yeah, I think I just really want attention. laughs Everyone look at me. No, I.. how do I make time? You know what? Like, sometimes it’s kind of a very unsexy answer, but sometimes I think sometimes it really is just setting aside a time, time for it, like it is homework, you know what I mean, like I feel like I had to learn that, you know, I love to jump into things when, like, inspiration strikes, and it feels good to, like, ride that wave, but I feel like it’s, I’ve had to learn that it’s also important to set aside time even when you’re not feeling inspired, and like, you have to live life and do your day job and pay bills and do that. Even if you set aside like 30 minutes, 45 minutes, put on a show or make something, just like showing up for it, you know. Like it is like a friend or like a partner that you care about, like just saying like I still love you, and I’m showing up, and I’ll be really present with it when we’re together. And also, like, I had to learn too that, like, sometimes it’s not about adding more, sometimes it’s about taking stuff away that you don’t need in your life anymore, like, whether that’s like I’m like partying a lot, or like hanging out with this person is probably not the best person for me to hang out with right now, or like I’m spending a lot of time, I don’t know, like doom scrolling or worrying about this thing. Sometimes it’s really kind of about like shedding stuff that you know isn’t like, you know, good for you, yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, sounds like it takes a lot of discipline and self-awareness.

TRICKY FM
I know, and sometimes it’s a very like unsexy answer, and it doesn’t sound very like punk or whatever, but like I really am kind of like a nerd sometimes, where sometimes I treat everything, like I don’t want to treat it like it’s an assignment or school or whatever, but, like, you know, I feel like if I want to have everything I want to have it just requires some like organization just plan to make time for it.

Emily (CJSW)
It’s your first time in Calgary, I would say our music scene kind of has a reputation for being like very tight-knit but passionate.

TRICKY FM
Oh, really?

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, I would say that’s my perspective. I’m born and raised, so I feel like I can say that.

TRICKY FM
Okay, cool.

Emily (CJSW)
But did you get a, or, I guess you just got here.. Did you get a chance to check out any bands this week, or are there any like local Alberta acts that you’re trying to check out the rest of the week?

TRICKY FM
I don’t know if they have been local yet, but when we got in, we went to Dickens. Oh, we went to the church and saw Laraaji. We caught a little bit of that set, which was really awesome, really nice to just like kind of close your eyes, and then after that we went to Dickens, and we saw jo passed, which was like really great rock music, and was really tight, and it was a really great venue, like I felt like I was in a movie, and then I think after that was like Pale Hound headlined that show, but I’m not sure if any of those are local. But tonight I think we will try to see Backxwash. I think they’re from Montreal.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, Canadian.

TRICKY FM
They’re Canadian. Maybe we’ll see Sextile. There’s a project called Babe Corner? Babe Corner, that I want to try to see them too. I don’t know if they’re tonight, though. But are they Canadian?

Emily (CJSW)
I believe so.

TRICKY FM
Okay, but yeah, I’m.. I also knew that, like, I wanted to come here, and I knew it’d also be like an exploratory trip for me too.

Emily (CJSW)
I guess, yeah, you kind of touched on the bands you want to see here at Sled Island. Are there any bands, artists, etc. from back home that you want to give a shout out that should maybe be on our radar?

TRICKY FM
Oh, totally. Okay, so right now I am on a local label to Oakland called Cherub Dream Records, so yeah, definitely want to shout out Cherub Dream Records. Welcome Strawberry, and Sucker, and Christina’s Trip, and Buddy Junior. There’s a really great, like, digital hardcore band from Oakland called Cel Genesis. I don’t know if they’re making anything anymore, but Sucker from Oakland is one of my favorite bands there. Still Ruins is from Oakland that I really like. Really cool electronic duo from Oakland called Close Good. Who else? Yeah, um, Cheree. Yeah, those are my favorite.

Emily (CJSW)
I’m really glad you mentioned Welcome Strawberry. I know you’ve collaborated before. I love their remix of your track that played on the show recently. I discovered them within the last year, and I just think they’re really special and fun. And there’s one song they did, they sampled one of my favorite kind of niche songs, Phil Cornell’s “Red Lady.”

TRICKY FM
Okay, I’m sure Cyrus would love that you shouted that out. Yes, I’ll make sure he listens for sure.

Emily (CJSW)
What’s next for TRICKY FM? You put out an album three years ago, are you working on any music?

TRICKY FM
Yeah, so actually I have my next album out again on Cherub Dream Records this year in September, so let’s look forward to that. I’m so excited. I really like all the songs, and I’ll definitely be playing some new songs at my show this Saturday here. Yeah, new album coming out. I have some shows lined up back in the Bay, opening for a project by Otha, which is really cool. Another project called Joey Cash. I’ll be playing with there’s like a really cool DIY festival in San Francisco called Rose Blood Fest, which will be happening late August, which I’ll be playing too. A lot of really great, like, femme-centric, femme central projects will be playing that one. But yeah, I think [I’m] just excited for my album to come out. Singles will be dropping soon. Music videos en route. I’m just like looking forward to like playing more within and outside of the Bay Area

Emily (CJSW)
Very exciting! TRICKY FM plays Saturday, June 20, 11 o’clock at Dickens. Be sure to check it out. Thank you so much for your time, and enjoy the rest of your time in Calgary.

TRICKY FM
Thank you. I’m gonna have a blast. Let’s party.

Emily (CJSW)
Let’s do it!

Photo of Sunflower Medicine with Emily Donville (left, CJSW).

Sunflower Medicine performed during Sled Island on Wednesday, June 17th at Commonwealth (Downstairs).

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Emily (CJSW)
My name’s Emily. I’m here on behalf of CJSW Radio at the 2026 Sled Island Music and Arts Festival. I’m sitting here with Sarah and Skye from Sunflower Medicine. How are you both?

Sarah
Feeling sassy.

Emily (CJSW)
I love it.

Skye
Tânisi, CJSW. I’m feeling good. I’m feeling well rested. I slept really well last night.

Emily (CJSW)
I’m glad at least one of us feels well rested.

Skye
I’ve been volunteering, so I just like went to sleep, didn’t get up till noon. Here we are. Yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, right on.

Sarah
She works hard to pay her rent. Let’s just say that.

Skye
I was volunteering.

Sarah
If that’s what you call it. Just kidding, that’s me. That’s me. I’m, I’m volunteering.

Emily (CJSW)
Can you introduce yourselves and your role in Sunflower Medicine?

Sarah
Sure. Personally, I’m DJ Good Medicine, Sarah Good Medicine, she/her. I’m a hip hop DJ, hip hop MC, and yeah, and I also spin everything because I DJ to serve the community. I love that.

Skye
Tânisi. My name is Skye Pinay, and I am a Cree artist, music producer, music enthusiast. I’m working on an album right now with the Calgary Arts Development, so yeah, I’d like to spin for the community, but…

Sarah
This girl’s too busy.

Skye
I’m too busy.

Sarah
She has better things to do.

Emily (CJSW)
Wearing all these different hats.

Sarah
We’re down here, she’s up there.

Skye
No, it’s not like that.

Sarah
Yes, I should. should also mention both my parents are mixed European and Métis, so kind of like our own little two-spirit DJ sisterhood with Sunflower Medicine. Yeah, we came together. It’s kind of like if you watch Dragon Ball Z, and they do the fusion thing.

Emily (CJSW)
A long time ago.

Sarah
You don’t know, that’s fair. The listeners will know.

Emily (CJSW)
They’ll definitely know.

Sarah
Took us a while to get the technique right, because first few times we merged. Just kidding. Anyways.

Emily (CJSW)
Skye, last time you sat down with us last year, it was a solo project. So, tell me about how you two kind of came together to form this beautiful sisterhood of music?

Skye
So, there was one December evening we were DJing a community event.

Sarah
There was a log fire going.

Skye
There was a log fire going, and I don’t know, I just.. I sparked it, because I was like, we should probably like, because we’re like one of the only few, if not the only like Two-Spirit DJs, actually, I know a few, never mind

Sarah
And like trans DJs.

Skye
Trans DJs, yeah. We’re, yeah, we’re kind of in our own league.

Sarah
We’re just talking over you. Sorry, go ahead.

Skye
No, it’s okay. I don’t know, I just feel like maybe the both of us together could do some pretty amazing work, we are. We just did a set the other night, and it was pretty kick ass. But lately, I’ve been like dabbling into visual arts, and so that’s hard to do, playing on stage with music and doing the visual thing. So a big part of me wants someone else on stage, and that’s kind of my thought process.

Sarah
“That’s my thought process,” like a real music producer, just methodical. I was gonna say, yeah, I feel like we’re a group, we’re a thing, because Skye, well, my first memory is that we were going to work on a song together, and I said, “send me the stems, would it be okay if I mixed it?” Because I’m sometimes a control freak, and you were learning how to mix vocals, and I never got that song back to you, so then you followed up with me and said we should – this is probably skipping over some details – but we should DJ together, make art together, and I really like what you said about it’s hard to do more stuff when you’re just playing music, like visuals and stuff, and so. She comes, Skye comes to the group with a background in music production and, and visuals as well. I come to the group as a DJ with a background in rapping and emceeing spoken word, and so that was one of the things that was so beautiful, which I think now, thinking back, is kind of sad. They didn’t get to see visuals for what we did on this past Wednesday for our show, but like I’m able to emcee when she’s DJing, whether that’s rapping, like sometimes when I’m DJing, but when I pass it off to her, it’s easier for me to do stuff, you know, same same thing with her, and we also, it’s nice because we just come with different skill sets, like she also spins a lot more bass, drum and bass, 140, that kind of stuff. I’ve more of a, I started DJing as a thing for our rap youth group, so I actually specialize in spinning for rap cyphers and rap battles, and then more now into electric powwow, house music, dance music, but we sort of mix it up, and and that’s what was so beautiful about the set on Wednesday, I would say, I don’t know if there’s other things you would say, Skye, but that you’re like going from like some crazy bass wobbly sounds, you know, over to like an electric powwow sort of, you know, more like drum hit type of song, and then like into a hip hop song and then back into this 140 bpm as we’re passing it back and forth.

Skye
There’s a lot of overlap with bass music and like hip hop because there’s this shared origin of marginalized communities and that same with like street photography, I also, I’m also very big into street photography, so I’m just trying to make art in these realms, yeah, but that’s that’s pretty much how.

Emily (CJSW)
That’s really lovely, like both of you have…

Sarah
We’re both currently single, if you’re looking for any bass baddies, drop into Sunflower Dreams DMs.

Emily (CJSW)
Love it. You both bring something so unique to the project since you’ve started making music together. Like, how do you think you’ve influenced each other?

Sarah
How do you think, what?

Emily (CJSW)
How do you think you’ve influenced each other?

Sarah
Well, we talked about that this week. Do you want to talk about getting on the mic?

Skye
I’m pretty awkward on the microphone, so we’re… You can’t really tell right now, but like, like on stage, of like, I don’t, I don’t like talking, so that’s where Sarah comes in, and she’s, she’s amazing at it, a wizard on the microphone. And then I guess, sorry.

Sarah
We complement each other really good. That’s it, that’s all I got.

Skye
Well, I get the electric powwow, because that’s near to me. I’ve always just kind of been in my own league when it comes to music spinning, and you’ve also been in your own league as well.

Sarah
Yeah, that’s one of the really nice things.

Skye
Yeah, so we complement, complement each other for that, I think.

Sarah
Definitely. Just kind of echoing. We’re all about those prayer hands, just. We definitely complement each other, and you know, believe it or not, I know that, like, my job, like, I’ve been working full time as an artist for, like, the past three, three and a half years, between DJing, hosting events, hip hop performances, stuff like that, running also a youth worker, so I have my own little Two-Spirit youth group, shout out to my Two-Spirit youth circle, but I am scared to like get on the mic and stuff, but something just happens and I do it, and so I’m happy that that’s a thing, but I don’t know as much about things like music production, and music production like and genres can merge and stuff, but like, I know, especially the least amount, around Skye’s background, with like 140, drum and bass up there, a bit higher, like all like sort of the stuff that she likes to think about, how you make those weird bass sounds, I’m learning from her composition of like a full song, like I think about that in terms of a hip hop song, but like the way that an electronic song is structured is different, so those are like a couple things, and then just like knowledge of the music. I have a friend, shout out Rubix’s, who spins a lot of drum and bass, dub music, dubstep, and, and between him and between Skye, I’m sort of getting into more of this like jungle-esque, bassy sort of stuff, and yeah, and that’s something nice to get from Skye. Yeah,

Emily (CJSW)
I love that. Very complementary.

Sarah
She also gives me shit when I’m being an idiot, so that’s good.

Emily (CJSW)
Someone to level you out a little bit.

Sarah
Level me out on all angles that I’m out of whack.

Emily (CJSW)
Let’s see, you’ve mentioned electric powwow a little bit, and I love to touch on that. I feel like electric powwow, as a genre, can be a very powerful way to kind of decolonize the dance floor, and I’m curious, like, how do you transform, like, a place like Commonwealth, where you performed on Wednesday? How do you transform that club venue into a space for kind of community healing?

Sarah
I mean, it’s hard. I do a lot of sober stuff, so being in bars, like, I actually, I mean, we haven’t talked about this as much, but I do like think about, like, going in there, you know, when you’re in a bar, it’s hard to think about sobriety, and a lot of, I’m not like, you know, preaching sobriety all the time, but I am trying to live a good life, and, and be healthy, and I think it is challenging in a way, but I think people resonate with, with electric powwow, a lot of the sounds and songs that come from traditional First Nations singing, that’s on those kinds of songs, like that kind of singing, and those songs, like they’re so old, you know, and I guess this is just what happens in my head. I think that they resonate for people, because we all, no matter what ethnicity you are, where you come from in the earth, we all come from tribal beginnings, where you know, shout out, John Trudell, for this, we all come from a place where we, you know, believe that the earth was our mother and the sky was our father, and, you know, we, we knew we were taken care of in that way, and those songs come from a way of living, a tribal way of living that is like that. So, I think people are, I think it moves people. There’s something in our DNA or something in our, our spirit that gets moved by that kind of music, and I, I like it. I think it’s important to celebrate being a human being, and, and to me, that’s what I’ve learned from that music. I don’t know, I feel like Skye…

Skye
There’s an energy that comes with festivals like Sled Island, and, well, just about basically any festival that you go to. There’s a, there’s a spirit I’d like to say, and it’s a connection that we all – everybody in the room, not just the dancers, not just the performers, with everybody. There’s this connection that we all feel when that music is playing. Maybe it’s the bass and the sub frequencies, but there’s like this vibration that we all feel, that there’s another connection, not we’re just not, we’re not just listening to it, we’re feeling it. So I feel like that’s a huge, that’s a celebration I think.

Emily (CJSW)
I feel like it can be kind of grounding, like Sarah, you were talking about, you know, these songs, and you know the way of being, and I can’t help but feeling like I feel like we’ve lost the plot, like as a society, I’m like, we kind of tend to, you know, gravitate or dwell on things that I just feel like don’t matter, but then when you’re on the dance floor, like, I feel like that music can be so powerful and just can kind of remind you of what’s important, I guess.

Sarah
Yes, I think that’s a really good way to put it, and I want to echo two things: one, around festivals, there is an energy, and Skye is a, is a festival DJ, like she’s played a lot of festivals, her catalog of festivals is growing, that’s another thing that I’m learning from her, most of the DJing that I do is for like local community events, hip hop events, which tend to be a little bit more like either the DJing is adding to something for the event or it’s supporting like an element of hip hop, but at a festival, like the DJing is like the main thing, and so I am learning that from her, and there was something I was gonna say, but I forgot what other part was… Something. It’ll come back to me.

Emily (CJSW)
I know it will. I want to maybe switch gears and talk a little bit about maybe, or maybe not switching gears, but like delving further into that festival aspect. Skye, obviously you have a lot of experience playing at festivals, and you more so at community events. How do you feed off the crowd when you’re performing at a festival like Sled Island, as opposed to maybe a more community or event that’s completely divorced from a festival?

Skye
Usually, if I hear a whoo.

Emily (CJSW)
Good indicator.

Sarah
To all you listeners out there, if you give us a little whoo, makes us feel good.

Skye
Yeah, so there’s yeah, just to add on to what I was saying, there’s this connection that I feel to the music when you’re playing on live, and like other people are there too, they can feel it, yeah, so when you play something that resonates in that way, it just… it’s very cathartic. Yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
I think at the beginning of this interview, too, like both of you mentioned you DJ for the community. Do you feel like…

Skye
I suck at those.

Sarah
She’s getting better.

Skye
Yeah, I think I’m getting better. But.

Emily (CJSW)
Well, I was just thinking, like, do you feel like the community knows that? I don’t know. I don’t even know if the community feels that. I don’t even know if that’s a good question.

Skye
I don’t even remember the last community event that I did.

Sarah
Last Wednesday, the Wednesday before.

Skye
Yeah, that was good.

Sarah
I can tell you her favourite flavor of toothpaste too. She might not remember.

Skye
Okay, yeah, okay. So the last community event that I did, I connected well, I think, but it was, it was a movie premiere, so everybody, they came in, and then they just immediately sat down. Yeah, so I feel like no matter what I played, they were gonna enjoy it, but I did throw in some electric powwow, and that was that was a really nice touch I think. That’s something I learned from Sarah.

Sarah
And you know, you were talking about, like, the healing element, and then, or we were talking about it, and then you just, your question about, like, how do you tell how the community is vibing, or how people are responding. As an MC, like as a hip hop MC, culturally my role is to move the crowd with the microphone, and I’ve been rapping and emceeing long before I was DJing, so if the crowd is doing something I don’t want them to do, I make them, not like make them, but I lead, that’s the role of the MC, is to move the crowd, it’s my, I’m the master of ceremony, and so, like, for instance, we were playing in the basement at Commonwealth, and the crowd at the beginning was a little bit smaller, and as the act upstairs finished, they piled downstairs, and it was wicked packed in there, but there’s always this thing around the DJ booth, which we also appreciate sometimes, because we don’t want to get our stuff damaged, or whatever, so people getting too rowdy, but they were like giving us way too much space, and so I, so I started talking to them and saying, “there’s a lot of shy people in here, and we want to make sure that we can see each and every one of your beautiful faces, so bring it in, bring it in,” and you have to keep telling them, because they’ll question it. ‘Do I want to? Do I want to be seen? Do I want to be up front?’ So I wanted to say that that’s like how I engage the crowd and vibe is I lead it. Sometimes they need permission to enjoy it. That’s what I’ve noticed as an MC, people want to clap or cheer, but sometimes they won’t, so I gotta, some maybe one person will clap or give a whoo, I’ll be like, “that’s, that’s good, we should, we should cheer for that,” and then the whole crowd cheers, you know what I mean, like, so there’s stuff like that. The other thing I wanted to mention on the topic of emceeing and healing, this is what I wanted to say earlier was that it just happened when we were DJing together, as I start going into a spoken word approach over her songs, and this specifically came from her song Bloom, which I think is coming out soon, hey? Oh, Bloom just came out last week, and it’s called Bloom. And as we were playing it and listening to it while we were practicing, I imagined a small seed under the ground that had everything that it needed inside of it to grow and to push past the soil, push past the air, and be nourished by the air and by the soil and by the sun and grow into that rebirth, that next life that that form of the earth is that seed is going to take. And so I did that during the show, and people took it like a guided meditation.

Emily (CJSW)
I love that.

Sarah
It was crazy.

Emily (CJSW)
I’m having serious FOMO now.

Sarah
Well, next time.

Emily (CJSW)
Yes, next time.

Sarah
But that came from her music. Whatever medicine she put into that song brought that medicine out in me, and that was something we delivered to the crowd there that I don’t think anybody – I mean, there’s probably other people – but it was like, it felt special what we were doing.

Emily (CJSW)
It’s like very clear that you’re having this conversation, and it’s cool to kind of see the way that you respond to each other during your set. Are you like, are you mostly improvising during your set?

Sarah
So our songs, with some some working through, we figured out we built a set, we wanted to come prepared with a set like professional DJs, which is a lot harder as a DJ duo, because you know, maybe we want to swap songs out, or you know, whatever, you know, like it’s different than when you’re DJing on your own, yeah, we’re making decisions together in terms of the spoken word and, and the over talking, it’s, it does, it comes from the heart, comes from spirit, or if the audience isn’t behaving themselves, then it comes from me giving them shit.

Emily (CJSW)
Fair enough. Let’s see, Skye, you mentioned you’re working on new music. Can you tell us more about that?

Skye
So, I’m happy that everybody loves Bloom. It’s very upbeat, but my next single is going to be very dark. So, this record that I’m putting out in August has been a long time in the making. I’m pretty sure I talked about this last year too, when I was here. So I got an arts grant, I finally was able to put the energy, it allowed me to put the energy that I want to put into it, and it’s finally coming out. It’s finally coming out, and it’s very, it’s very like sad in a way, because there’s like on the album, there’s feelings of happiness, like Bloom, there’s feelings of sadness, like the next song that I’m going to put out, there’s feelings of joy, and you know, there’s there’s all like sorts of these emotions that are in it, and I think that’s because, like, I started these songs when I was just starting transitioning, and now that I’m on this side of the transition, I’ve had my surgeries, and I started transitioning eight years ago at this point, and a lot of this music started eight years ago, too, so in a way these songs transitioned with me because it switches up halfway through it with Bloom. I started that before, right before COVID came about, and for like the longest time it was two songs. The song, it was going to be longer. It was going to be longer, but I was like, you know what, I maybe I’ll just cut it here, release the first half, and then later on the second half I can come back to, so that’ll be, there’ll be, there’ll be more. There’s a lot more than what I’ve already released, and there’s a lot more than what’s on this upcoming album of like eight or nine songs.

Emily (CJSW)
Amazing, exciting.

Sarah
Not six or seven.

Skye
Not six or. I got the grant for like six or seven songs. And then, but as time, as you know, time allowed, I was able to put more effort into other things as well, so yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
What does it mean for you to kind of translate these personal experiences into these songs?

Skye
It’s 100% cathartic. Yeah. Like I feel like…

Emily (CJSW)
You think there’s like a sense of relief, maybe?

Skye
Oh my god, yes, yes, I can tell you that we probably wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t a musician, like, if I wasn’t working on those, because, like, in 2013 someone broke into my house and stole my shit, and so there’s, there’s those emotions with that, so some of these songs are just letting go of those emotions, yeah, and all the emotions in those years, not even just the break-in, but, so it’s been nice to just move on. And now with Sunflower Medicine, I can start new things, and I’m just like, I’m at a point where it’s like, is it actually gonna be done? Because it is. And like, because six songs are already in the bag, they’re already ready to go, and I got like three more to do, just the finishing touches. But I’m thinking about next year, and what projects are going to be there for me, because if I didn’t do this record, I wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be here.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

Skye
Thank you.

Emily (CJSW)
Maybe another question, before we kind of close things out, but when you’re working on your album, like, is there a moment where you know a song’s finished, or is it kind of like?

Skye
No, as a matter of fact, these songs are not finished, they’re just finished enough to just push them out the door. They’re like kids going to school, you hope they do good. You could only, you could only wish, you could only do the things that you’re in control of, and releasing these songs, so they can do their own thing. The algorithms.

Emily (CJSW)
Let them grow and exist in the world, yeah.

Skye
And it’s like it’s not the end, it’s not the end of the projects, like as time moves on, and the more shows I play, the more edits and VIPs I can do of my songs. I could, you know, do something special for one crowd and do something special for another crowd, so it’s not over. It’s just finished enough.

Emily (CJSW)
Finished enough. I liked that. Feel like I’m gonna carry that through my own life.

Sarah
Finished enough. I was, that was beautiful.

Skye
I already have another version of a song thats on this album that I’m really excited for people to hear.

Sarah
Perfect, so watch out for that. No, you’re like every other artist I’ve…

Emily (CJSW)
I feel like it comes with the territory of like being an artist, like you’re always your own worst critic. You just got to put it out there.

Sarah
That’s true. Maybe we, maybe that’s one of the ways we can like lean into supporting each other. And I just want to say…

Skye
You already do that.

Sarah
Do I?

Skye
You’re already like, “you can’t think like that Skye.”

Sarah
Oh, that’s good. I feel like sometimes, because I tease her a lot, like I like, so you know, like I, yeah, I don’t want to, that’s what I think sometimes, I tease too much, so I’m glad.

Skye
I’ll say.

Sarah
Right, you do it.

Skye
It’s a native thing.

Sarah
It is a native thing.

Skye
We just like to laugh.

Emily (CJSW)
Laughter is medicine.

Sarah
We do, and I, it is, and I just want to say, kisâkihitin, I love you, and I, I didn’t hear you say that before about your music, and I can relate. Just wanted to say that.

Emily (CJSW)
I’m gonna tear up over here.

Sarah
Right? I know we just, we’re like coming in from working on the street to make a rent, so now we’re making you cry. One other thing before, before we wrap this up, I know we’re probably way over time, but I was gonna say we, in the long term, have in the pipeline, two collaborative songs we’re working on that are just drafts right now, so just wanted to say that. They won’t be out forever, so you’re just gonna have to hold your panties tightly. We’ll get back to you on that, but that is, that is a goal to do some. Can we say panties on air?

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah.

Sarah
I think you can.

Emily (CJSW)
I think so.

Sarah
I think so too.

Emily (CJSW)
It’s community radio, anything goes. Can I just say, how special this has been to sit with you two and just chat? I feel… I don’t know, my spirit has been lifted through this conversation. And before you go, tell me, do you have any upcoming shows that people can look forward to?

Sarah
This is like the thing you’re supposed to come into the interview with. I’m gonna give this to Skye, so I can think for a second.

Skye
I have at the end of July, I’m going to Quebec to play a festival, but until then, I’m working on my album, so. Oh yeah, and then I got an artist residency in Edmonton in August, so that’s something I’m really excited about and scared about, because it sounds intense from everybody that has done it.

Emily (CJSW)
Busy summer, but hopefully fruitful.

Skye
I also technically owe them a song too, so I could just use one of my songs, but yeah.

Sarah
DJ Good Medicine here, you could catch me at so many different community events, AFCC Stampede Barbecue, Aboriginal Friendship Center of Calgary Barbecue, honoring Indigenous Peoples Day, which is happening July 1st. So, if you’re listening to this and it’s not July 1st, we’re going to be at City Hall, I think it starts at about 10 and goes till about 1pm or 12pm so you can come check that out, and yeah, and I’m also a rapper. Most of the songs that I make are our rap songs, so that’s something you can keep an eye out for. I also won the Calgary Poetry Slam the other night.

Emily (CJSW)
Congratulations.

Sarah
Smoked out. It was, the competition was stiff, but I smoked out nine other poets, and so hopefully I was just talking with Cobra, shout out Cobra, if I can, I’ll be in the finals for the for the year, and if I win that, which, like, I’m not saying I will, but I’m just putting it out there that if I do, then I go to represent our city for Vancouver, and I guess, I can’t remember their name that went last year that represent our city, but they won in Vancouver, representing for the Nationals, representing our city, so maybe I could do that too.

Emily (CJSW)
Oh, I know you can.

Sarah
Yeah, but I got a song I’m working on with my friend Phrekwency. Shout out, Phrekwency. I got a song with Tea Fannie I’m working on, shout out Tea Fannie, and a few other things on the pipeline.

Emily (CJSW)
Awesome, you two are both very busy this summer. Thank you so much for sharing some of your afternoon with me, and I hope you have a great rest of your Sled.

Sarah
Thanks, Emily.

Skye
Thank you.

Photo of cistern with Brooklyn Billinghurst (center, CJSW).

cistern performed during Sled Island on Friday, June 19th at Palomino (Main Floor) & Saturday, June 20th at Pin-Bar.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Hi, my name is Brooklyn Billinghurst, I’m here with CJSW 90.9FM for our Sled Island interviews. I have the pleasure of sitting down with the group Cistern. Please introduce yourselves.

McKinley
Hello, I’m McKinley.

Chris
I’m Chris.

Noah W.
Hi, I’m Noah one.

Noah V.
I’m Noah Varley.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
One is not your last name.

Noah W.
Noah Wilson.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay, how did you guys all meet?

McKinley
Noah Wilson and Chris and myself have known each other living in Squamish for like 10 years. Noah Wilson and myself grew up together in Squamish, but we were separated a couple years and didn’t know each other until like after high school when Chris and Noah had a band with a couple of my other friends, and then known them for a long time, and then Noah Varley had moved to Squamish, yeah, three or four years ago for rock climbing and yada yada, and my partner saw them at the skate park, and like, and invited them over to my house for dinner one night, and then found out they played music, Noah does, and dragged him into our jam space, which he was a bit reluctant to at first, because he was like, “Oh, I don’t know how it’s gonna go, and he hadn’t played music in a, in a little while, but then we started playing, and it went well, and yada yada yada…

Brooklyn (CJSW)
And the rest is history, as they say. Um, so you three are from Squamish, and you moved to Squamish. Um, what could you guys tell me about, like, the scene there, making music up there? What could you tell me about that.

Noah V.
There’s some passionate people in the Squamish music scene, for sure. It’s just not really a scene that’s focused on the style of music we make, so I’d say we’re kind of left out from whatever you could call a scene in Squamish. It’s really heavily predominated by electronic music and raves and stuff going on- there’s only like three venues in Squamish.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, wow.

Noah V.
One’s a bar, one’s a nightclub, and one is like a really big old art gallery. It’s really cool building called the Brackendale Art Gallery, but I guess it’s not a big place, and so people’s tastes tend to be tailored to like broader appeal, because you know, the less people you have, kind of, when you’re in a city, you can explore more things, and then, yeah, Squamish is just, it’s really an outdoor town, and there’s a lot of tourism and hospitality supporting that industry. Musics, like, not, you know, it’s like expecting a small town to have a scene like Vancouver or Montreal, it’s just never gonna be very similar.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, of course.

Noah V.
But it’s still a cool place.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, yeah. Do you find a lot of people then like move to Vancouver for more musical opportunities, or like what’s that kind of exchange like?

Noah V.
I actually think people from Vancouver move to Montreal.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Really?

Noah V.
I feel like Vancouver has lots of music I like, and is cool to see, but if I try to compare it objectively to other cities in the world, I’m like, I feel as if there’s just less happening, and you could probably just directly blame that on the housing market.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, interesting.

Noah V.
Yeah, I would just say it’s too unaffordable as a gigging musician for the opportunities there. Yeah, that’d be a part-time musician, but then it’s yeah, housing in Vancouver is just so crazy that I just feel like people move to somewhere else.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah.

Chris
Just saying you need a day job, yeah, absolutely, can’t be a full-time musician.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
And is that possible in Squamish to be a full-time musician, or do you still need, like, a side gig as well?

Chris
We all have jobs, not possible, yeah.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay, nice. They’re all employed. That’s good.

McKinley
Yeah, when we’re done mixing songs, we.. I’m mixing ‘crete, you know, concrete.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, really? Can I actually ask all of you what your day jobs are?

Chris
I’m a civil technologist.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Wow, okay. That’s so cool. That’s like sounds so professional. That’s awesome.

McKinley
I’m like a laborer, like shoveler, framer, carpenter kind of guy.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Nice.

Noah W.
I do half construction, half cooking. I’ve been cooking a lot more recently, but I used to do construction.

Noah V.
I’m a mechanical engineer.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Wow, okay. Big brain, good for you. So, if there wasn’t a huge, like, scene for your kind of music in Squamish, how did you get inspired to make the kind of music you are making? Like, were you just kind of filling a hole? Were you just doing whatever you wanted? Like, what was your inspiration for that?

McKinley
Yeah, we’re kind of in our own bubble, and in a sense, we just.. I don’t think we’re taking a lot of influence from outside, or at least not like local, local artists.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah.

McKinley
But I guess we just have similar taste, similar enough taste, where we kind of have found our niche. Found like something that is our own sound.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
So then where do you take inspiration from?

Noah V.
I think probably all of us would say different things, but like personally, recently I’ve been inspired by like Tears for Fears.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Cool.

Noah V.
And Prefab Sprout and The Cure, yeah, just like a lot of 80s music.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Awesome.

Noah V.
That’s what I’ve been listening to.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Very good picks.

Noah W.
I don’t think my answer is gonna make very much sense, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Skrillex.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Really, like Bangarang or like what?

Noah W.
Yeah I really like his new music… no, he’s a, he’s like a just an electronic artist now. He makes dubsteps, still. Still that iconic thing people hate. But-

Brooklyn (CJSW)
No, hey, he’s on the Wreck-It Ralph soundtrack, don’t knock him.

Noah W.
But, well, people love to hate it. It’s like an anti-hero thing. You kind of gotta want to do that to be like, like LMFAO. I don’t know, like, you got to be a bit ironic, you have to, and you have to know it. And then you do, do it while holding it. But he also just makes crazy bangers now. Like there’s a lot of like Latin house or techno, very, very different style electronic music he’s making now, and I think people be really surprised, just like how capable and crazy good he is at making music, and that, yeah, the dubstep is just one thing he did, maybe he did it a lot, but he makes a lot of other cool shit.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Cool.

Noah W.
And then inspirations, yeah, I’ve been listening to a lot of 80s stuff to try and lock in the drumming for the new stuff we’re making.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, cool.

McKinley
I kind of grew up on, like, you know, Led Zeppelin, and Rolling Stones, Police CDs, Bob Marley. More, more recently, I’d say, like, this is my first band, and through this, I’ve, like, gotten exposed to, like, a lot of different other music that I didn’t really know about before, and I think the kind of like people out there making music right now, I don’t know, influence me or us, like Mock Media, Smoke Eaters, Bluffing, Eye of Newt.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Cool. I saw Eye of Newt last night, they’re awesome.

McKinley
Eye of Newt is awesome. Yes, I love that band.

Chris
Yeah, there’s.. I think there’s a lot of bands, but likewise I’m definitely inspired by friends and other people in local scene that keep it going.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Cool.

Chris
Specifically, Green Auto is a DIY venue, Vancouver.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah.

Chris
And they’re always willing to put on shows for everyone, and yeah, the owner’s awesome. They have a recording studio on the other block too, and three stages.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Wow. Yeah, so Still Depths is a Calgary band that plays Green Auto like all the time, that’s how I know about it. Yeah, Green Auto is cool, yeah, nice. Um, so I want to talk about your latest album, Rhizome. Am I saying that right?

McKinley
Yeah.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay. Great. Um, every track.. I was listening to it this morning. Great album, by the way. Not just saying that, like, I really, really enjoyed it.

McKinley
Thank you.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Um, there’s like a different flavour to every track, like some are more like math-y, some are more like shoegaze, some are more like grunge. So then, what does your songwriting process look like when, like, I mean, you all just had four different influences. What does your songwriting process look like when you’re ready to make a record? Noah is doing a smashing, a smooshing motion with his hands.

McKinley
We usually have a couple heated debates along the way, and then end up with something we’re pretty happy with.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay, awesome.

McKinley
There’s a lot of like different ideas, I think that’s why some of the songs sound different.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Right.

McKinley
But then at the end the day it’s the same four guys in a band, so there’s still just the sound of the band coming through.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, it’s still like awesomely cohesive, like it all still sounds like you, right? It’s not like you’re trying to sound like Prince one minute and then like Prefab Sprout the next, right?

McKinley
We just have, I guess, like three and a half songwriters in our band.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah.

Noah W.
I’ve written like two songs.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, okay. Is one of you like really like they cut you in half or something?

Noah W.
I’m perfectly normal.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay.

Noah W.
Everyone who can’t see me on the radio,

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah.

McKinley
Rhizome, as well as Head Full of Questions, they were kind of like mosaics of like, like Noah had some songs, I had some songs, Noah had some songs, Chris has some songs, and then like we kind of compiled them after the fact, that like Rhizome wasn’t so much of one unified idea that we started with and then saw to the end, and it kind of relates into the name of Rhizome. It kind of speaks a little bit to that of like all these different parts that are all connected in some way.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Mm-hmm. For those of us who aren’t mechanical engineers, what is a rhizome?

McKinley
Rhizome is a direct reference to Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of a rhizome, which was just like a non-hierarchical organization of things, like, like typical Western thought is like absolute objective truth, like this is this, that is that. A lot of gender ideology is like, oh, well, it’s men and women. Yeah, that’s one direct reference with this lens. You would just look at, like, there are qualities, you know, which belong to men. There are qualities which belong to women. Those qualities exist above and beyond men and women as categories, so to organize them by male and female, you’re kind of just like applying a binary to something that just exists.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Right.

McKinley
And so you could also look at it like, you know, there’s this genus, there’s family of like all these animals, there are all these categorizations we apply to things, it’s really just the way of organizing things. That animal is that animal, whether you put a name on it or not, and you objectively count how many atoms are in it, or something.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay.

McKinley
So the rhizome is just non-hierarchical thinking.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
That’s so fascinating. I thought it was like a cell part.

Noah V.
It is, yeah, like I was gonna say, it’s an..

McKinley
It’s a literal reference to a plant.

Noah V.
That idea is an analogy from a biological concept of a rhizome. A rhizome is like a, it’s sort of like a root, but not exactly. Yeah, and connect to the other parts of the rhizome, like a ginger. What you get, ginger is a rhizome.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
So like root. Okay, I knew high school biology was like tickling the back of my brain somewhere, like you’ve heard this word before.

Noah V.
Roots are hierarchical, rhizomes are non-

Noah V.
Yeah.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh wow, okay, it’s all coming together that’s great guys.

McKinley
Horizontal planes of existence.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
So then, how did you want to apply that to your music then?

McKinley
I just came up with the word and I thought it fit because I just like those writers. I like their thoughts. I think they’re good for the world that they existed. And then I thought the idea applied to our songwriting like practice, like we do just write things in that way, where someone will bring something to the table and it’s a starting off point, and then it could honestly undergo so much work by another person that it would really almost be more their project now, but we just don’t, you know, it’s not like mine or his or his just becomes all of ours. We all work on it. They’ll tell me what they would like on the drums, I’ll ask for something on guitar. We all share ideas.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
For sure. Cool. What is like the most conducive setting to writing music? Do you all do it in the same room together? Do you all come up with ideas and then bring them together?

Noah W.
I think we maybe have individual differences in how we like writing, but I think the best song writing is like we just go to the jam space and start trying stuff. And if someone has a kind of complete idea already, it’s kind of good to do homework first. But like when we’re all just in the room, someone has like one guitar riff and we go from there, like I feel like that’s kind of the easiest and like best feeling.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, definitely.

McKinley
Yeah, we come up with some stuff, like organically, as, as the four of us, a lot of the time, too. Noah Varley is just like a machine at his home studio, coming up with demos, and then he’ll bring us another song, and it’s like all the parts.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Awesome.

McKinley
And then, and then-

Noah V.
For me, the easiest songwriting process now, also because I don’t live in Squamish, so I spend a lot of time just making demos where I just make the whole song, I just MIDI the drums and play all the parts and do all the singing, and then, but usually after that, then everybody like takes their parts and makes them their own, and then I think that’s the best, best version of the songs, once everybody gets to like digest them and like reinterpret what was in the demo, kind of, that’s that’s been the most recent songwriting process.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Nice. So we’re here at Sled Island Music Festival, it’s a big festival in Calgary, takes over downtown for like five days. I was doing some research on Squamish, because I’ve never been there before. And you guys used to have the Squamish Music Festival that ended in like 2015 that had like Drake, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, like rest in peace. That sounds like amazing.

McKinley
It was so sick, like my friends too lived on like the barns, kind of just like off the way from the the festival grounds, and it was a huge festival, and we were in like high school and stuff, when we just get like wasted and go see there’s so many cool bands there that it was, it was a massive festival, the thing, the Squamish population at the time was like around 20,000 and then like 60,000 people would come for the festival, and just like cram everything, and but it was, it was really cool, and so much fun, and I remember seeing that, seeing shows there as a kid, and being like, oh my god, this is so cool, this would be so fun to do.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, absolutely, like that sounds like the most beautiful setting, like the mountains, and like the fresh air.

McKinley
I remember Arcade Fire was playing, and me and my friends were running to the stage, and they had all these lanterns. It was sunset, like golden hour light, and they were releasing these like lanterns up into the sky, and Arcade Fire was starting their set, and they were playing that song. It’s like, wake up, yeah, and we’re all like, oh my god, oh my god, that starts going ohhhh- ahh, I get like shivers thinking about it still.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Full body chills, that sounds amazing. So, okay, unfortunately, that’s discontinued. Yeah, you just painted a beautiful picture. Yes, if you could start your own festival, like Cistern Fest, who’d be on the lineup for that?

McKinley
Oh my goodness,

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Would it be in Squamish? You can also choose a cool place to put it.

McKinley
Gosh, maybe in Squamish.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
No, you can choose. They can be dead. It doesn’t matter.

McKinley
I don’t know. Well, couple, that’s that’s tough. Surf Hats, a band from Squamish. They’re our friends. They’d be out there with us, friggin Mock Media, yeah, Smoke Eaters, Noah do you wanna..

Noah W.
I don’t know, I would say B.A. Johnston.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
He comes here, all the time – he was just here.

Noah W.
He’s played in Squamish, too. Performance art, stand-up, music, very worthwhile.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Very worthwhile. I love him.

Noah V.
I’ll drop some names, I think, just like the.. I would try to have Canadian artists that we like.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
For sure.

Noah V.
Like, I don’t know, I’ve always been a fan of Preoccupations and Women, that’s like, goes way back for me, and I think it’s big influences.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, Preocc’s tour last year was so good.

Noah V.
Yeah, Heaven For Real too.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, absolutely.

Noah W.
I would just like.. I don’t know, I would love to meet Zach Hill and Nate Smith, who are two drummers, so I would put their bands.

Noah W.
Put Hella, and I would put I think, Nate Sm- Nate Smith plays with a bunch of people. I mostly just like his work.

McKinley
I would want Deerhoof, that’s like the number one band for me.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Last year, when I interviewed Motherhood, I asked them something similar, and all of them were like Deerhoof, Deerhoof, Deerhoof, for like, who’s your inspiration? Like, it was them, yeah,

Noah W.
Speaking of B.A. Johnston, we had a show in Squamish on Sunday, and there was also Sam Tudors, which is another artist that would be there, I would hope. And then B.A. Johnston was playing around the corner from us, and we were in the club, and B.A. Johnston was in the bar, and it was Sunday night in Squamish with three good shows to go see, so it was like kind of tough. We went over to the to The Chieftain, the bar to try and get some people to come to our show, and we walk in, B.A. Johnston’s shirtless, pouring fireball in everyone’s mouths, and we’re like, “Oh, we can’t compete with this.”

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, no, he just played at The Ship & Anchor, and one of my friends is like the photographer there, and she’ll post pictures, and I’m like, what goes on at this? Like, he’s like half naked, like dabbing people, like it’s so funny.

Noah W.
He has like seven hoodies on, and they’re all the same one. He keeps taking them off.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
I think he went into the bathroom and started performing from the bathroom at one of his shows.

Noah W.
Yeah, he’ll do that.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, he’s wild.

Noah W.
The Ship & Anchor, there’s like maybe like half the people are there for the show, and half the people are just like there.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
People at the back are like, can I get my wings or what?

Noah W.
Can you imagine like not knowing who B.A. Johnston is at all? And then like there’s like some crazy shirtless bearded guy.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Like the Jack Black of like Canada, like just kind of doing his own thing.

Noah W.
What is it? We’re all going to jail, except Kyle. He’s gonna die.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, Tenacious D should be at Cistern Fest, actually, add that to the lineup.

Noah V.
Yeah, School of Rock is my favorite movie all time. It’s like big inspiration for me that movie. I think I could quote like the whole movie, probably.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Is it The Ballad of the Rent?

Noah V.
Yeah, it’s way, way past due,

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Way past due. I love that movie too. Um, so you guys played tonight at PinBar at 10pm What is something you hope audiences get out of your cistern performance? Is this your first time in Calgary?

Noah V.
No, we played Sled two years ago.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
You’ve graced our stages before okay.

Noah V.
We played East Town the year before that, maybe same year, yeah.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay, cool. So, what’s.. what do you hope people get out of this new record? Then, because it’d be your first time playing Rhizome here in Calgary.

Noah V.
Yes. Funny enough.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, it’s not?

Noah V.
We’re probably our set now, probably is all new songs.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, okay.

Noah V.
So there’s maybe two songs that we’re playing that we’ve just put out on Bandcamp.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, so cool.

Noah V.
So there’s.. we’re playing those two new ones, and then the rest of our set is also all new songs, unreleased songs.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Why did you choose to do it that way instead of playing from Rhizome?

Noah V.
I think we just love playing new music, and it’s hard to keep playing the same songs for a long time.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Absolutely, yeah,

Noah W.
Rhizome is like relatively new, I think it’s been out for like, I don’t know, since October, but like for us, a lot of those songs are like three years old already, and we’ve played them like a ton, and we’re just, we like to play like the stuff that we’re like super excited about, and it’s, it’s this new stuff we’re gonna, and we’re hammering it.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Yeah, awesome.

Noah V.
I think maybe the Rhizome songs, there’s like more chill songs on that record, and I feel like we’re just in this pattern of like making our live show more and more energetic and fast,

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Oh, okay, so I was about to say next, like, what, what makes a signature cistern show? It sounds like it’s getting more and more intense?

Noah V.
Yeah, right now it’s like pretty- a lot of energy, and like more dancy, and there’s like a couple songs that are almost more like have some like Latin kind of groove to the songs.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
That’s cool.

Noah V.
Or like some Calypso beats, which, yeah, mixing with post punk, yeah.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay, cool.

Noah V.
Yeah, it’s starting to kind of come back to that. My, it’s like in my core, I can’t shake that songwriting.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
And why should you?

Noah V.
Yeah.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Why should you?

Noah V.
Yeah.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
All right. I think I kind of know what you guys are gonna say, but what can we expect next from cistern?

Noah V.
We’re probably just gonna try to record all the songs that are in our current live set right now, and we’re kind of unsure what we’re doing with releasing it. Honestly, we’ve been having conversations about it, but maybe an EP, or maybe we’ll just save it all up into an album, and we’ve also been making some videos too. We just working on a couple music videos for some songs. I think we’re gonna just continue doing that. I wanted, we wanted to do like just make almost every song as a single and have a video with it, that would be that’s kind of our goal,

Brooklyn (CJSW)
That’s a great goal to have. Well, anything else to add, cistern, before we wrap up?

McKinley
First, thanks for having us.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
You’re welcome. Thank you for giving me your time.

Noah W.
It’s been awesome to come back to Sled. This festival is so much fun. Our show last night was the best, like we had the most fun playing in like a while last night, or at least me personally, though.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
That makes me really happy to hear.

Noah W.
It was awesome. I loved it, and yeah…

Noah V.
Yeah, just Sled Island’s, like the best music festival in Canada, in my opinion, and I’ll always come play Sled Island. It’s like my favorite, favorite festival. It’s 10 years since my first sled, which is crazy.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Do you remember who you saw perform?

Noah V.
I don’t really remember that, like, see, it feels so long ago, trying to think who would have played the in 2016 but yeah, that was like my, that was my first real band when we, we toured across Canada, we played Sled Island.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
That’s awesome.

McKinley
Yeah, yeah, we want to do Sled every year, so please bring us back, but also…

Brooklyn (CJSW)
I’ll put in a good word, don’t worry.

McKinley
The last either last year, the last time we played two of my, like, favorite artists were at Sled, and I missed both of them. It was Makaya McCraven and Jeff Parker, who are just, like, absolute.. I don’t know, the stuff they do, usually, like, blows me away. And I didn’t get to see them. So you should bring them back next year when you bring us back, so I can see them.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Okay, yeah. Thank you Noah. I’ll actually send that to Mr. Island, Mr. Sled Island.

McKinley
Thank you, Mr. Island, I appreciate it.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
I got that in the works for you, man.

McKinley
John Island.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
John Island. Noah Isl- Noah Island. There’s a third one, Noah Island.

Noah W.
Yeah, thanks for having us, Sled Island rips, love being here. Especially in the summer.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
With this beautiful weather we’re having.

McKinley
Yeah, yeah, my brother also, he made us a website recently. We got cistern.ca where we’ll probably be like putting up these videos and like other kind of stuff there, and that’s a way to like keep track of what we’re doing. And then our Instagram @cistern_band, we’ve got a YouTube channel @Cistern_band, probably I think is the name.

Noah W.
If anyone ever films our sets, we love bootlegs. Please send us any bootlegs or any pictures if you ever decide to take them.

Brooklyn (CJSW)
Great, you guys know where to find them, cistern band, thank you so much for joining me on CJSW 90.9FM.

Photo of Circling Girl with Emily Donville (third from the left, CJSW).

Circling Girl performed during Sled Island on Thursday, June 18th at #1 Legion (Main Floor) & Saturday, June 20th at Dandy Tasting Room (Parking Lot).

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Emily (CJSW)
There’s like a weird metronome sound. Anyways, my name is Emily. I’m here on behalf of CJSW Radio at the 2026 Sled Island Music and Arts Festival. I’m sitting here with Circling Girl from Denver, Colorado. How are you guys?

Devon
We’re doing pretty good. How are you?

Emily (CJSW)
I’m very well, thank you. Maybe before we get into our conversation here, can you all introduce yourselves and your role in the band?

Noah
My name is Noah. I am the bass player and keyboard player.

Devon
Hello, my name is Devon. I sing and I play guitar, and also keys.

Isabel
My name is Isabel, and I sing.

Alison
My name is Alison, and I play guitar.

Ben
And my name is Ben, and I play the drums.

Emily (CJSW)
Awesome, thanks for coming in all the way up to Calgary. It’s your first time performing in Calgary, let alone outside of the country, is that right?

Isabel
Outside the state too. I’ve never been out of Colorado.

Emily (CJSW)
Well, we are very lucky to have you here, feeling very blessed. It’s your first time playing Sled Island, first time in Calgary, and unlike, you know, your traditional festival, where you’re in this like closed off muddy field, multi-venue festivals like Sled Island often take over an entire city or neighborhood, and so I’m curious, how does interacting with, like, Calgary and its environment and the crowds influence your performance and or mindset?

Alison
Sorry, could you give me the last part of that question?

Emily (CJSW)
For sure. Just like, how does interacting with the local environment influence your performance and or mindset?

Alison
Yeah, we are loving Sled Island so far. We are very happy to be here, and I would say the first thing that I experienced here was the real, like, sense of community here, like it’s really palpable. You can feel it in the air, and you know, a lot of times where we’re from, it’s kind of hard to get people to engage, you know, like we want them to come up close to the stage and, and say hi, and but here, like everyone, like was just immediately like invested, even though a lot of most of them I assume have never heard of us, and it was just, it’s wonderful to feel like part of a community here, and it’s truly, it’s just very special, and to be able to experience a lot of the local places, you know, it makes me feel very at home here in Calgary.

Emily (CJSW)
Amazing, you kind of touched on it a little bit, but tell me more about your scene back in Denver. Is there anything about your music scene that’s kind of helped you gain traction as a band? Anything notable that you want to share?

Noah
So, we have some festivals much like this in Denver, and we played one last year called the UMS. It’s the Underground Music Showcase. It’s a lot like this. It’s open air in a neighborhood, and that was our experience coming here, and what we had basically planned on, and this one, you know, just feels a little different, like it’s it’s a, it’s more spread out, and it’s in the heart of the city, and our experience is in, like, kind of like a sub neighborhood, and that has helped us a lot, and one of our favorite shows was at a place called Levitt Pavilion, which is it’s a collection of venues across the US, and they do free concert series, and so you know we’ve been able to play shows like that, where we’re actually able to, you know, we get paid still as artists, which is awesome, but we still get to provide the community with art, and that feels a lot like what this is, is it’s like this is a very community-driven show, but bands still get paid, and everyone still is actually able to survive as an artist, and you know, that’s I think that’s one of the most important things about creating a space like this, and a festival like this, or venues like Levitt, where you get to, you know, you get to support everybody who needs it, and the community gets to benefit from it.

Emily (CJSW)
Totally. And I really appreciate that there’s opportunities like that that are barrier free, because I feel like everyone’s kind of suffering with the cost of living, and so I need to talk louder, you know, like everyone’s suffering with the cost of living, that it can be hard to prioritize, like arts opportunities like that. So I really appreciate hearing that.

Noah
The application for this was free too, like, and there are plenty that I’ve done that are you get to the end of it and they’re like, “oh, well, you should donate 20, 25 dollars.”

Emily (CJSW)
It’s like oh, I’m getting scammed.

Noah
It’s like, okay, so this is a scam, like you might not even look at this, like you might be full, but you’re gonna leave it open just to get another 20 bucks out of some bands. But this was free, and everyone’s been supportive, and everyone’s been communicative, and like, “oh, hey, you should go check this out. Let’s go check this out. I work at so and so, you should come, you know. I’d love to talk to you about, you know, whatever it is,” and, oh, like, you want to help everybody here. This is, like that feels awesome. And it is very refreshing to come up to a place that we’re not from and we don’t know much and be received in such a wonderful way, where we feel at home, like Alison said, and like we feel like we were around people who understand and support, which is great.

Emily (CJSW)
I actually, I met Alison last night outside of the Palomino. We were talking about this, about how Calgary has this very tight-knit, passionate community, and I feel like there’s a lot of pride in our community, and we’re just so eager to share that. And so it’s amazing when artists, you know, come from all over the place to kind of share that with us. Circling Girl contains a lot of references to girlhood, both in its name and kind of your vibes. Tell me, what role does girlhood play in creating your identity as a band?

Isabel
That’s a really good question. Actually, the other day we were talking about this in terms of stage presence, for me, because I’m the only one who doesn’t have, like, a physical instrument, besides my vocal cords, I am always just trying to go back to when I was a child, and I was so free in my movement and my dancing, and you know, like, strange interpretive dances to whatever music my parents would play, and just like that kind of carefree feeling of just being a girl in the world, and moving as what felt natural, and I think that’s a huge part for me. Also, I think Devon and I, we’ve known each other since we were in seventh grade, we’ve been singing together since then, and so I think that, like, core beautiful friendship is like very big in our, like, you can feel it in our music, that’s what we’ve been told a lot, is like our chemistry is very palpable, because we’re just like so locked in, because at this point we feel like we’re siblings, almost. And yeah, so I think I don’t know, does that answer your question a little bit?

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, for sure. I really like what you said about, you know, tapping into that creativity that you kind of embraced as a child, like I feel like as adults, like we carry the weight of these responsibilities and everything, and it can be like hard to tap into that. So, do you almost like kind of see this project as like a kind of practice and kind of finding your inner child?

Isabel
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I’m also an elementary school teacher, so like I feel like I’ve dedicated both parts of my life to just like my inner child, and like honoring her, and also like being okay with not, in terms of movement, like when we’re kids, the art we make, it, we don’t care about whether it’s like quote unquote good, and I think, although I love our music, and I think it is good, like when it comes to dancing and moving with it, I just really try to tap into the, like, this is not about looking perfect or being choreographed, it’s about, like, being true to what feels good to me, and to, you know, what I was like when I was little.

Emily (CJSW)
I love that. That’s amazing. Let’s see, you released your debut album, Only My Veins Know, last September. Tell me a little bit about the process of writing that record.

Isabel
Yeah, did you want to talk, or? So we, it’s not like locked in every single time, but usually what happens is I will, I have a ton of just words in my notes app that just kind of comes to me, and then Alison brings some sort of riff, and we try to match the two and then Devon is very melodically inclined and so those are kind of our, our parts that we play and we come together and start with Alison, I try to find lyrics that I think will kind of match her energy and then Devon kind of finds a melody.

Emily (CJSW)
That’s awesome. How did you come up with the album title, Only My Veins Know?

Isabel
I feel like I’m talking a lot. Do you want to?

Alison
Yeah, well, we were kind of hard pressed to find an album title, because I don’t think we wanted this to be a self-titled album, you know?

Emily (CJSW)
You’re not ready for that?

Alison
Yeah, not ready for that quite yet. But, like, you know, so really, actually, what we did was we just went through all the lyrics and like found little tidbits that like stood out to us. And there’s this one line in our song Sunday that says, I forget, how does it go?

Isabel
Only my veins know just what’s left to say.

Alison
Only my veins know just what’s left to say, and we felt like that was… I don’t know, it just, it felt right for the album.

Isabel
I think it was also just for me. I think when I wrote that, I was thinking of how sometimes you process things so subconsciously, and so sometimes it feels like even though, like, my mind doesn’t know what to do with something or how to process something, like my body processes it anyway in ways that I didn’t expect or don’t make sense, but I don’t know, like, it’s more of a subconscious process.

Emily (CJSW)
It’s that sense of like you know yourself better than anything anyone else can.

Isabel
And even when you think you don’t, there’s a part of you that always will, like when I, when I write words, I usually don’t know what they mean until we’ve like written the entire song, and then I’m like, that’s, I was processing this event that happened to me, so it’s yeah, it’s kind of a nod to just like how our brains are processing things in ways that we don’t even realize until maybe like weeks or months later or years.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, that’s cool. I was reading while I was doing my research, you did an interview with Grace Maruska, I hope I’m saying that right, and you guys mentioned kind of how each band member plays a different role in the writing process with different perspectives and roles at play. How do you compromise and come to an agreement over a song’s musical direction? Or is it like, are you guys like all on the same page?

Isabel
I mean, it’s, and we want to move out of this because we have two very talented songwriters with us. Ben is the newest member of the band, and he has his own project that’s wonderful, and we want to begin to incorporate his writing, but the three of us, Alison, me, and Devon, are usually the ones who write – at least we wrote Only My Veins Know, and we are just kind of like, I don’t know, it’s very symbiotic. We just kind of sometimes, if we come to a disagreement, we set it down and come back to it later. That feels like it’s probably the best, because we all have very strong feelings about this stuff. And so, like, our song Blue Collar, we said that it was, it was a difficult birth, because when we first sat down to write it, it was just like really difficult, and like there was like a blockage in a way, and then we came back to it like a month later, and it just like spilled out.

Emily (CJSW)
That’s awesome. And I feel like earlier you mentioned you have this like great chemistry, I think that also helps, like you’re not gonna like ever force the song out. It just kind of comes naturally, I like that. When you’re touring through a new city, or maybe more broadly when you’re traveling, I’m curious, are there any things you like to collect or seek out?

Noah
100% bolo ties.

Emily (CJSW)
Bolo ties, have you gotten any?

Noah
In Calgary, not yet. I haven’t had time to go to the stores I wanted to, but generally, when I’m on tour, I try and pick up one or two. I think I’m up to 20 now. I tour with other folks, and so you know, I always try and find space to do that, and usually other people don’t go with me, but now that the Circling Girls are going out, I’m hoping that they will indulge me in the bolo hunt.

Isabel
Well, we lost them, but Dev found some really cute, like, I heart Canada pins.

Emily (CJSW)
Oh, nice.

Isabel
And then they fell out of the bag, so we’re gonna have to go back and get some, but I feel like that would be a fun thing to collect. I saw you guys had some pins over there, and I already grabbed one. I love a good pin.

Alison
I am a big sucker for souvenir shops.

Emily (CJSW)
I, not gonna lie, stalked your Instagram story, the canned moose meat, I was like what the heck is that?

Isabel
I think it was like a surprise thing where if you open it, a moose like pops out.

Alison
Yeah, we weren’t exactly sure what it was, but it said adult supervision required, so I think so.

Emily (CJSW)
So don’t leave me alone with that.

Alison
Yeah, but yeah, I’m a big sucker for for souvenir shops, I know they’re like total tourist traps, but I love them. I love them. They’re so fun and tacky and cute. I think another thing is just pictures, you know. We’re always like, ‘let’s take a picture, let’s take a picture!’ you know. And so that’s been something, you know, that we’re, you know, very happy to always get.

Emily (CJSW)
Nice, right on. I like to collect zines, zines. I try to find zines wherever I go.

Alison
Yeah, we want to, we want to make some for Circling Girl.

Emily (CJSW)
Do it.

Isabel
We’ll send you some.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, yes. I would love that. Snail mail. I’ll send something back. Sorry.

Noah
Is the Canadian Post as slow as it’s been told to me?

Emily (CJSW)
It can be. Yeah, it’s… it’s not great sometimes.

Noah
Well, you’ll get it in three years, maybe four years.

Emily (CJSW)
Probably after the next strike.

Noah
That’s what I’m, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
Let’s see beyond your own performance, which other artists on the lineup are you most excited to catch or have seen? Because I know it’s kind of the last day, second last day.

Noah
Yeah, we did quite a few. My favorite was Buddie, that was awesome. We saw them last night upstairs, Palomino. I think everybody else also has other stuff, but.

Isabel
We saw HOMESHAKE in the church, and it was really, really cool. He, like, changed a lot of the songs, so that they weren’t at all what they sounded like in the recordings, but it was like really cool, and very unique, and also, like, everyone was sitting, and it was a church, so it was like very dreamy, and like bizarre, and a wonderful way, kind of surreal.

Alison
For me, probably Spec Realists downstairs at Palomino. I’m a big, I’m a big fan of post punk, everything.

Emily (CJSW)
I’m right there with you. They were super cool.

Alison
Especially the singer’s voice, really reminded me of Peter Murphy from Bauhaus. You know, it was very cool.

Ben
I was really excited to see feeble little horse and Fanclubwallet, but of course travel meant that we got here the day after, but same as Noah, I just like I had no idea they even existed until we were there, but Buddie kind of like floored me, like I really, really loved Buddie, and yeah, I don’t know, I love the sort of spontaneous discovery of just, you know, wandering into a place and just being drawn in by the music, I love that. So I’m excited to see who we enjoy today. Oh, and we’re excited to see mon cher, she or they are also from Denver, so we’re excited to make that connection today.

Emily (CJSW)
Do you know each other back home? Do you know each other back home?

Isabel
Sort of like we are mutuals on Instagram. I don’t know if that counts.

Emily (CJSW)
Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Did you have anyone you want to share?

Devon
I have to look up the name.

Emily (CJSW)
We have time for that. Yeah, I feel like I love hearing what everyone’s enjoying, because I feel like sometimes when it comes to Sled, there’s like a hesitancy from some people to buy tickets because they’re like, ‘oh, like, I don’t really know anyone on the lineup,’ but I feel like that’s not the point of Sled Island, it’s literally like a discovery festival, and you know, I’ve found so many amazing bands through this festival that it’s awesome, kind of hearing what everyone else is checking out.

Noah
I think for me what a lot of that comes down to at a festival like this is the trust of the festival, like, as a, as a patron, as somebody who wants to find new music, I know that the curation of Sled is something that will create good bands. Yeah, like, I’m like, I, I will buy a ticket blind, because I know that the people who are doing this are doing good work and sourcing bands and finding folks, and you know, doing great bills, like we were kind of scared for our show at the Legion, because we’re like, ‘we don’t know if we really fit in, like I don’t know, all the all the folks here kind of seem like it’s not really what we fit in with,’ and then at the end of the night, we’re like, ‘oh, yep, that worked, that was great.’

Emily (CJSW)
You got to trust the process.

Noah
Like it flowed really well, all the other bands work. It was like, okay, that was, that was really, that was really sweet. Okay, cool. Like, maybe we shouldn’t be scared about how any of this works, because we can trust that somebody higher up is doing good work.

Isabel
There was way more people than I than I expected. So, when I looked at, I was like, oh wow, and I got a little nervous when I was talking, but it was so cool, because everyone at the front was like dancing, and there were some folks who literally had shirts on that they bought like right before we went on, and it was just like such a crazy feeling to look down and literally see someone wearing one of the shirts that we made in a completely different country. It’s yeah, it’s awesome. Did you remember your person?

Devon
Yeah, yesterday I had the opportunity to see Wayne Patrick Garrett, the pedal steel player, and yeah, he played a beautiful set ending with a Daft Punk cover, Something About Us, which was super cool and special in the church. I would love to play a pedal steel, that’s hopefully gonna happen in the future.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, yeah. Like, I love the pedal steel so much, I listen to a lot of Weyes Blood, and the pedal steel is like some of my favorite components of her work. I’m glad you mentioned that, because I knew that was a cover at the end, but I didn’t know which one, but now I do. So, thank you. Yeah, some of my favorite shows happen at Central United Church, like it’s just such a beautiful setting. Didn’t get to see HOMESHAKE, but I saw Sharon Udoh, and just again completely floored me. So lots of amazing bands to take in this week. Before I let you go, what’s next for Circling Girl? Shows? new music?

Noah
We have a lot of festivals this year, which was a goal of mine. Just because, yeah, I kind of, I do a lot. Like, I wanted to do a lot of festivals. Sled was one of, like, the top three that I was like, I, we have to do this. We had a bunch of friends play it last year, and I was like, we, I got it, we got to do it. Yeah, we’re not not doing it. And then inside of that, I was like, I want to, I want to hit a bunch more festivals, so we’re, I think we’re up to six this year. A lot of them are all in Colorado-based areas, hopefully more, we’re in the middle of writing our next LP. Yeah, I mean, going, going slow this time. Last time we put a deadline on it, and it, it wasn’t, it wasn’t ideal. And I think now we’re going to turn it around and let it happen, and then when it’s, when it’s done, it’s done, and then we can decide what to do with it, but giving, giving you know what we want to do, time to breathe, to be more authentic, and you know, better well prepared, and you know, just feel better to us.

Alison
Yeah, we, it’s been a second since we’ve been able to work on new material, you know, just because our schedules, and we’ve been so busy with playing shows and stuff like that, but you know, we’re finally going to have some downtime to really figure out what we want to do with this next project. There’s a little bit of a sound change, which will be cool, I think. We’re all really excited to explore, and as Ben is newer to this band, this is going to be our first time writing with him, so that’s very, very exciting.

Ben
Yeah, it’s really exciting to be on board. I am, I feel like a drummer, second or third, I definitely started in music as like a songwriter and singer and guitar player, and I think a lot of us, well, I know a lot of us, are multi-instrumentalists, and even started on like different instruments, and I think that that’s like really special and valuable to the band, because I think we’re all able to like wrap our heads around like arrangement and the big picture really well. I think that actually ties into an earlier question, better about like how, like, if we were, what was it? If we were all on the same page when we write, and I feel like even when that’s not necessarily, at least based off my few experiences writing with y’all so far, I feel like even when that’s not exactly the case, we all have such a like good grasp and understanding of what makes like a good song and a good arrangement that nobody’s like stuck on, like, oh, this part, like my instrument, has to do this, and like my vocal, like we’re all always thinking about everything, like the whole arrangement, the big picture, and I think that that’s really cool. So, yes, as the newest member, I’m very, very excited to be part of like the process for the new material. Yeah, I’m really grateful to be here.

Emily (CJSW)
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective. It’s like very clear to me that each one of you has like brings something very distinct and special to the band, and I’m very excited to see you play later today. Before you go, are there any bands or artists or anything from Denver you’d like to shout out that should be on our radar?

Isabel
Oh, look at fiona. Our friends. Alison literally lives with, like, half of them. They’re wonderful and spectacular. Corsicana, that’s Ben’s other projects that’s been around for a while, and it’s awesome. Who else? Oh, prairie. prairie is from Fort Collins, Colorado. We played with them a while back, and they are so wonderful. Yeah, they’re one of our favorites for sure.

Alison
Their latest album, too, was like all recorded to tape and everything, and it was just so, so good.

Emily (CJSW)
I love, like, tape recordings, or like anything that’s like recorded through, like, an analog medium. Just so special.

Isabel
Totally.

Emily (CJSW)
Sweet. thank you so much for your time. This has been an interview with Circling Girl. They performed on Thursday, June 18 at the No. 1 Legion, and you can catch them again Saturday, June 20 at 5 o’clock at the Dandy Tasting Room. Thank you so much, and enjoy the rest of your time in Calgary.

Isabel
Thank you, it was so nice to meet you.

Photo of Salami Rose Joe Louis with Willow Pflueger (left, CJSW).

Salami Rose Joe Louis performed during Sled Island on Saturday June 20th at Dickens.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Willow (CJSW)
Hi, I’m Willow Pflueger with CJSW 90.9 FM. I’m here at Sled Island 2026. I’m here at Dickens with Salami Rose Joe Louis. I just wanted to ask if you could give, like, a brief introduction to yourself to people who are just now hearing of you.

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Sure. Thank you for having me. I am a musical artist, producer. I guess the music I make is a little weird, kind of bunch of different genres combined into one. I make everything on this MV-8800 machine, and today I’ll be playing with a quartet, which I’m really excited about. And yeah, it’s been so nice being here in Calgary. I’m talking too much already, so that’s more than an introduction, but yeah, I’ll pass it back to you.

Willow (CJSW)
Don’t worry about it. Talk as much as you want. Okay, so, to get into it, I know you probably get asked, like, talked about your name is just so interesting, and I’m sure people talk to you about it all the time. I’m not going to know where it comes. I’m not going to ask where it comes from. I looked it up beforehand, and it was two nicknames merged together. But I wanted to ask, if you find, do you think there’s a separation between Salami as an artist and Lindsay as a person or artist?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
That’s such an interesting and also like pretty philosophical question. No, in a really good way. I feel like, yeah, they feel pretty related in a lot of ways. I feel like I’m, I kind of put my whole identity into the songs often, so it feels very much me, and I spend so much time making music, I don’t know how to separate my identity so much, but there’s, of course, another side that, but yeah, it’s interesting, because, like, because it’s a childhood nickname, like, my parents also call me Salami, so it’s like it feels very familial, and yeah, just like they’re pretty closely linked. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but. That’s, I would say that’s a cool question.

Willow (CJSW)
I mean, it’s up to you whether or not it’s a good thing, but yeah, as you said, you put a lot of your, like, personal – it’s very personal to you, your music, and I know that you said that Lorings came out at a time where you were feeling some pressure from the music industry and also from yourself to write these super complex sci-fi narratives, which I think are just really cool, but do you think this pressure has changed since you released the album?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Yeah, it’s so funny. Now that I released this very, like, kind of stripped-back album, the next project that I’m working on right now is like the opposite. I’m like trying to make it as complicated as possible, so maybe that’s just like the way it goes. You move the pendulum moves to one direction, and then on the next record you want to do the opposite, but I guess we’re always like exploring and changing, and but yeah, I’ve been really enjoying taking my time with it in a way that I haven’t done in a long time, and trying to like take myself off the, like, “you need to finish it today!” Like, so I’m trying to slow down, take time, and put a lot of thought and energy into it. Yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
Well, then maybe it’s good that you wrote something super personal, because you could, you could get that out, and then you could return to the narratives if you so chose to. I’m excited to hear what you’re working on. And then I know, like you said in the beginning, that you, you have a lot of different genres and styles in your music, and people often have a very hard time kind of pinning, pinning down a specific genre to, I guess, label you as, but I wanted to ask if there’s any genres that you haven’t explored, but kind of want to?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Amazing question, I have been pretty obsessed with, like, my guilty pleasure right now is like trying to make dance music, because I recently I went to, like, an Andy Stott show, and it was so fun, like, just like engaging with music and dancing, I never dance. But I was like, wow, I can’t stop dancing, this is so amazing, and I just, I was so enamored by it, and have just been, I got this new drum machine too, so I’ve just been really enjoying making dance music, I don’t know if it’s good, but that’s that’s been my new kind of side passion.

Willow (CJSW)
And is that gonna show up in your next projects?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
The next project, no. It’s that’s more like I think the next project feels like my like classical Zappa-inspired album, but I feel like this, the dance thing, we’ll see. I have to get a lot better right now I’m like a baby.

Willow (CJSW)
And then I know your music is very sci-fi, because you have a, you have a very sciencey background. What kind of sci-fi media do you find that kind of inspires you, or do you find that it’s kind of just because you like science?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
I love reading sci-fi books, and I feel like I get a lot of inspiration from books. I’ve seen some recently. I saw Soylent Green recently, a great sci-fi movie. I just love the way they talk about, like, this sounds dark, but I love how so much sci-fi talks about the apocalypse, and I just feel like it’s just what’s cool is they like imagine ways to like sort of find hope in those scenarios, usually, so it’s like a cool way to explore like, like basically like think tank, like what are we gonna do in the apocalypse, which I feel like it’s important, but yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
That’s very interesting that you are drawn to that. Do you have any dream collaborations? Like any people that you would love to collaborate with?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
So many, so many. I feel like Aphex Twin, Monopoly Child Star Searchers, Delroy Edwards, there’s so many. Yeah, I have a big list in my mind, and yeah, but I’ve also, I feel like I’m so lucky to collaborate with some of my heroes already. I feel really blessed, but yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
Who would you say? I was gonna say, Who are some of your favorite people to collaborate with?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
I feel like my one of my favorite collaborators is Flanafi. We’ve made a bunch of stuff together, and I feel like we’ve really like grown like a musical language together, so it feels very like just effortless and like fun and like inspiring. I don’t know, it’s like it’s a really one of like the coolest sort of like musical collaborations I’ve been a part of. And then Luke Titus, too, been collaborating a lot with him, and that’s been really cool. It’s like fun when you like, because we play together live a lot too, so you like build this rapport on stage, like musically, and I feel like it translates into the recorded creative like writing music as well, so that’s been really, really fun.

Willow (CJSW)
I don’t know, I love your solo music and your collaborations, so I just, I don’t know. Very cool to hear. Do you have a favorite song to perform?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
It changes all the time, and usually it’s like the song that we haven’t played in a while, or like, whatever feels the scariest to play is usually my favorite, because it’s like it feels so fresh, you know, and exciting, like, sometimes I have a hard time playing, like, if I’ve played something a bunch, but luckily all the songs we’re playing tonight, like, we haven’t played them in a really long time, and we’re playing with a new guitar player, because Flanafi is on tour right now, so this lovely guitar player, Tim Watson, is going to join us, and so there’s gonna be a lot of fresh new elements, which will be really exciting, and like I feel like the set is gonna… I’m excited.

Willow (CJSW)
Speaking of your performance, it’s just before eight right now. Well, well, like 10 minutes, we still have a little bit of time, but. Do you have any pre-show rituals that you have to get you in the right mood and kind of calm your nerves?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Sometimes it just stare at a wall for like a while. No, I try to just stay calm and drink tea, and like just stay relaxed and take deep breaths, like it’s nice when there’s like dim lighting. I like when it’s like pretty dark. Just stay like very relaxed.

Willow (CJSW)
Well, I’m sure your show tonight will go very well. Good luck. And thank you so much for talking with me today. I really appreciate it.

PERRA performed during Sled Island on Friday June 19th at Palomino (Main Floor).

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Willow (CJSW)
I’m Willow Pflueger with CJSW 90.9 FM. I’m here at Sled Island 2026. I’m talking to the band PERRA. Could you guys each introduce yourselves and your roles in the band?

Helen
I’m Helen. I’m the front person of the band.

Yvanna
I’m Yvanna. I play guitar in PERRA.

Kaleigh
I’m Kaleigh. I play bass.

Jerdyn
I’m Jerdyn. I play the drums, and this is Syd who plays guitar and also front person. Oh, wait, I’m supposed to read it.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
My name is Syd “Uncle Girl” Merchant, and I’m the supporting guitarist, and I fucked up my voice yesterday performing, so Jerdyn is talking for me.

Willow (CJSW)
Awesome, thank you guys so much. Alright. So, for my first question, I wanted to ask, how did each of you get into, start getting into playing music? Like, just individually.

Helen
I got into playing music by going to music shows, and just going to see bands. I’m not very musical person, so it wasn’t like, I mean, I asked for a guitar for Christmas, but I don’t play guitar. But yeah, it was mostly just being involved in a scene and wanting to, like, be part of it in a significant way,

Yvanna
Yeah, I kind of feel pretty similarly, but the way that I started playing guitar, my family, like, used to go to church a lot, and like I used to be really exposed to like worship music, and kind of like that, like gospely, like I don’t know, like new age Christian kind of thing, and that’s what I was exposed to, and that’s what really like I started, like playing in, like the band at church, so yeah.

Kaleigh
I feel like I’ve always just really like enjoyed music and felt it like in my body in like a very special way, and I’ve always wanted to play music kind of my whole life, but have been in environments that I didn’t, like, really nurture that, and I really started playing bass when I was kind of like really frustrated in my life, and like it was kind of an outlet for me, and I wasn’t really that good when I started and knew what I was doing, but just having it as like an outlet to learn and like to see myself progress is something that I really am like passionate about, and then also how it connects to other people, just as a whole, I think makes it so important to me, and yeah.

Jerdyn
I feel like I’ve always loved playing rhythm games, anything just rhythm-based. I loved being in band class for school, and I got to play drums because in high school I was asked if I could play drums for Helen’s band, and I was like, “Sure, I’ve always wanted to play drums,” and now I really love playing drums. So, yeah, forever will play drums.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
I grew up in a small town in rural Alberta in a musical family. I started playing music as a kid in band class, then got into guitar on my own because I was always bored in my small town. I got into punk music as a teenager because I was queer and hated rednecks.

Willow (CJSW)
Thank you. In another interview, you guys said that the name of the band pays homage to Latine culture, while also reclaiming the word. I wanted to ask, how do people usually react when they hear the band name?

Helen
I feel like in Calgary, a lot of people don’t right away get it, because most people don’t speak Spanish here, but it’s always fun telling it to, like, Spanish speakers I meet that I’m in a band called PERRA, because they’re then they’re like, “oh, wow!” And then that actually has impact there, like my parents reacted to it pretty strongly, because they’re Latino, they’re like nobody’s gonna respect you with that name, which is kind of the point, like you don’t have to respect me, like I like, it’s a word that has these connotations, but like using it in this way is what gives it power.

Yvanna
Yeah, I feel like with PERRA when you like say that to Spanish-speaking people, they have like a very visceral reaction, because in, I guess, like our culture, it’s very like I don’t know, you’re not saying that every day to people, it’s very like insulting, so to like hear that, just like as a band name, where people are very like affected by that, and like impacted by it as well.

Kaleigh
I feel like whenever I tell people like what our name is, and then tell them like what it means, they usually kind of like giggle or get like a little like, I guess, like it’s a bit of like a shy response that I think comes from like the violence that can be associated with the word, so I’m like, this is what like PERRA means, like, bitch, they’re like hahaha, how, like, how could you like say that, but it’s like kind of reholding the power and what that word means, and not having people see it as like a bad word to, like, be used against people. I think it’s very interesting that people kind of shy away in, like, a giggly way, not to, like, address it. And, yeah, and they usually really like it when I explain it, and then explain the meaning. They’re like, that is so awesome, but I think it’s interesting that a lot of, yeah, a lot of people giggle.

Jerdyn
Yeah, a lot of, lot of gigglers over here. I love saying the word PERRA. I don’t know, I just feel very powerful. I don’t know, actually, I don’t really know what to say. I feel like you guys said a lot already. Syd really loves the one word, she thinks that it’s a really important reclamation, and feels the same as I.

Willow (CJSW)
Yeah, because I know, I speak Spanish, and so, like, when I first heard of you guys, I was like, “okay, okay…” and then I saw I was like an all-girl or like all femme presenting lineup, and I was like, “okay, like, okay!” Like, I just thought it was a cool name. Yeah, I liked it.

Helen
I feel like it also has so many different meanings, even in, like, the realm of music. Like, perreo is a whole, like, music genre, and, like, to perrear means to, like, twerk, which is fun to, like, lean into that, and also that, like, genre of, like, perreo, and, like, reggaeton has like a lot of like femmes that are like reclaiming sexuality, and yeah, that’s a huge thing I think that we like to lean into as well.

Willow (CJSW)
I wanted to talk a little bit about Sled Island. I know you guys played a show last night. How are you guys feeling about that?

Helen
Yeah, we were like, I think going into it, we were like a little nervous because we had played a show at Palomino upstairs like a few weeks ago, and it’s really hard to get the vibes right up there, like, even it’s, it’s even hard to like get the sound right, and like to be able to hear yourself, but at least we like came into it, and we’re like, we’re gonna sound check before we’re gonna like make sure we feel right, we’re gonna make sure our gear works too, because we wanted to be ready and like locked in, and I think it was worth it. There was a lot of like friends there too, so it felt very good and fun.

Yvanna
Yeah, I feel like also like the crowd determines like if it’s gonna be like a good show or not. Like I really love when like a lot of like women or girls or like femme people show up to our shows, because then you know it’s lit, and it’s going to be like ass twerking music. It’s going to be really fun. Yeah, that’s what we like kind of aim for with all of our shows, is to like have everyone like up and dancing.

Kaleigh
Yeah, I really enjoyed. I had a lot of fun while playing the show. There was a lot of people there yesterday, it was really like really bustling, and lots of other good bands. So I really, I really enjoyed.

Kaleigh
Honestly, I was glad that it was a free show, because they didn’t have to pay to see us, and then they can pay our merch.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
I received a lot of love after our set. I had a lot of friends in town who showed up, which really filled my heart. After our second song, I told all of all the photographers to go away because they were taking up so much space and not making space for the girls to dance and have fun. After the photographers went away, they listened very well. So many girls came up and danced.

Jerdyn
Yeah, I was really glad to see a lot of the girls just coming up, like slowly. I’m like, “Yes, fill up the space in front of there.”

Willow (CJSW)
Yeah, the band photographers, I swear, sometimes… No, they’re awesome. I love to see the photos. As an audience member, sometimes they get in the way… Syd says they just need to know their place. Yeah, what’s your favorite song to perform live?

Helen
I feel like, I don’t, I don’t know. I like the first song that came to mind was PERRA / Ruin, because it, it’s like I feel like we just have that song so on lock that whenever we play, we like get into the zone and something happens, and then we’re ready, like to do the whole set, but I like LA LA LA, that’s a good one, because everyone dances to that one. It’s very easy to dance to.

Yvanna
I also really like PERRA / Ruin. I feel like it’s a really fun song, because we all like transform into like art musician personas. Yeah, like Helen literally turns into a werewolf, like that’s what happens, and I really like our new songs that we’re cooking up, we’re cooking up and playing, so those are really fun.

Kaleigh
I agree on the PERRA / Ruin, I feel like, yeah, it feels like kind of like a transition that I like go into like an alternate state while performing, and it like really happens during that song, like it’s a bit, it’s like a transformation. I really also like playing LA LA LA, because, yeah, it’s really dancey, and the bass line is really fun to play in that song. I also really like playing Kathy Acker, I think it’s very emotional, and I feel like I like just close my eyes and like feel connected, which is a nice feeling to have when you’re playing a song.

Jerdyn
I also really like PERRA / Ruin, just because when we were first making the song, it felt like that song was, we finally made like our own style in a way playing when we were making that song, but I also really like playing our new song, No Heart. I think I think that one is a really good song. You should listen to it.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
I like PERRA / Ruin because it is our anthem. I also don’t play guitar or do vocals on that song. I just get to lay down and writhe around on the floor.

Jerdyn
I love seeing you writhe around on the floor.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
I also love performing our song LA LA LA, because I think it’s when people get the most dancey and me and Helen get to dance together.

Willow (CJSW)
It seems like there’s some clear favourites. You guys mentioned Kathy Acker. I wanted to ask, like, why did you choose to name the song after her?

Helen
Well, the song is literally plagiarizing Kathy Acker. My song writing method is a lot of the time I like read books, I highlight parts that I like, and then I write them down in a journal, and then like mix them up and see what goes together, and I did that with a lot of Kathy Acker books, like last summer and recently, and what came was the song Kathy Acker, but also it’s like dedicated to her, and she had a very similar technique too. She was also like a plagiarist, and I think that there’s like a lot of, like, I think that plagiarism is like collage, as in that there’s also like intention behind it, like kind of going against the idea of like that there’s original ideas and yeah, there’s more to say to that, like I could write a whole essay, but Syd just showed me her phone and says the best kind of art always involves stealing, which, yeah, bars.

Yvanna
I think that’s a very Helen question, but I, I really love Kathy Acker. She’s like a huge icon to, like, queer community and women. She’s sick. Rest in peace.

Helen
Read Blood and Guts in High School, or don’t, because it’s really heavy, but it’s a good book, and that’s what Kathy Acker rips from. The song Kathy Acker rips from Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker.

Willow (CJSW)
I wanted to move on to asking about playing shows. I know you guys played at Palomino the other day and just a few weeks ago, what is your favourite venue to play at in Calgary?

Helen
Well, we played the Palomino upstairs recently, but we really like playing the downstairs, so that’s a big one when we get asked to do that. Loophole is fun because it’s just like warm and tight, and I don’t know, the BLOX is nice because they have their own back line.

Yvanna
I would say I really like to play in Loophole because it’s so like small and intimate that you can just like really, I love being on like the same level. As people, and just like playing, but like also like seeing the crowd, and like I like when people mosh into me, which is like, I don’t know if that’s like a strange thing, but I think it’s fun.

Kaleigh
I like Loophole as well, just because the atmosphere feels very like comfortable, and like it’s very small, and it’s also like kind of unassuming, because it’s like a coffee shop, and like has like art displayed, so it’s once you step out of the like room where the show is being made, it’s almost like a whole different like world, like it’s much more lighter, and then you go into like this like dark, dark, dark like cocoon, yeah, a dark cocoon, and then, like, there’s like a whole different environment in there that just feels a lot different. It’s really great for, like, sorry, I got lost on my train of thought, but yeah, I feel like they kind of covered, like, I like the Palomino downstairs, and the BLOX has a great back line. I love playing outdoor shows, too. It’s really nice to play outdoors, and I feel like people like really get moving outdoors sometimes. I don’t know, you can jump around a lot outside.

Kaleigh
Yeah, I want to play in the Firehall again outside. It was really nice. We need more shows for that.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
I really like playing DIY shows in community centers and playing outside, because I find they’re the most accessible, and all ages is always a plus.

Willow (CJSW)
I wanted to ask about all ages, because I know I saw that you guys are going, touring kind of around BC, and are all of the shows all ages?

Helen
Yeah, all the shows on tour all ages.

Willow (CJSW)
Yeah, I wanted to ask, I know people tend to have mixed opinions on all ages shows. I wanted to ask you guys’ opinions on what you think of all ages shows.

Helen
I think that in Calgary, all ages shows like I think that they have to be like handled with care, but I feel like the hardcore shows are usually like sober shows, so I think that’s best for all ages shows, because sometimes they can get a little too rowdy. There’s like underage drinking, and that, and that like leads to unsavory conditions, and people can get hurt. But I think that the crowd at all ages shows have a lot of energy. They’re willing to like actually mosh and dance and like let it all out, unlike in 18 plus shows, where there’s like people whose backed are hurting and don’t want to like go all out, which is fair, but I think that our show depends a lot on like audience engagement and like dancing and like catharsis, and it’s fun playing all ages because of that.

Yvanna
I think that’s a great question. I feel like all ages shows, especially here in Calgary, are like super important, super super important, and like what Helen was saying with like the hardcore scene here, and like the hardcore shows, a lot of like those people really prioritize that, and I think it’s important to like have all these kids coming in and like seeing shows, playing in bands, making their own shit, own merch, own like venues and stuff. They really like, I don’t know. I know a lot of kids that are like seeing, I guess we’re kind of old heads in this sense. We’re getting there, we’re getting there, we’re getting there, we’re getting unc, bro. We’re getting unc, but it’s like important to see like these 15 year olds like start their own bands and like make their own venues and make their own spaces, because like no one else is gonna do it for you, you just have to do it yourself.

Kaleigh
But yeah, I feel like all ages shows are important, because I mean, a lot of our crowd is like younger people, and I feel like the space that is being made is really important for younger people, and like to express themselves, and to also just see it as something that, like, that is available. I feel like, like making it less accessible to a larger group of people that like, like adults that like can go to like shows that are like 18 plus and stuff. I feel like having a community that’s available to younger crowds that doesn’t like… Sorry, I don’t have the words, but I just feel like that is important.

Kaleigh
I don’t mind all ages shows. I really enjoy all their energy in the crowd, and I love seeing all of them dance, and I think it is very important for the younger people to see and just like be in the community and create their own stuff, like Yvanna said, and especially, like empowering young women to just start their own band, and like starting out young.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
When booking the venues for tour, the whole all ages aspect was coincidental, but it turned, turned out to be a huge plus. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely a time and place for 18 plus shows. I love shows in bars, etcetera. but I think if I saw PERRA when I was under 18, it would have, would have genuinely changed my life. I agree, it would have given me hope for my future. I feel like kids look up to us and feel seen by our music, performance style, and art.

Willow (CJSW)
I would honestly agree. I didn’t want to be biased with my question, but I like all ages shows. I think it’s awesome. I think it’s accessible. I started going to shows when I was a kid, too, so. And I think it helped me get into music a lot more, and into the scene. And I think it… well, now I’m interviewing myself. Sorry. But I think it’s awesome to be accessible. Anyways, for my final question, it’s a silly little question. If you guys could switch roles with anyone in the band, who would it be?

Helen
Switch roles? Man, if I could drum like Jerdyn, like I would be like insane. I can’t drum though, so. I feel like it would just be so much fun. Yeah.

Yvanna
Yeah, I would also say Jerdyn, if I could drum like a beast, then I’d be unstoppable.

Kaleigh
I agree, to feel, to feel my hands moving at that speed and grace would be amazing.

Jerdyn
Well, I can’t be a drummer, I’m already a drummer, but I think I would play bass, since it’s similar to drums, and it’s like the only instrument that I like never tried so far. So that would be really fun.

Syd (Voiced by Jerdyn)
That’s such a good question. I would also switch places with Jerdyn too, because she is undeniably the most technically talented.

Jerdyn
Thank you, guys.

Willow (CJSW)
You’re so loved in this band. Well, thank you guys so much for talking with me. I really appreciate it.

Helen
Thank you.

Sick Puppy performed during Sled Island on Wednesday, June 17th at Ship & Anchor & Thursday, June 18th at Sloth Records.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Willow (CJSW)
All right, I’m Willow Pflueger with CJSW 90.9 FM at Sled Island 2026. I’m here with the band Sick Puppy.

Jacob
Hello.

Isobel
Hi.

Allison
Hello.

Luke
Yellow.

Willow (CJSW)
Would you guys mind introducing yourselves and your role in the band?

Jacob
Sure, I’m Jacob. I play the drums.

Isobel
I’m Isobel, I play guitar, and I sing and scream a little bit too.

Allison
I’m Allison, I play the bass.

Luke
I’m Luke, and I also play the guitar.

Isobel
So quiet, Luke.

Willow (CJSW)
This is not your first Sled Island. You also played in 2023. How does it feel to be back?

Isobel
Feels really good. It was a little bit of a different lineup situation when we played last time, so it’s nice to be here in our final form as a four piece, because last time we played, Allison was busy doing big academic stuff, so she couldn’t join us, so we had our friend, other friend Liam, who is here with Invisible Hand, play bass for us that time, so it was really fun, but I feel like we’re it was a bit more scrappy and crazy back then, and we’re a bit more of a real band, I would say. What do you think?

Jacob
Yeah, no, I feel like we had a lot of fun last time, but yeah, it was a bit more thrown together last minute, so it’s nice to have the whole real band here.

Allison
Yeah, Luke is a new member of the band, so he’s, he’s played like three shows with us, so.

Luke
And this, this last show is by far the most recent, yeah.

Isobel
That’s accurate.

Willow (CJSW)
So you traveled here from Newfoundland, right? How long are you here for?

Isobel
We are here till, we’re gonna fly back on Monday, I think. Luke’s flying back on Sunday, but yeah, we’ll be here till Monday. We’re enjoying the rest of the festival, so we finished our last show yesterday, so it’s nice to be able to just kind of chill and enjoy.

Willow (CJSW)
Are there any other artists that you’re excited to check out for the festival?

Isobel
Yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited to see HOMESHAKE. I feel like I, yeah, that’s tonight, and billy woods. I really wanted to see Sextile last night, but I think we all, we were really, really tired after playing.

Allison
For the record, I did line up, but.

Isobel
Allison was ready. Allison was ready to party. Allison’s the party girl. Allison’s ready. Yeah, any other artists?

Jacob
Etran de L’Aïr, I think, are also playing tonight. I’m stoked to see that. Yeah.

Allison
I saw Backxwash last night.

Luke
That was awesome.

Allison
Yeah, so good. I think she’s been to Newfoundland a couple times.

Isobel
Yes, Backxwash – we’ve seen at Lawnya Vawnya before. Lawnya Vawnya, Lawnya Vawnya is like our Sled in St. John’s. It’s like a short, smaller version of Sled, I would say. And yeah, it’s always fun to, it’s always fun to like see people that you saw a couple years ago and like see what the evolution has been. Yeah, Backxwash is a good example of that.

Willow (CJSW)
Speaking of you know, St. John’s, what is the music like? What is the music scene like there?

Isobel
Music scene right now, very lots of young, crazy punk kids, lots of lots of little scrappy hardcore bands, which is always fun. Yeah, St. John’s has a very eclectic music scene, I feel like. For instance, Luke and Jacob are in, like, a couple country bands and stuff, so it’s always fun. There’s a lot going on, and lots of, like, trad music too, which is always fun to check out.

Jacob
Yeah, I feel like St. John’s is also small enough that there’s like, there’s a very high concentration of artists and musicians for how small the population is, but it’s not a big enough city that people can kind of like all split off into their own kind of micro scenes, like everyone kind of all plays with each other all the time.

Isobel
Out of necessity.

Jacob
Yeah, and like a lot of mixed genre shows, so it’s like, you know, we’re playing a show, and there’s also going to be like maybe like a rapper and like indie rock band and like a hardcore band all playing the same show, and it’s not really weird, because it’s like we’re all friends anyway, so we’re just like everyone’s just playing shows with other artists that they think are good. It doesn’t really matter what anyone sounds like.

Willow (CJSW)
How does playing local shows compare to touring and playing larger festivals like Sled Island and Lawnya Vawnya?

Jacob
I mean, it’s, it’s all, it’s all different. It’s like I feel like we are so comfortable playing local shows in Newfoundland now that we don’t even really think about it much, and it’s like, again, it very much feels like we’re kind of just going to hang out with our friends, and then at some point we get up on stage and play some songs, but like, yeah, playing festivals like this is is cool, because I feel like, like, we played The Ship & Anchor on Wednesday night, and that was a free show, and it was packed, and it was like a lot of people that I’m sure have never heard of us before, but then there was also people singing along to some of our songs, which is wild to see this far away from where we’re from, but yeah, it’s always, it’s always interesting to see how, like, a crowd at a festival is going to react to to your band.

Isobel
Yeah, I also personally find playing, like, in a city that I’m not as familiar with kind of more fun, and I feel like I’m personally able to let loose a little bit more, and I find it more stressful to play in front of all of our friends at home, because I have to talk to them and see them a lot, so yeah, but it’s all fun, playing is fun,

Allison
Yeah, no, totally, I mean, it’s nice to network also, and just like meet a bunch of people that we listen to and who can’t come to Newfoundland because it’s really far and hard to get there if you’re a musician. We did play, yeah, The Ship the other night, and The Ship is a band we play all the time in Newfoundland, so.

Isobel
A venue. Yeah, we have a ship in St. John’s called just The Ship, so and we play there semi often, so it was fun to play at The Ship & Anchor in Calgary.

Luke
Yeah, it’s just nice to play away, because you get to play with bands that you don’t know and you haven’t necessarily heard before, and you know it’s great. Network is awesome.

Willow (CJSW)
Then, I wanted to talk a bit about your actual music, so your most recent single, Rick Nielsen, is a lot, I’d say it’s a lot lighter and more shoegazey than your EP. What made you decide to go for a different direction for the song?

Isobel
Well, on our first EP, there’s a song called Words Fail that is like a bit more of an emo song than like a true hardcore song, and I think when the EP came out, we were kind of surprised at how much people like responded to that one, and like, and loved it, and so I was thinking about that, and also I feel like, to be completely frankly honest, I feel like we listen to probably a lot more indie rock, like I love, like Dinosaur Jr., and like Alvvays, and like more like melodic rock, like that’s like my more personal listening taste. I do love hardcore and listen to a lot of hardcore too, and I always enjoy bands that kind of like mix heavy and soft and are able to move between the two, and as a, it’s fun as like a songwriter and performer to not to like have other, have some like dynamics to play with, and not always be like playing a similar tempo, or like, etcetera. So I feel like on the album there is definitely, there’s definitely some true, still like true to our roots, hardcore songs that for people who liked our more hardcore songs on the previous EP, but there is a lot more melodic kind of, yeah, more shoegazey, indie rocky vibes too.

Jacob
Yeah, yeah, I feel like it’s like, again, it’s like genre doesn’t really matter that much to us, so I feel like we’re kind of just making songs that we think sound good, and that’s kind of the only criteria.

Isobel
Yeah, I try, I don’t, I’ve tried to not think too much, especially in the process of like when we’re writing and stuff to not try to think too much about, like, ‘oh, like, is this finished product gonna work with x, y, and z?’ Like, I just want it to be, you know, feel true to us and be something we like to listen to at the end of the day.

Jacob
I feel like, also, like, to us, Sick Puppy is kind of like a vibe more than a sound, and, like, I feel like we’re listening to all kinds of music all the time, and we’ll hear a song, and we’ll be like, oh, this kind of has like this kind of sounds Sick Puppy, or like we’ll hear an album and it’s like oh this is a bit Sick Puppy, and it’s like sometimes it’s stuff that doesn’t sound the same at all, but it’s just like something about the the atmosphere of the music or the aesthetic of it, or whatever, that like kind of aligns with our, our personal tastes, but yeah, it all, it all kind of mixes together, and I feel like all of our songs sound like they’re by the same band, but they’re all kind of a bit different and a bit eclectic.

Isobel
They’re in the same universe, but not all the same country. That’s a good metaphor.

Willow (CJSW)
It’s been a couple years since you last released your EP. How has that time changed you guys as a band?

Isobel
Yeah, I mean, I feel like we’re just all kind of busy with other life stuff, and, like, to be quite frank, the band isn’t like our number one, we weren’t, we weren’t like we weren’t like hitting the studio being like ‘we need to finish this,’ so we definitely took our time, and I think that’s good, because we like, we really like the finished product, and I hope people do too, and yeah, we didn’t, we weren’t under like a time crunch or anything, so yeah,

Jacob
Yeah, we also like our new, and Luke is new to the band too, so we’ve kind of been like integrating more guitar parts and stuff, and like figuring out how things are going to sound that way, but we also like pretty much recorded this whole new album of ours ourselves, like we did the drums at our friend James’s studio,

Isobel
Shout out James.

Jacob
Yes, shout out James.

Isobel
Very Bad Times Club.

Jacob
Bad Times Club, the studio in St. John’s, the best, but yeah, we recorded drums there, but other than that, we like recorded everything on our own, kind of on our own schedule, in our own time, so it wasn’t really like we had like ‘we’re going into the studio this month, and we got to have the record done by the end of it.’ It was kind of like, okay, well, I think we have as much as we have done now. And then, in a couple months, when we have all the lyrics done, we’ll go back and do vocals, and then we’ll go add some more guitars, and then sit with it for a while, and see how we feel. And does this need anything else? And then we went back again, like a few weeks later, and added some more stuff, so yeah, we took our time, but I feel like for us it was worth it to just be confident and happy with the finished product.

Willow (CJSW)
Yeah, when is the album coming out?

Isobel
It is coming out July 24th, 2026.

Jacob
Yeah, the album’s called Nobody Gets Hurt, and yeah, it comes out July 24th. Streaming everywhere, I guess. We got tapes and CDs, and yeah, should be. I hope people enjoy it.

Willow (CJSW)
And I know some of you guys are in other music projects. How does that differ? How does playing with this band differ from playing with other projects?

Jacob
I mean, yeah, a lot of us play all kinds of music with all kinds of people, and I feel like this is maybe the band for all of us that is the most like kind of hanging out with our best friends, like we all are kind of spending time together all the time anyway, so it’s like different. Like I feel like Luke and I both play in a lot of bands where it’s kind of like it’s like a hired band to play somebody else’s music, so it’s like we show up, rehearse, and like play the show, but other than that, it’s kind of just like it’s like a job, we’re like working musicians, but this one is more of a, like, we’re all, yeah, we’re all more creative, we all go out for dinner afterwards and hang out, and yeah.

Isobel
Good vibes.

Jacob
Good vibes.

Allison
Yeah, Luke, do you have anything to say about that?

Luke
Or no, I mean, it’s great, you know, we’re all great friends, we, we get to hang out with each other and fuck around musically. It’s great.

Allison
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I used to play in a band called BBQT that played Sled Island, I think, eight years ago. I was trying to negotiate when it was, but at the time the like artist lounge was in the Calgary Tower, so however long ago that was, it was pretty funny, and I feel like I’ve always been, I played music growing up, but like violin, piano, Suzuki vibes, and I feel like learning to play music with my friends has been really nice, and we’re actively learning how to play the instruments as we grow as a band, so that has been, I think, definitely in the case of Isobel and I, the situation with this band, and it’s, you can actually feel like tangible progress, I would say, like from year to year, and like from the last time we played Sled till now, and that’s really gratifying and awesome.

Isobel
Yeah, and I think, yeah, and that, that, yeah, me and Allison, this is the first time we’re playing guitar and bass, respectively, in a band, and getting better at our instruments has definitely been part of the evolution of the sound and the songs, as well as we get better to play

Allison
Isobel and I lived together during the pandemic, and just like started playing in our basement.

Isobel
Yes, we started learning then.

Allison
It’s grown from there. But Jacob and Luke are like very professional musicians, I would say.

Isobel
They’re our gurus.

Allison
So yeah, in that way, I think it’s a bit of a contrast, but yeah, I think this band is just, it’s a lot of fun and relief, I would say, for frustration.

Isobel
Yeah, fun, goofy, happy vibes, yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
So, how does the songwriting process, like for lyrics and stuff, look compared to writing for other musical projects and things like short stories? Because I know some of you write.

Isobel
Yes, Allison, short story author. Yeah, I’d say it’s a little bit different, it’s definitely different song to song, I’d say most of our songs are usually like me coming up with a guitar riff I really like and Jacob is really good at like taking some ideas like that and helping like build a real song around it, and yeah, and then I’m writing, I’m writing some lyrics for sure, and I’m writing all the lyrics, and that’s a bit of fun for me, and some songs are like, some songs are like lyrics first and music after, some songs are very music first and lyrics extremely last minute before we record, because I’m having a long time coming up with them, but yeah, so it’s definitely very song to song, but yeah, it’s all, it’s all pretty, pretty low stress. Jacob, do you have anything to say?

Jacob
No, I feel like that’s pretty much it. Like, yeah, we, I feel like we kind of start building the arrangement, and the lyrics come as that’s happening, but I don’t know. I think this band is fun too, because some of the lyrics are like very kind of, you know, sincere poetic, like very… what’s the word I’m looking for… like vulnerable, and also very like eloquent, but then there’s songs that are like super tongue in cheek, and like definitely supposed to have humor, humor to them, and it’s like, I mean, I think that some of the best bands can do that really well, and like toeing the line between humor and seriousness, I feel like makes everything feel a bit more authentic, because I don’t think there’s that many people in the world that are like 100% serious or 100% funny all the time.

Isobel
True, true, that.

Willow (CJSW)
All right. So, my last question is, do you have any plans for the band after Sled?

Isobel
Well, we are, we’re gonna have an album release in St. John’s the day after the album comes out with all of our friends, and that’ll be really nice, and then, yeah, and then we’ll see what happens after. It would be nice to book a tour. We do this, we have some like life stuff going on outside of the band at the moment, so that touring is kind of on the back burner at the moment, but it will happen.

Allison
Especially the like Toronto, Montreal.

Isobel
Yeah, we need to hit up Montreal for sure. We got a lot of buddies there that are inquiring.

Allison
As previously mentioned. It’s like touring from Newfoundland is really hard.

Isobel
Yeah, getting off the island is hard.

Allison
You have to take a ferry, and then you have to drive. You have to drive across the island, then you have to take an overnight ferry, then you have to drive from Sydney, Nova Scotia, to wherever you’re playing, so it’s like you really gotta make it work.

Isobel
It requires a… it requires a bit more planning and organization than touring on the mainland.

Jacob
Than just hopping in a van.

Isobel
So yeah, but it will happen.

Allison
But when we can make it work, it will happen.

Isobel
It’ll happen, and at the end of the day, I think, all I need to prioritize this as being fun first, and if everything can stay fun and like non-stressful, then that’s that is what feels right to me and to us. So, yeah, that’s the most important thing.

Jacob
Yeah, I feel like we’ll probably also just like it’s been such a, like, we said, it’s been four years since we put out our last album, and we’ve kind of been writing songs like consistently that whole time, and so I feel like as new stuff is coming along, we’ll probably just keep working on new stuff too, so even if we don’t end up touring heavily behind this album, we’ll probably just start working on another one afterwards, or see what happens. Hopefully, it gets some plays on campus and community radio stations, like CJSW.

Isobel
Shout out community radio. St. John’s just took a hit on that front.

Jacob
Yeah, we just lost our campus radio station, or lost their funding, I think. So we’re hoping they pull through, and we’re always happy to see a radio station like this that’s still doing well.

Willow (CJSW)
Well, I’m sure it will be played on CJSW. Thank you guys so much for talking with me. I appreciate it.

Jacob
Yeah, thank you for having us.

Isobel
Thank you CJSW.

Allison
We love you, Calgary.

Photo of Sophie Haze with Ben Goodman (left, CJSW).

Sophie Haze performed during Sled Island’s Comedy nights at Vern’s on Friday, June 19th & Saturday, June 20th.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Ben Goodman
CJSW 90.9fm, Sophie Haze, it’s such a pleasure to speak with you. I loved the show last night, the Metrosexual bit. I love that.

Sophie Haze
Did you connect with that then?

Ben Goodman
I heard about that, like in the 2000s and it’s true, it just disappeared.

Sophie Haze
It did.

Ben Goodman
So it gets awareness out there.

Ben Goodman
And then, in your words, you’re “The number one white lady lesbian Outkast fan under 30” with a great “Ms. Jackson” joke. I was probably one of the loudest laughs. How’s your time been at Sled?

Sophie Haze
It’s awesome. Yeah, we just got here yesterday. My wife and I came up, so that’s been kind of nice to spend some time together and check out Calgary, because I’m from Edmonton. I moved here three years ago, haven’t had much time, so it’s been a great opportunity to check out some bands, and also check out the city too.

Ben Goodman
Yeah, have you caught any bands? Or

Sophie Haze
I think I’m gonna go tonight, because yesterday we got in, and I was, you know what, I feel like Saturday is like the day for Sled Island.

Ben Goodman
There’s a lot of great stuff.

Sophie Haze
Yeah.

Ben Goodman
I know, clipping., that’s one of the big shows at the Palace, lot of cool stuff.

Sophie Haze
Yeah, and some of the other comedians were telling me that they have a bunch of bands that they love that are here this weekend, so tonight.

Sophie Haze
What was kind of your gateway to comedy?

Sophie Haze
That’s a great question. I, I started with improv when I was in university. I joined the improv team at Carleton University in Ottawa, and I competed in an improv competition in the U.S. We did lots of cool stuff, but for me, I feel like I want to be in control of the scene, you know what I mean. So I thought i’m gonna try stand-up comedy, and I started after my first breakup from my first real adult relationship, so that was kind of my inspo to just like sort of find something for myself that I could do, and that was like almost nine years ago now. Oh, wow, yeah, it’s been a while.

Ben Goodman
And what inspired you also like to make comedy yourself? Do you have any inspirations?

Sophie Haze
You know what, the first comedy album I ever paid for, this was back on iTunes, was Mae Martin’s first album, they’re a great Canadian comedian too. I just saw their show in April here in Calgary, actually, and they haven’t done a Canadian tour in a long time, so that was really cool.

Ben Goodman
They are blowing up,

Sophie Haze
Yeah, it’s like a full circle moment for me. And then the other one actually is Debra DiGiovanni, because I used to watch Video on Trial all the time. I was telling my wife that yesterday, and I have a photo of her with me when I was 15, and then I saw her at the Grindstone Comedy Festival in Edmonton two years ago. So that was another big full circle moment for me.

Ben Goodman
She’s still great, but Video on Trial. Talk about throwback, so good.

Sophie Haze
So many great Canadian comedians. Yeah, Sabrina Jalees, Trevor Boris. It was awesome.

Ben Goodman
You mentioned you live in Alberta for a couple years in Edmonton. Who have been kind of some of your favourite comedians you’ve worked with on in this scene?

Sophie Haze
That’s a great question. I’ve been really fortunate to work at a comedy club since moving here, so I’ve seen a lot of great Canadian acts. I love working at a place where we really prioritize Canadian comedy. Yeah, Jon Dore has been an amazing person to work with

Ben Goodman
A legend!.

Sophie Haze
Exactly, yeah, there’s been lots of awesome people in terms of people that live more here. Casey Corbin is hilarious. He’s awesome. Scott Dumas lives in Calgary. He’s hilarious too. And there are guys who have been doing comedy for a long time, and they actually also come originally from Ottawa. So it’s been nice to connect with some Canadian comedians who are from the same area as me, but live out here now. It’s been cool.

Ben Goodman
You released your first album, Normal Married, last year. I saw one of the great jokes referenced in the title. How was experience recording the album, and where’d you record it?

Sophie Haze
Yeah, it was great. I recorded it back in Ottawa, so it was kind of nice, because I’d moved to Edmonton about a year before that, so I kind of got the opportunity to go back, share my comedy with people who I knew and who were around when I started doing comedy, and I recorded with Howl & Roar Records, which is another Canadian comedy recording company based out of Toronto. They work with a lot of women and people of color, kind of prioritizing marginalized voices in comedy, and they were amazing to work with. I definitely recommend them, and they have a lot of comedians who have been nominated for Junos that are on their label, too, not me, but lots of people.

Ben Goodman
You mentioned what makes the Sled Island bill so great. It’s nothing but exciting Canadian comics. Being at the show last night was just so fun. What kind of inspires you about the Canadian comedy scene?

Sophie Haze
You know, what I think the Canadian comedy scene is really underrated. And I’ve spoken with a lot of people who say, oh, you know, to make it, you have to move to the U.S., and I don’t think that’s true. I think that people just don’t give Canadian comedy a fair shake, and that’s why we really have to sort of platform these sorts of festivals and comedy clubs that prioritize booking Canadian acts, like in Edmonton, there’s I would say like three comedy clubs, and one of them, like, only books Americans, and that’s not something that I can support, because there’s so many amazing, talented people here that don’t get the opportunity because they just want to bring in audience members who see a name that they recognize from social media, and they go. They don’t even care about comedy. I like going to places and working at a place where people who come to the comedy club actually like watching comedy. So they’re coming, they don’t necessarily know the performer because they’re Canadian, but they’re gonna watch it and be like, “Wow, like we have so much talent here in Canada” and they might follow them and come back next time, and they come for the experience, right?

Ben Goodman
It’s so true. Like the Sled Island bill, just great Canadian comedians, diverse, just amazing.

Sophie Haze
Yeah, it was awesome. It was really exciting for me too to see some people for the first time, comedians that I’ve never worked with before. And the show last night, honestly, was amazing. And even my wife said, like, that lineup was fantastic.

Ben Goodman
Just a great variety. Just really cool. And it also makes it makes me feel really good about the comedy scene, is I don’t like the certain, like, bro-y pockets, that’s not my thing at all. But again, last night was just great diverse voices.

Sophie Haze
Everybody’s a little bit different, it’s all different styles of comedy too, which is nice. I hate going to a show where everybody sort of has the same structure to their jokes, and the presence on stage is the same. So it was a nice mix.

Ben Goodman
You were one of the finalists in the 2025 Funniest Person with a Dayjob competition at The Comic Strip. How was that?

Sophie Haze
That was fun. It was interesting. I decided I wasn’t going to do any comedy contests this year because I was like, it’s too stressful, you know what I mean. But being in the finals was nice, like obviously every year only one person can win, but making to the finals is I think, just as good as winning, because it shows that people want to hear your comedy, and that the club actually is interested in what you have to say too, because they obviously have a little bit of influence around the competition and who judges all that stuff, right? So, it’s validating for sure.

Sophie Haze
You’re going to do the Queer Agenda show with Leif Oleson-Cormack.

Sophie Haze
We’re in Saskatoon next weekend. We wanted to do something different for us, like we’re both stand-up comedians. Leif has a theater background, he has an amazing French show that he does called The Disney Delusion, that he takes on tour. He did the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, so you know we wanted to mix it up a bit with my improv background. So our love line is during the show, people can submit anonymous questions, and then at the end we kind of sit down, we answer some of their questions we try to joke around a bit, but also give a little bit of real advice and we piloted it about a month ago in Edmonton, and it went really well. So, we’re excited to take it on the road.

Ben Goodman
Was there some fun from that show? Any fun advice that you saw?

Sophie Haze
Someone wanted to know what kind of art they should hang above their couch in the living room, which I think is a fun and interesting question.

Ben Goodman
I wouldn’t have thought of that.

Sophie Haze
Do you have art about your couch?

Ben Goodman
Above my bed, honestly. But a couch is interesting.

Sophie Haze
I know, right? I was like, I don’t know, maybe a GoodFellas poster is all I could think of.

Ben Goodman
Funny, you should say that, not to do my stupid thing, at a University of Calgary, like poster sale

Ben Goodman
There was like a comedic poster of like Scarface, Tony Soprano all together I was like, I’m buying this for the bit

Sophie Haze
Exactly!

Ben Goodman
I bought it, hung up on my bed. The poster was so heavy, it literally fell on me when I was sleeping.

Sophie Haze
You’re like I can’t do this.

Ben Goodman
Sleeping with the fishes, literally, that’s

Sophie Haze
That’s funny.

Ben Goodman
Anything you want to tease in the next year coming up?

Sophie Haze
That’s a great question. You know, what I’m moving back to Ottawa next month, so I don’t really have anything out here, but I’m hoping to come back, maybe apply for some festivals again, or just come out and do some of the clubs in Calgary. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to do comedy in Calgary, actually. This is only like my second chance, so I do want to come back out this way.

Ben Goodman
Calgary loves you, we love to have you here. And then have a great show tonight. Enjoy the rest of the festival.

Sophie Haze
Thank you so much. Yeah, I hope everybody has a great time.

Photo of Ben Sosa-Wright with Ben Goodman (right, CJSW).

Ben Sosa-Wright performed during Sled Island’s Comedy nights at Vern’s on Friday, June 19th & Saturday, June 20th.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Ben Goodman
Thank you so much for coming here, from Ben to Ben.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Do you go by Ben or Benjamin?

Ben Goodman
I was born as Benjamin, but typically Ben.

Ben Sosa-Wright
In your email it Benjamin.

Ben Goodman
Yeah, because it’s Mount Royal, that’s my university,

Ben Goodman
I can’t change that. If someone says Benjamin, I’m not mad at it.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Yes, you know, I’m not a Benjamin, technically.

Ben Goodman
Oh no.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Benjamin Eduardo, that’s my full legal name.

Ben Goodman
Your set last night was outstanding . Your crowd work some of the best I’ve seen. The way you spotted certain things from throughout the night.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Thank you.

Ben Goodman
There’s the table of women who are by my side, who are just so supportive.

Ben Sosa-Wright
They had a great vibe.

Ben Goodman
And then MUBI bag gu, who I spotted him leave with that bright blue bag bright blue.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Bright blue! I sa him out of my periphery, because I was in the green room area, and I wanted to grab him and be like “no, sweetie, you’re gonna want to stay for me.” I saw his MUBI bag, I saw his twink frame, I was like, “i’m for you, I’m for you, just stick around.” If he had known i’m sure he would have stayed.

Ben Goodman
How’s your time at Sled been so far?

Ben Sosa-Wright
Oh, dude, so fun. It’s such a cool festival. I, it feels crazy i’m getting paid to do comedy here, because I get to see free music. Like I saw Black Country, New Road last night.

Ben Goodman
How was that?

Ben Sosa-Wright
It was sick as hell. One of my favorite bands.

Ben Sosa-Wright
It surpassed my expectations of how they perform live.

Ben Goodman
I saw clips from that show, it looked amazing,

Ben Sosa-Wright
Amazing! They just work so well together. They all got recorders out at one point, beautiful.

Ben Goodman
Shout out to recorders in elementary school.

Ben Sosa-Wright
I owe Mrs. Gurney a big apology, because I thought she was nuts as hell for teaching us that. I’ll say it – that BS.

Ben Goodman
Yeah, “Hot Cross Buns.” I want to do something better!

Ben Sosa-Wright
Hot Cross Buns! Black Country, New Road. There’s a cover! You’re leaving money on the table. Do “Hot Cross Buns”!

Ben Goodman
It’s public domain too, like “Old MacDonald”

Ben Sosa-Wright
“Old MacDonald,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

Ben Goodman
“Wheels On The Bus.”

Ben Sosa-Wright
“Wheels On The Bus,” we’re naming all the hits.

Ben Goodman
“Camptown Races”

Ben Sosa-Wright
Camptown Races! Sing that song!

Ben Goodman
Doo da Doo da!

Ben Sosa-Wright
Doo da doo da! Now i’m a musician too. It was beautiful.

Ben Goodman
We don’t have to pay for that. We don’t have pay ASCAP. What was your gateway to comedy?

Ben Sosa-Wright
Oh God, yeah. I was a big improv kid.

Ben Sosa-Wright
I still am in many ways. I grew up in Toronto, so Second City’s there, and I did a bunch of Second City classes as a kid and got the bug. Now I teach there. It’s an MLM. They run an MLM, and I climb the ranks. I’m on the top tier now. It’s Scientology. I’ll say it. I’m not afraid to say it, but that was that was my gateway, and it’s really like painted how I perform stand-up as well. Like, I try to approach stand-up with an improv sensibility, I try to listen to the audience, not at the risk of sounding corny as hell, I want to “Yes, And” the vibe in the crowd

Ben Goodman
I witnessed that last night. I totally see that.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Okay, cool. I’m glad it rings true. I don’t just seem like an insane person up there.

Ben Goodman
What inspired young Ben to get into comedy? Like, was there like any people that got you into it?

Ben Sosa-Wright
I guess a big comedic influences as a little boy had to be some of the women of SNL that I grew up with, like your Maya Rudolph’s or Kristen Wiig’s

Ben Goodman
All killers.

Ben Sosa-Wright
That just blew my mind, and like I wanted to do that. For stand-up, like, because I started doing stand-up when I was like, 20 or 19, and it was comedians like Julio Torres.

Ben Goodman
I am such a fan

Ben Sosa-Wright
Huge. I saw his, maybe his first late-night set on Jimmy Fallon.

Ben Goodman
That’s right, and he was probably still a SNL writer at the time.

Ben Sosa-Wright
He was!

Ben Goodman
Wells for Boys

Ben Goodman
and the Lin Manuel-Miranda one he did.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Also the Papyrus font one, and his sensibility on stage.

Ben Goodman
Los Espookys! Not to do his credits.

Ben Goodman
Los Espookys is one of the best two season shows ever.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Perfect! Did yo see his movie? Have you seen Problemista?

Ben Goodman
Yeah!! I am a Tilda fan, but top Tilda.

Ben Sosa-Wright
TOP TILDA. Tilda. My top Tilda, to be sure. Seeing him and Kate Berlant, big influence, John Early, same

Ben Goodman
Very excited for ‘Maddie’s Secret’

Ben Sosa-Wright
Oh, dude! I saw it at TIFF. It is easily one of the funniest movies I’ve seen, but it’s also profoundly touching.

Ben Goodman
Weren’t like TV Movies of the Week kind of the inspiration?

Ben Sosa-Wright
Yeah, it’s almost like a Lifetime spoof of that kind of genre and harkening back to big broad kind of campy movies like Show Girls and stuff like that, and his performance is very like raw and touching, like he’s not just in drag for being in drag’s sake, like “look at me! I’m playing a woman!” He’s playing a grounded character.

Ben Goodman
It’s like Louie Anderson on ‘Baskets’

Ben Sosa-Wright
Yes, exactly!!! I think, especially Julio Torres and John Early showed me, not to get into my identity or whatever, but I didn’t really see a lot of gay stand-ups growing up. Stand-up just seemed like, oh yeah, you’re a straight guy, you’re talking about your wife and your kids, that’s what stand-up is. They just broadened my horizons and I was like, oh you can be a gay alt-comedy guy and do stand up and be weird, and people might like it.

Ben Goodman
So like you said, you started improvising, then you did stand-up? I just want to to make sure I get the track of it right

Ben Sosa-Wright
I still do a lot of improv, like I just got off main stage, I was a main stage Second City guy for a while and it’s hard to pay the bills. I always say one of my worst traits as an improviser are prevalent in my standup, and then my worst traits as a stand-up are prevalent in my improv. Like in improv, I’m just shoehorning jokes, and then my stand-up set is far too loose, like, I really should be more focused.

Ben Goodman
Who are smaller kind of favorite comedians on the scene? The Toronto scene’s incredible..

Ben Sosa-Wright
I mean, you’re wearing a Big Three shirt right now. My buddies, Ben Stager, Sam Burns, Nathan Hare, they’re hilarious. Ben Steger and I, we used to actually have a show together at Comedy Bar in Toronto called Night of 1000 Bens, and it would be different each time. Like one show was a talent show, oneshow was a slide show where we were talking about our favorite Ben’s in the culture, but those guys are my favorite. Jordanne Brown is a very funny comedian. Tiyawnda, a very funny comedian in Toronto, she’s like a solo sketch performer.

Ben Sosa-Wright
She’s great. I got to shout out Brandon Ash-Mohammed as well. He’s one of my mentors back home, Chris Locke, as well.

Ben Goodman
Chris Locke is like an institution.

Ben Sosa-Wright
He is. If you’re like an alt guy in Toronto, Chris Locke is your guy and he’s just so nice and funny. Yeah, but the scene in comedy is so big, i’m forgetting so many people. They’re all great.

Ben Goodman
The cream of the crop! Support them.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Support them, please.

Ben Goodman
What makes this Sled Island bill so great is it’s nothing but exciting Canadian comics. Being at the show last night was so fun. What kind of inspires you about being like in the Canadian comedy scene?

Ben Sosa-Wright
I think in the Canadian comedy scene there’s no infrastructure to support us long term financially, so to be a comedian who’s still at it, you have to be working at it until you have to be on top of your game, like there’s no way to kind of rest on your laurels or phone it in, like, you could be, like a Chris Locke, for instance, top of your game, but, you’re still grinding , you’re still doing shows because you have to. I think that’s what makes it so interesting, is we’re all still hungry for it. I think Todd Graham, a comedian, who said if you’re an up and coming comedian in Canada, that just means you’re not dead yet, like you’re always gonna be up and coming and it sucks. There should be panel shows, like CBC and Crave should be throwing us on TV more. We have the best comedy scene in the world, I think

Ben Goodman
I know you have passion for pop stars.

Ben Goodman
I’m a die hard pop person too. I was a member of a TRL message board in the early 2000s.

Ben Goodman
I got a couple CDs here.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Stop it! Ashlee Simpson!!

Ben Goodman
This is not to toot my whatever

Ben Goodman
but two years ago on this very station, where we play cool independent music. I was like, it’s the 20th anniversary of Ashlee Simpson’s Autobiography, we gotta do a tribute show. So we talked for two hours about it.

Ben Sosa-Wright
You can’t see but my jaw is on the floor

Ben Goodman
I also have this Michelle Branch..

Ben Sosa-Wright
Oh my gosh, yes! Michelle Branch, that’s a deep pull

Ben Goodman
The Spirit Room and I also love her second album, Hotel Paper.

Ben Sosa-Wright
They also don’t make album artwork like that anymore.

Ben Goodman
No.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Give me a woman looking forlorn on a highway, give me that!

Ben Sosa-Wright
The fonts are incredible. I mean, we did such a disservice to Ashlee Simpson as a society, like we really.. she made one mistake, we jumped down her throat, like we really.. we owe her a big apology.

Ben Goodman
I’m glad she’s on this upswing, even though she won The Masked Singer this year.

Ben Sosa-Wright
What??

Ben Goodman
Yeah!

Ben Sosa-Wright
Oh, this is breaking news for me.

Ben Goodman
It’s worth watching, whatever you think of the show. She won it, but, it was so telegraphed that even Jessica was there, and it was so wonderful for her.

Ben Sosa-Wright
That’s beautiful

Ben Goodman
She’s doing more shows, bit by bit.,

Ben Sosa-Wright
The Masked Singer is kind of where careers go to, I guess, if your career dies, you got a resurgence, because, Normani won and that blew my mind, because she was supposed to be the big thing to come from Fifth Harmony, yeah, like “Motivation.” Remember that single?

Ben Goodman
She put out all of these singles and they bricked, sadly.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Yes, I think her label, screwed her up

Ben Sosa-Wright
She’s such a star and I was at my parents’ place, and they threw on The Masked Singer, and the judges were doing that thing where they.. it’s like, obviously, with all due respect to Normani, it’s kind of a B-tier pop star is gonna win it, but they’re saying, like, oh, is it Beyonce?? They’re throwing out those guesses, like, oh, Michelle Obama?? you know what I mean? The producers are there like “name an A-Lister” and I was like I think it’s Normani, based off the clues, because girl group, I think they had like a hard hat as a clue, and I was like, okay, like it’s Fifth Harmony, and I didn’t want it to be true, because I think Normani deserves so much better, Normani is being treated like a Canadian comedian in Canada.

Ben Sosa-Wright
We gotta lift her up!

Ben Sosa-Wright
We’re all a bunch of Normani’s here

Ben Goodman
Are some other pop stars you want to shout out? With Ashlee briefly,, just want to mention, I have to mention it all the time, Diana Ross is her mother-in-law.

Ben Sosa-Wright
That is true! I forget this.

Ben Sosa-Wright
My old Nostalgique co-host, Aba Amuquandoh, she was the one who broke that for me.

Ben Goodman
I want to talk about those Thanksgiving dinners. The Simpsons and The Rosses

Ben Goodman
Tracee Ellis Ross is there.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Yeah, she’s there. They’re chopping, and that must be a fun table. But Popstars, I mean, Beyonce, B’Day, I mean, from that era, huge Shakira.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Frou Frou! “Let Go.” I mean, a huge, huge song. Carly Rae Jepsen, big Canadian icon, she’s big for me, I’d say. Yeah, huge.

Ben Goodman
Great albums!

Ben Sosa-Wright
Great albums! She’s another one where we owe her a bit more respect, she’s bringing back disco, she’s incorporating disco, and people don’t like that. She’s so great. I mean, “Run Away With Me” is one of the greatest pop singles of all time, I’d say.

Ben Goodman
She has such taste, like working with Dev Hynes.

Ben Sosa-Wright
She does have good taste!

Ben Goodman
I found your Letterboxd.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Stop it, give me your hands. This is huge. This is huge.

Ben Goodman
I saw Happy-Go-Lucky in your four. I’m a big Mike Leigh fanatic.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Happy-Go-Lucky is one of my favorite moves of all time. I used to work in childcare for years and years, that was my day job, and I feel like that movie – I might have said this in my review – actually perfectly encapsulates the kind of empathy you build over years of childcare work, and this sounds corny, but working with children made me a better comedian, I’m more patient, I see audience members as just little children, like, everyone’s just trying to survive their childhood, still. I see grown men as little boys.

Ben Goodman
What are some other favorite movies? We could do all time, recent, whatever.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Oh my goodness, one of my favorite movies of all time is this film. It’s in my Letterboxx four right now. It’s called An Elephant Sitting Still. , Oh, it’s great. It’s by Hu Bo, this Chinese filmmaker, and tragically, he actually took his own life before the movie was released.

Ben Sosa-Wright
And you watch the movie knowing that, and it adds this layer of sadness to it. It’s four hours long. It’s the saddest movie you’ll ever see. Yeah carve out the afternoon

Ben Goodman
For watching and crying.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Watching and crying, carve out the day. Book a therapy session before or after. You want to enter the movie with in a place of clarity. Yeah, but it’s beautiful. It’s about all these characters trying to go to this city in China called Manzhouli, which exists at the nexus of Russia, Mongolia, and China, and it’s like the Niagara Falls of northern China, and I’m a big geography guy, so I love that the city’s at the border of three countries, and they all want to get there for different reasons, and then their POVs collide. It’s very beautiful.

Ben Goodman
I need to check this out.

Ben Goodman
A gorgeous score they made, a beautiful score they made.

Ben Sosa-Wright
One of my favorite comedies of all time, Smiley Face by Gregg Araki.

Ben Goodman
He has a new movie coming out soon!

Ben Goodman
Yes, with Charli XCX, I think.

Ben Goodman
I love Smiley Face

Ben Sosa-Wright
A great stoner comedy.

Ben Goodman
A great Anna Faris performance

Ben Goodman
also Observe and Report, for underrated Anna Faris performances

Ben Sosa-Wright
Oh my, what’s that one again?

Ben Goodman
It was the other mall cop movie, that came out out at the same time as Paul Blart, but it was Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, 10 years before Joker was trying to rip it off, except Observe and Report was more sincere, but it’s funny but dark. It’s outstanding.

Ben Goodman
Anna Faris is incredible in it, like a mall kisok makeup person.

Ben Goodman
I feel like I might have seen it.

Ben Goodman
Anything else you want to tease for 2026?

Ben Sosa-Wright
Yes, I have my debut stand-up special dropping soon this summer

Ben Goodman
What a thing to tease!

Ben Sosa-Wright
If you like improvised stand-up, it’s like 70% riffing, 30% material. We shot it in a thrift store. I’m really excited. It looks good. It’s funny.

Ben Goodman
Very stoked to see the special!

Ben Sosa-Wright
Yes, stay tuned for that. It’ll be on YouTube for the world to see. Free, i’m a man for the people.

Ben Goodman
You are a man for the people!

Ben Goodman
I hope you enjoy the rest of your Sled, you got another show tonight.

Ben Sosa-Wright
At Vern’s! Which I learned. Not a real guy.

Ben Sosa-Wright
Ben to Ben.

Ben Goodman
We did it. We did it. Awesome.

Spirit Hotel performed during Sled Island on Thursday, June 18th at Palomino (Main Floor) & Saturday, June 20th at BLOX Arts Centre.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Willow (CJSW)
All right, I’m Willow Pflueger with CJSW 90.9 FM from Sled Island 2026. I’m with the band Spirit Hotel. Hello.

Nataanii Cornelius
Hello.

Noah Glover
Hello.

Kaleb Cook
How’s it going?

Colin Merrick
Hello.

Willow (CJSW)
Would you guys all mind introducing yourselves and just your roles in the band?

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, so I am Nataanii Cornelius. I play guitar, I sing, I write a lot of the parts, and then I’m gonna hand this over.

Noah Glover
My name’s Noah Glover, I play the drums.

Kaleb Cook
I’m Kaleb Cook. I play bass guitar.

Colin Merrick
I’m Colin Merrick. I play guitar, and yeah, I play guitar.

Willow (CJSW)
Awesome. And this is Spirit Hotel’s second year playing at Sled Island, right?

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, it is.

Willow (CJSW)
What are you guys looking forward to this year?

Nataanii Cornelius
I mean, honestly, the biggest thing for me personally is just being around, like in Canada, in Calgary, kind of just taking in the culture, walking around, being in some place that does not feel so familiar. Like today, I had a lovely walk downtown and just put my headphones on, and just really like enjoyed how the sun hits different up here. There was, there’s just a lot of magic to the city. It feels familiar, and it feels so different at the same time, like I’m, like, spent time in Seattle, I’ve spent time, and you know, down in the southwest, and there’s things that kind of line up with my experiences, but it’s just so different at the same time. It has a very special magic to it in this city, but as far as like musical acts, very excited to try and catch Black Country, New Road tonight. I think everyone’s going to be fighting over how to get into that, so that’s a really cool one.

Noah Glover
I’m really excited to see Snõõper after they dropped last year, but yeah, kind of same as Nataanii. It was just nice to walk around a new place today. We were here last year, but I feel like we didn’t get to explore as much, so it’s nice to be around a lot more diversity. We don’t get much of that in Missoula.

Kaleb Cook
Yeah, I’m just.. I walked around today a little bit. I took the bus right into Chinatown, and I mean, it just.. it’s blown me away. How much different foods, and I mean, there’s just so many different people here, and it’s just so cool to see everybody in their flow, just moving around, living their lives, and yeah, the river. I took the bus over, and someone, you know, float in the river, and reminds me of Missoula, because we’ve also got a river that cuts right through the middle of it, and yeah, I’m, I’m stoked to see, yeah, this band Etran de L’Aïr, I love psych rock, like Saharan psych rock, and they are, they’re just like, so like powerful and rootsy, and also a little bit psychedelic, and yeah, also Snõõper. Just explore and see everything, and yeah, I’m excited for it all. Here’s Colin.

Colin Merrick
Snõõper. Snõõper’s from Nashville, where I grew up, and I know Blair, and yeah, it’ll be sick to see him. I haven’t gotten to see them live, so I will get into that show or die trying. Black Country, New Road tonight. Also, yeah, and then there’s a, there’s a long list of other artists that we’ll try to catch, but this year I think, like last year, when I was here, when we were here, I caught as much music as I possibly could, and I think this year I’m like chilling out a little bit, and just kind of enjoying taking my time, and yeah, like to echo everyone else, just kind of enjoy the city and explore a little bit more. Today’s our day off, and we’re all just kind of like meandering. Everybody’s been really kind, and yeah. We love, we played the Palomino last night, and a lot of good bands played there with us. It was really sick to be in that environment again. That was like our favorite spot to hang out last year, so.

Willow (CJSW)
Awesome. How long are you guys in Calgary for?

Nataanii Cornelius
So we’re here till Sunday morning, and then we’re taking off back, sadly. It’s, it’s really nice to be here. I mean, like, just the opportunity to get away is like not lost on any of us. We’re all workaholics, so everyone’s just like constantly pushing and pushing and pushing. It’s really hard to get together. Like, maintaining a band in this economy is pretty rough. You know, like, it’s getting harder to keep a band together. It’s not getting easier, and you know, we’re all just artists. We work to make art, you know? Like, we don’t work to work. So, I mean, it’s just, it’s kind of the grind. And so, I mean, being able to step away from that and be able to actually engage with our art, and be around a lot of like really new fun interesting and lovely people because Canadians are stereotypically nice, so it’s yeah, it’s great.

Willow (CJSW)
Is that a true stereotype?

Nataanii Cornelius
I think so. I mean, like a lot nicer than Americans. I mean, like, come on.

Colin Merrick
Yeah, I think, yeah, yes, and also like, like me and Noah are both from the South, and there is like that southern hospitality stereotype. I think that there’s kindness in different ways, and there’s like performative kindness, and then there’s like genuine, like, ‘how are you doing, like what’s going on with you?” And I think that I’ve had like five conversations with strangers over the last 24 hours that like actually wanted to know what was going on with me and how I was doing, which is, which is very different vibe. It’s not just like being nice to look like you’re being nice, but it is like people are genuinely interested in what and what we’re about and what we have to say.

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, we’re super interested in speaking in mass generalization, so absolutely take us for a word, you know.

Kaleb Cook
I feel like there’s just a general slower pace, and like there’s a less rush, less of a rush, and maybe I’m just like in a new place, and kind of like, you know, have like my happy blinders on to like reality, but I mean it just feels like everybody’s moving slower and enjoying themselves more rather than just like blasting around like you know being maniacs.

Noah Glover
I do think I was walking double speed everyone else today. Yeah, I do that in Missoula too, though. I guess

Willow (CJSW)
Maybe Calgary just has a lot of slow walkers, more nice but slow walkers.

Colin Merrick
It’s, it’s different, and also not that different, you know, I mean, like, it’s not as much of a culture shock as I think I don’t know, it’s both going to like a city at all, like even going to like Seattle or Portland from Missoula feels similar.

Willow (CJSW)
I wanted to ask a little bit about Spirit Hotel as a band. How did the project start?

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, so the project started with me, like I’ve written and recorded music solo for quite a while, and I had my first album come out back in, I think 2021 and it was just, it was, it was something where I’d been playing in this other band called Fuuls for a minute, and it was like my main expression, it was very deeply politically charged. It was, it was a very loud and very intense act, and it was really great to have that expression, but I was always dealing with things externally, and then I wanted to be able to start processing things internally as I grew and became an adult, and was like really trying to step into some growth patterns, and really needed an outlet to talk about these stories of my life and what I’ve gone through, and like, whether that be, you know, said in parable, or whether that be, you know, an honest fiction, so to speak, and so, yeah, I mean, it just started with that, and I just started writing and recording and doing certain things, and it’s kind of been on and off. This is the second, like, full band presentation of Spirit Hotel. I had a previous band that was filled with a lot of different friends, and that shortly, that had like a run over like a course of a year, and that ended, and then I had stepped back into Fuuls, and Fuuls took off and was doing a bunch of stuff. That project ended. Then I kind of like just wrote and recorded another record, and I had, I mean, these sweet people were very encouraging, were like, ‘let’s please, please start a band, and let’s please, like, play these arrangements live,’ and because originally I hadn’t planned on performing it in a live setting, I was like, well, you know, I just want to put it out in the world, it’s more so for me than anyone else, and was very encouraged and very supported by our friend Will. By, I mean, I, yeah, I mean, it’s just kind of overwhelming to think about, because I mean, like the amount of support that you know, Noah and Colin and Will, and Nick, like, all gave me was just.. it was very touching, you know. And you know, so. Yeah. And then Caleb is also like one of our near and dear friends, who, like, is also my roommate. Colin’s now also my roommate. So we’re all just like living together, working really hard. But I mean, it’s, it feels like a family band to me in a lot of ways, because it’s like I love to have my people close, and yeah, that’s kind of how it came together. Anyhow.

Willow (CJSW)
That’s awesome. I wanted to ask, where does the name come from? Like, does it come from something?

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, I lived in a haunted apartment.

Colin Merrick
That I actually almost moved into, like a month ago, before I moved in with them. I’m actually not. I paid rent this month, but I have to move in two days when we get home. It’s gonna be a grind, but I almost signed the lease, and Nataanii was like, “Oh, that’s where Spirit started. It’s haunted.”

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, it was kind of rough. Like, I mean, it was a.. it was a beautiful apartment. It’s like 100 years old, or maybe older. And so it was like one of those things where, when I first moved in there, I wrote a lot of those songs in there, and had been in and around, but there was a lot of crazy things that would happen in that apartment that you just would not expect to happen. I could give you examples, you look like you’re begging for examples.

Willow (CJSW)
I would love to hear some examples.

Nataanii Cornelius
So like, okay, I ran like sometimes I’d hear like random knocks on the wall. There was one night, like, where randomly someone like, just like extreme things would just be attracted to that. Like, I’ve got – I had my house broken into multiple times, my car got broken into. There was someone who put up like a weird little battery bomb in the dumpster right outside my house, and it blew up in the middle of the night, while me and my kids were sleeping. Like, my kids would often see this, like, one particular person walk, like, from my bathroom, or, like, peek their head out, and then they’d come back. It was just, it was very weird time. At the same time, it wasn’t all spooky, because there was also a lot of, like, protection, and, like, the plants and the plant life that were around there would really create like a very diverse kind of interaction, because there were also like extreme moments of growth, and like guidance, and I would hear encouragement, and a lot of just different things. So my house began to feel very crowded, and so that’s why it was called the Spirit Hotel, is because like I invited a friend over, they lived with me for a short period of time, when we were just like they needed a place to stay, and I was like, well, yeah, I guess this is kind of just like a spirit hotel, you know? People come and go, I just have to get used to it, like I don’t have any privacy.

Willow (CJSW)
It’s such a cool name, though.

Nataanii Cornelius
Thank you.

Willow (CJSW)
How long did you live in the apartment?

Nataanii Cornelius
In that apartment? Feels like forever, but it was only like two and a half years.

Willow (CJSW)
That’s still pretty long.

Nataanii Cornelius
Long enough. Yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
Where do you get inspirations for your songs?

Nataanii Cornelius
Everything. Life is a life is a diverse, never-ending palette. I mean, you could wander the halls and never run out of any of God’s colours. Like you just, you stumble into like magic in every single moment, and we had this like joke where Colin was telling us, like, when we were driving, they were just like, “Oh, I’ve never been here before,” and then we drive like another ten feet, you’re like, “or here, or here, I’ve never been here either. Actually, no, I think I have. No, never mind, I’ve never been here,” and it’s like, it’s like that kind of feeling of like you move through time, you move through this understanding of your consciousness. You get to these particular points where you have to embrace that you are only in this one breath that you have right now. You’re not in the future, you’re not in the past, you’re singular in this one moment. So everything is beautiful when you start to embrace it that way. You start to see the world as like this never-ending, like fluorescent, just kaleidoscopic presence, and it becomes something so overwhelming and magnificent. I just never run out of any inspiration seeing it that way.

Willow (CJSW)
Wow, that’s a really beautiful way of looking at things.

Nataanii Cornelius
I hope so.

Willow (CJSW)
What does the process of writing songs look like?

Nataanii Cornelius
Gratuitous. It’s gratuitous. I mean, a lot of it has been like from, like, I will sit and write a lot of this stuff myself. Recently, I’ve been trying to make sure that I’m opening it up to being able to collaborate with these fine people, because they’re extremely great, great musicians, and I’ve been very blessed to have worked with so many great musicians, but this project has been mostly just me, at least as far as the writing portion goes, and so, like, in the past it’s been me just slaving away in my bedroom, like into the like late hours in the night, just processing or coming up with spurring sounds and hearing noises in my head. That sounds so weird, but you know, but that’s the artist process, right? It’s a heartbreaking, staggering process of just like engaging in this, in the mud of your own shadow, and that’s been a lot of it, but recently it’s been nice to kind of like spread that out and not have to go so deep into my own process and like spend time like just playing music and feeling each other’s energy, and as we’ve grown in a lot of trust with each other musically, we’re writing some stuff that feels very unique in and of itself, because I mean they’re incredible songwriters and all in their own respect.

Willow (CJSW)
What do you hope listeners take away from your music?

Nataanii Cornelius
Whatever they want. Like again, it’s, it’s all like things are so subjective, right? Like, like I write a song and I’m like, ‘oh man, I feel like I wanted, I was trying to do this crazy thing, like it reminded me of Spirit of the Beehive,’ or like, ‘oh shit, that’s like, this thing is, like, it makes me think of this particular song, or whatever,’ and then I show it to someone else, and they’re like, ‘man, that’s crazy, this is like straight up Smashing Pumpkins,’ I’m like, ‘what!’ And it throws me off, because I’m like, ‘that’s a really cool way of interpreting that, and I can kind of hear what you’re getting at, but I have no idea how you got that,’ and so I mean, like, it’s, it’s really just like you, you give birth to this thing, and that piece of yourself engages on its own with someone else, you don’t want to police your child in having an interaction with someone else, like you just trust that its life is going to go and do its thing right? So it’s like I’m not trying to police how people interact with my art.

Colin Merrick
Recently, we’ve been told that the music is very interesting, beautiful, and very spooky and uncomfortable, which I think it’s Nataanii’s voice, honestly, is what’s the word, enrapturing. It’s very, you know, even if we’re having a weird show or something, like her voice carries us so far, and people are just kind of stuck listening to her voice, because it’s, it’s that beautiful, and it’s that powerful.

Noah Glover
I don’t remember where the question started. I mean, I just hope that people feel, you know, what I feel when I hear Nataanii’s demos for the first time, and what I feel, you know, playing those tunes from from behind the kit, like I, you know, I think I came into this band when, you know, Nataanii mentioned earlier, she made that record without intending to make a live project out of it, and we all heard it, and before a band member, I was just such a fan, and it just pulled me in, in such a way, so I just, I mean, I just hope that people feel the way that I felt when I heard her stuff for the first time.

Kaleb Cook
Yeah, I think, I think you know, whether it be good or bad, hard, or, you know, beautiful, like I just, you know, hope people feel something, like connect with themselves, connect with just the intensity of life, and you know, our, the music is beautiful and hard and really intense, and, and I think that’s just life, and I think connecting to that, and just feeling something is, is, you know, what I hope people experience.

Willow (CJSW)
All great answers. I wanted to ask, because I know you guys only have your music on Bandcamp, and you guys recently took your music off Spotify.

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, it’s tough. What were you gonna ask?

Willow (CJSW)
I was just gonna ask if you wanted to talk a little bit about why you chose to do that.

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, I mean, so I mean, I’m an Indigenous trans woman, right? Like, and we’ve, like, my people, I’m Navajo, I’m also Oneida, and like, where I’m coming from is like I have seen and felt the effects of colonization and genocide my entire life. Cultural, physical, emotional, spiritual, like all of it. It’s been extremely, extremely painful having to grow through all of that. At the same time, my spirit can’t be crushed. Our people can’t be crushed in that way. We have resiliency because of the way that we’re connected to life. And Spotify support of AI and AI military use, and the way that it rolls out with this industrial death machine just absolutely is disgusting to me. I understand that there’s no such thing as, like, ethical consumption within like, you know, within capitalism. Yeah, because I mean, like, really, there’s there’s no real good way to get your music out there right now, in a lot of ways, and I understand that, like, even with kind of like saying, like, okay, we’re taking it this back, it’s like, sure, it might just be a drop in the bucket, but I don’t want to like continue to grease the wheels of this nasty tank that’s running over our world with just, you know, the measly like five cents that I get in streaming, because they barely pay us anyway, you know what I mean? So I just, like, I felt very much that that was something that, even if symbolically, I just don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to have anything to do with Spotify. I hate it. It sucks, they don’t treat us well to begin with, and it’s hard enough to make a living as a musician, you know. And so, I mean, we have our music up on a few different platforms now. I think we have it on Apple Music, not that much better. We have it on YouTube Music, also not much better, but you know, we are trying to get things out there so that people can have availability to it, but I think divesting from Spotify and from these huge monopolies that you know are really only interested in our exploitation is necessary, even if it’s just a symbolic thing, like it’s my, it’s my choice. I just, I hate it, and it’s harder and harder all the time. I feel, I feel the squeeze. I feel the pressure of it, like anytime that someone talks to me, like, “Where’s your, where’s your Spotify link? Where’s this, or whatever, where’s.. you know, like, when are you going to throw it up on here?” And I’m like, “I really don’t want to do that,” you know? And I’m going to resist that for as long as possible, and hopefully that’s forever.

Willow (CJSW)
Hopefully, I think that’s great that you guys are, you know, sticking true to what you believe in. What do you find is the best way to support bands like you guys then?

Nataanii Cornelius
I mean, buying physical media, buying merch, that’s like the I think the biggest way to support any local projects or any touring projects is like buy merch, buy merch, buy merch, buy merch, show up to shows, you know, like buy physical media, just do whatever you can to support. If you, if you like what a band is doing, see if they have, like, you know, a tip jar or something like that, like, find any way to support them, because you can be a patron, like, I mean, that’s that’s a thing, and you can support your favorite bands.

Colin Merrick
You can donate more on Bandcamp, right. So it’s like you can buy a record, like another project that I’m involved with, we’ve received some really generous donations for a free album, right? And I think that there are ways, like if you really want to support a band, you can, and you will find a way to.

Willow (CJSW)
Awesome. And for my last question, I know you guys just released a new single, Bones and All. Do you have any plans right now for future releases?

Nataanii Cornelius
Yes. Yeah, no, we definitely do, and there’s quite a few songs that are like that have been sitting there. I will probably announce that coming more. I think we’ll have like maybe one more single, and then just go into releasing the next record.

Willow (CJSW)
Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for talking with me, I really appreciate it.

Nataanii Cornelius
Yeah, thanks.