I caught up with Justis Krar, one of the guitarists from London, Ontario Canada’s Single Mothers, while the band was stopped at a roadside McDonalds somewhere in east Texas. In the midst of their first full U.S. tour, you may already have heard of them from their association with Jeremy Bolm (Touché Amoré) or from all the attention they’ve been gathering from an EP that no one can quite give a genre. They’re playing at Yayo Taco tonight, July 25 with Caravels and Alaska and they promise to give an all-out performance. We talked about where their sound comes from, what it’s like to hit the road, and why they call themselves a “gang.”
You guys are on your first big U.S. tour, right? How has the reception been?
It’s been amazing. This is the first time the band’s ever played in the States, and we just wanted to do as much as we could with it. It’s been a good choice so far. All the shows have been awesome. There are at least a couple kids at every show who know the words, which is pretty amazing. Sometimes that doesn’t even happen in Canada, so to have that here in the States is pretty great.
I have to ask, you guys signed to Secret Voice (Jeremy Bolm’s label) and as a result tend to get lumped in with hardcore bands, but just about everyone who listens to you notes what a distinct sound you have. Where would you say the band fits in that musical landscape?
That’s a good question, that’s something that we’re trying to figure out too. I think just because the band never had a set idea of how we would sound, just kind of wrote songs and (previously) had different members the sound changed up at times. But I think Jeremy just liked the songs, and it just happened to be in that hardcore world. I don’t quite know how we fit, but with all the bands we’ve played with it just kind of fits together.
What would you say are some of the bigger influences that help shape that sound?
We’re all so different. Mike, the guitar player was in a band called Blackbirds, he played drums. Matt played drums in a band called In This Defiance, and those were both like hardcore bands. Evan our bass player has played a lot of folk. I think a lot of people link us to The Hold Steady, lyrically, but I don’t even listen to The Hold Steady. Me personally, I like Hot Snakes and I was just listening to Slayer but it doesn’t necessarily reflect cleanly in how the band sounds, we just try to meld all our influences into one.
You guys had Wild Party that came out in 2010, and the self-titled record that came out last year, do you have any plans for a full-length?
Yeah, we’re actually going to be recording in October, and the plan is to have it out by spring time next year.
Do you guys know who you’ll be recording with?
Well the plan is to record with Joby (Ford) of The Bronx at his studio, which will be great.
I was comparing Wild Party and the self-titled record, and I thought the self-titled record moved in a definitely heavier direction, will we see more of that?
As far as the direction we’re going, we’ve been playing some of the songs live and it kind of varies. I think it continues with that sort of dark tone, but we never really plan (the direction) of the songs. The self-titled just kind of happened, thinking no one outside of London (Ontario) would ever hear it, recording it in two days in our friend’s studio, but there was never that much of an idea beforehand. Actually I’m not sure why it turned out so dark, I mean, I love it, but I really have no idea where the next record is going to go.
Through song content and your reputation as performers, you guys have kind of gotten a reputation for a sort of Bukowski-esque, get drunk, nihilism. Do you think that speaks to the core of Single Mothers?
No, not really. I think people get that idea, but the music we make is more representative of ideals. When we play, we give one hundred percent, mind and body. We give it everything we’ve got because this is everything we have and we want to make the best of it. I think that’s where the live part comes from, just us giving everything we can.
Yeah, you guys get kind of a party band reputation, but it’s very artfully done, in its own way.
Yeah, I think we just need to keep at it. It’s interesting, people’s perception, because we just wrote the songs and recorded them, just decided to go for it.
You mentioned ideals before and there’s a line in “Hell is My Backup Plan” where it essentially says “we’re not a band, we’re a gang.” Do you see yourselves as part of some larger scene or movement, musically or ideologically?
I think it’s actually the opposite. What was meant by saying we’re a gang, is that we’re the only people we have. When we’re on the road and playing music it’s just us five. And the word gang obviously doesn’t refer to like, “gang activity.” It’s more our friends and talking about how before we had a van how we would take four cars everywhere and the group of people that would show up to our early shows and the group of people that would support us. So it comes to be bigger than just us. It doesn’t refer to a specific scene. I mean, we don’t really play with bands that sound like us. It just refers to the attitude we have towards our friendships.
Just to wrap it up, what’s it been like making the rapid transition from playing local shows to now being on this tour and having a national, or in this case international, audience?
It’s interesting, because once we were done with school, we toured part of Canada, couch-surfed, and started writing our record. After that we immediately left for this tour, which is a six-week tour, and we have a couple weeks left. So it’s been kind of surreal because we gave up a lot to pursue this, this is all we really have, so we just kind of want to see where it goes from here.
Interview by Patrick Caddick
Get more Single Mothers on their Facebook page: facebook.com/singlemothersparty
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