You signed with Royal Mountain Records earlier this year and to you, after 2000 years will be your first release on the label. How did you decide who to sign with?

Owen: We talked to a couple Canadian labels and Royal Mountain had the most interest and was the coolest out of everyone we talked to. Also getting to meet all the people who work there was a really big factor because all of them are the kindest, most genuine people ever. That definitely helped us make the decision. It feels very, very personal and it’s a pretty small team there. It doesn’t feel like we’re just some number on a spreadsheet of some giant corporation which is cool.

Owen Williams, who you worked with on your debut EP Live More Forever, produced and engineered this one and Billy Mannino mixed and mastered it. What was it like working with them?

Max: Pretty awesome. We went into the last EP really new to how this whole recording thing works, so our music was a lot more rough. For the first EP Owen had to do a lot more work just to get our songs listenable, but I think this time we took a lot of his suggestions and writing techniques to make the songs feel more complete. We liked him because he was able to engineer the last one so well, so we were like, “Hey, let’s do that again”. He’s a friend too, which is just a plus.

With Billy, we were thinking about what kind of sound we wanted for this EP. We wanted that more gang vocal-y, alternative adjacent to emo sound like Macseal and Oso Oso and Saturdays At Your Place and all those bands that Billy’s worked with. We were like, “Oh, these are all sick bands! Billy’s done a great job with them”. These new songs that we’re recording sound a little more in line with that whole genre of music, which is the style of emo that I’ve been really loving recently. So we went with Billy. When we reached out, not only did he wanna work with us but he was stoked on the project, which is really nice. It gives me more confidence when a guy like that gets really pumped about what we’re doing.

How would you describe your songwriting process?

Owen: Very collaborative. It’s always been that way. We all live together which I think really helps bring it all together because someone could be playing a guitar riff in their bedroom and then all of a sudden everyone in the house will hear it and come in and be like, “Yo, let’s turn that into a song right now!” That’s really sick. Everyone has a part in everything and we definitely put a pretty big emphasis on, “No idea is a bad idea until it’s tried” and “Just because you’re the bass player doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion about what the drum line is or what the lead guitar part should be”.

Matt: You just don’t get invited to the interview.

[laughter]

Max: He didn’t wake up in time.

Owen: He’s asleep right now. But yeah, it’s always been really collaborative. When we’re jamming through a song we’ve written for the first time, if everyone’s not smiling and jumping around and so stoked and having the best time, it usually means the song sucks and we never play it ever again.

Matt: It’s pretty cutthroat. Your idea is bad because I didn’t smile. [laughs]

Owen: Obviously that’s a little extreme.

Matt: It’s kinda true though.

Owen: Yeah. Everyone being excited about the thing is pretty important to what we’re doing. It’s very democratic.

Do you have a song off of this EP that was the most fun to write?

Matt: The most fun to record in my opinion was the last song on the EP, “bury me on vernon street”, because we did it together in one sitting. That one might’ve been the least fun to write because it was the least collaborative, but it was the most fun to record. The other ones were really fun to write because we were doing it all together.

The third one we recorded in our living room. It was nice. It was a lot more of a chill vibe; we weren’t taking up Owen’s time or anything. We weren’t even sure what we wanted to do with the song. Nick Adams, the sleeping bassist, engineered it all. We tried to do everything as live as possible like guitar and vocals at the same time. We grabbed the bass drum off the drum kit and used that like marching band style and had a tambourine. We were just adding stuff and everybody was standing around the mic and singing. We got my brother over to do trumpet. It was just a really wholesome one to record.

Owen: Yeah, it was awesome. I think to write, maybe “and it feels” for me. I think that was the first time I ever tried tuning a guitar to something other than standard and I was immediately like, “Oh my god, this is the coolest thing in the world!” That was an exciting revelation. [laughs]

On “bury me on vernon street” there’s snippets of talking and laughing throughout the song. What’s the story behind that?

Matt: That’s before and after each take of vocals. We were all talking about having some talking in the background and Nick was like, “Owen, stop making noise and stomping your feet because I need to have voices”. [laughs] I think without us knowing for a little bit he had it recording when we were just chatting and stuff. Owen’s asking to hit Nick’s vape and Owen’s talking about the best Oasis song in his opinion and Nick’s talking about getting his online banking back. It’s just a bunch of random shit that we were chatting about. I guess we were in a good mood because we were laughing a lot, so that’s nice.

What is the best Oasis song?

Matt: “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday”.

Owen: Easily.

What does Vernon Street mean to you?

Owen: Not to dox ourselves, but it’s the street we all live on together. [laughs] This lineup of the band came together two years ago now and that was pretty much right after meeting Matt and Nick - well, I guess I didn’t meet Nick because we’re related so I’ve known him for a very long time.

Matt: Well you met at some point. There was a time. [laughs]

Owen: Yeah. [laughs] But four months after that lineup came together we all moved in on Vernon Street together and have lived here ever since. It holds a pretty special place. It’s the place where we all really forged our true friendship and love for each other and where we’ve written every song. It’s where we practice. We’ve played a bunch of shows in our house here so it’s a pretty special place for the band and our friendships.

Matt: Also I’m a big Mitski fan and so “bury me on vernon street” is like Bury Me at Makeout Creek. That’s a little Mitski reference. For all you superfans out there, if you look at the “Grad Day” music video you’ll see the house number and if you read this interview you’ll get the street name so you can find us.

Owen: Oh no.

[laughter]

Max: Also if you order a record from us, we write it on the front of the record in case anyone needs to ship anything back.

Owen: That’s true.

Matt: If you spend money you’ll find out. [laughs] If you’re broke and you wanna find us, all you have to do is consume all of the media.

Do you still throw house shows?

Owen: No. I think we were kinda done with it.

Matt: Owen and Max don’t like them anymore. Me and Nick always want to.

Max: They’re so stressful.

Owen: We made our whereabouts very, very public. We were having like 300 kids show up at our house and high school kids were starting to come. It was starting to become a bad vibe.

Max: I’m not anti-house show but I’m anti-how crazy the ones we would throw got.

Matt: The last one we had was bad. It was too much.

Max: Yeah, that was two Halloweens ago. It was too much. Too many people.

Matt: One bad egg spoiled the whole batch. [laughs]

Max: Yeah. [laughs] Even something like that at someone else’s house would probably be really fun, but hosting in your own house on top of all the stress of playing a show you’re like, “Oh no, my security deposit!” because the floor is flexing. It adds a layer of stress.

It would be fun to do another one. We’ve definitely talked about doing another one but trying to do it on a smaller scale. For those ones we never had a list or did any ticketing. If we did something smaller, we could bring all of our friends and people who have supported the band and just cap it at a certain amount. We’ve definitely talked about that.

Owen: It’d be sick.

Matt: There’s something not super fun about it. You don’t get to enjoy the house party aspect of the house party because you’re like, “I need to be sober and vigilant and make sure everybody’s ok and make sure nobody’s trashing the house”. So you’re doing that and then you play and you’re kind of exhausted but everyone’s still hanging out and they’re all drunk and you don’t want to drink again. And if you do drink, you wake up the next morning like, “Oh man, I have the worst cleaning to do ever! The house is absolutely fucked”. We gut it too. We put everything in the basement so we move all the furniture. It’s a lot of work. [laughs] But it’s lovely when it’s good.

You’ve mentioned that friendship’s huge for the band and that comes across on the EP too. What helps you keep your friendship strong?

Owen: I don’t know, to be honest. It just kinda works. [laughs]

Matt: Proximity. [laughs] I don’t really know how it works. I guess all of us have siblings. I think that helps a bit because we all have a bit of a sibling vibe. I have three brothers.

Max: I’ve never thought of that.

Matt: I think if you didn’t have siblings, you’d be like, “Man, Max is being mean to me today” but instead it’s that sibling vibe where we’re all kinda mean to each other in a way that’s not actually mean, you know? Except sometimes it’s mean. [laughs]

Max: Sometimes it’s not mean at all and sometimes it’s totally mean.

Matt: Sometimes it’s absolutely sweet like when we recorded “bury me on vernon street”. [laughs]

Owen: I think it’s usually pretty dope.

Max: Most of the time it’s good. Anytime someone’s a bit more on edge or angsty, I think we also understand that. It’s easy to find some space.

Owen: Me and Max have known each other for probably 18 years and I’ve known Nick for 20 years so I think that helps too. I hit Max over the head with a skateboard when we were in second grade and we moved past it. [laughs]

Max: Owen and I already had a sibling relationship going into it so I guess it’s like adding more siblings into the family.

Matt: Even if we’re in an era of, “Oh, it would be so dope to live alone”, you just can’t. The housing prices in Halifax are too expensive so it’s like, “Who else am I gonna live with?” I’m happy to live with these guys! [laughs]

Max: The FOMO would be really bad.

Matt: The FOMO would be bad. Right now I’m like, “That couch looks pretty nice guys, I wish I was there”.

Owen: It’s a good time, this is awesome.

I didn’t think of the sibling dynamic.

Max: We’re a family band.

[laughter]

Owen: Rebrand to the Adams Family Band.

Max: Oh my god. [laughs]

Matt: Use Nick’s name. [laughs]

Owen: It’s Nick’s and it’s half mine so it’s the most popular one in the band. [laughs]

Matt: Or we just make a new last name.

Owen: True.

Max: Customer Service.

Owen: The Customer Service Family Band. What if we call our first LP that? The Customer Service Family Band?

Max: That’d be sick!


 Matt: That’d be pretty cool.

The song names have to all be sibling-themed somehow.

Matt: “I hit my little brother over the head with a skateboard (but we moved past it)”.

Owen: The most Hot Mulligan shit ever.

[laughs]

Your video for “and it feels” references some Sloan videos like “The Good In Everyone” and “500 Up”. Why did you decide to reference these videos in particular?

Owen: The crazy thing is we weren’t thinking about “The Good In Everyone” at all, we were only really thinking about “Underwhelmed” and “500 Up”. Then someone was like, “Oh, it’s like ‘The Good In Everyone’ video!” and we were like, “What?” [laughs]

Matt: We were trying to think of ideas and me and Owen really liked the “Underwhelmed” video. We were like, “What if we recreated a couple of those shots?” That’s how it started. Then we were like, “We’ll go to where we shot the EP cover to shoot the video”. Then Owen was like, “Oh shit, there’s actually a Sloan video where they’re under a bridge and it’s really, really dope!” Hhe just pulled up the video as an example and we watched that like, “This is dope!” We kinda went from there.

Everyone was like, “Oh, ‘The Good In Everyone’!” when they saw it, so we went home and watched it like, “Oh, fuck!” [laughs] Which is cool because they’re like gods to us. We love them and we’re super happy that people draw a through line even if we really enforced it. [laughs] But it is a little crazy. We didn’t mean to do it so blatantly, we meant to do it a little bit blatantly.

Owen: It was supposed to just be like an homage. The guys in the band ended up liking the video so that’s the important thing.

Oh that’s sick! Did they reach out to you?

Owen: Yeah, just through them being from Halifax. Like my parents went to high school with them kinda vibe. They’re friends. My mom makes their website, I think. [laughs] Andrew, the drummer, will send me a text like, “This is cool!”

Max: It’s really cool to have the eyes of one of the dopest bands that’s come out of Halifax.

You’ll be touring the Maritimes starting later this month. What are you looking forward to about these shows?

Owen: I think we’ve been doing that Maritime circuit for two years now. It’s always exciting to go back and after every show see how we’re growing in other places in Canada. That’s always the most exciting thing, like going to Moncton and being like, “Oh, x amount more people are here!” Also to see the guys in Dad Patrol. They are kind of like our bestie band. We’ve played with them a ton.

Matt: I’m stoked to have Dart Trees out to the Maritimes, man! That’s gonna be awesome!

Owen: Seeing all the friends we haven’t seen in a second is definitely what I’m most stoked about. Also, it’s just been a while since we’ve played a show. I think the last time we played was the 28th of December which maybe isn’t that long for a lot of bands, but for us, two months of no shows is kind of a historic dry spell. It’s been a while since we’ve done that. I’ve been freaking out because I haven’t had a show to look forward to at the end of the week. I’m very excited to get back into playing shows.

When I don’t have a show in the near future to look forward to, I’m like, “Why am I going to school? What’s the point? I have nothing to work towards”. I’m excited to get that reward system back in my life like, “If I work hard at school, I get to go play a show this weekend!” [laughs] I’ll go play the show whether I work hard or not, it’s the motivation to get through the week which I’m excited to have back in my life.

Get those good brain chemicals going.

Owen: I’ve been in the “get through the month” mentality for the last two months. It’s been awful.

Matt: I’ve been working on a show where they DNA test dogs and they reveal the DNA test results to the owners. That’s what I’ve been doing this month so it’s been a good distraction. [laughs] DNA testing dogs is a passion of mine.

That has to be one of the song titles on the next album.

Max: This is like a think tank for the next album.

Matt: Yeah, this is a good think tank. We’ll call you in like a month when we’re actually naming some songs.

How would you describe the emo scene in Halifax?

Owen: In Halifax with it being just generally a smaller scene than Toronto, it’s not like there’s a million midwest emo bands here. The Halifax scene is like alternative music, metal, and folk.

Matt: There’s a huge emo scene in Halifax! The Pier Emo scene. They literally have a movement for it. It’s bands like idialedyournumber and Breakfast Time! and Captain Sunshine and Earth Moon Transit. There’s so many right now! They have Pier Emo Showdown and it’s this long-ass show. They’ve had two of them in the last little bit.

Owen: I was getting there! [laughs] I was just saying in general.

Matt: I haven’t heard of an Alternative Showdown. [laughs]

Max: The Pier Emo music is really good. We started playing post-COVID and for some reason when we came into the scene we were only playing on crust punk shows. There wasn’t a developing emo scene at the time. We were probably the only emo band in Halifax that was trying to grow. I don’t know if now I just notice it, but it seems like it’s really exploded this past year. There’s a whole scene that popped out of nowhere of a ton of bands like kids in high school coming together and playing at our local all-ages venue. Pier Emo is what they call it and it’s pretty sick! It’s cool that there are actually emo bands. I go to shows and I’m like, “This is fucking awesome!”

Matt: We just feel left out.

Max: Yeah, we’re old.

Matt: They don’t want us, they’re like, “You’re washed. Go play your pop-punk, old man”. [laughs]

Max: I’m a 22-year-old scene dad.

[laughter]

Which part of to you, after 2000 years are you proudest of?

Owen: I think the song “this is the best night of my life!” is our most musically ambitious song in terms of tempo changes. Some of the rhythms are a little more interesting than what we’ve done in the past. I think musically, that definitely is the most interesting thing we’ve ever done so I’m pretty proud of that.

Matt: I love that song, it’s so good!

Max: I’m pretty proud that we’re not releasing it ourselves and that we’re releasing it with Royal Mountain. That’s one of the coolest parts of this project for me; we actually get to work with an independent Canadian label who we’ve looked up to for a while.

The live ending on “best night of my life!” is really cool!

Max: Oh yeah! [laughs]

Matt: There was this ongoing joke where we were calling “and it feels” “and it feels” and we were like, “That won’t be the name”. It’s funny because the song starts with the line “and it feels”. It’s funny when a song is called what the first lyrics are. “and it feels” was this ongoing joke from way back when we first started playing it. We’d be like, “This next song is called ‘and it feels’! [singing] and it feels…” It was only funny to me and maybe sometimes one of the other guys in the band would find it funny. Then it just became the way we introduced it every time so I was like, “What if we did that on the record too?”

Max: We’ve never played a show without introducing it like that.

Owen: It’s so fucking dope.

Matt: It packages the songs together now. Every time you hear “this is the best night of my life!” you’re gonna want to hear “and it feels”. We’re tricking you! We’re doing it right in front of you and you don’t even know.

It’s incomplete if you don’t listen to both!

Matt: Exactly, package deal. It was originally going to be a double single, we weren’t going to have the acoustic on it. So it’s cool that it packages them together like they were originally going to be.

That makes sense. I’m glad the third one’s on there.

Matt: Me too. It would’ve been hard to do a big rollout and then be like, “It’s less than six minutes! It’s like four minutes long”. Six is already cutting it a little close.

It’s over five so if you round it up, it’s ten.

Max: That’s how Owen works!

Matt: That is how Owen works, unless it’s not in his favour then it goes the other way. [laughs]

Max: Owen’s like, “Oh my god we had 10,000 streams today!” And it’s really like 6,000.

[laughter]

Owen: It’s never that crazy. If we had 650, I’d say we had 700.

Max: No, you’re so bad.

Matt: We had 520 streams today, that’s 10,000. That’s a 10K day.

[laughter]

Max: It’s optimistic is what it is.


Owen: [holds up half-filled water glass] This glass is half-full, not half-empty!

If there was a time capsule that would be opened after 2000 years and you each got to put in one item, what would you put in and why?

Matt: Seems like a good opportunity for a good prank.

[laughter]

Max: I have to think not just for myself but what society would benefit from in 2000 years.

Matt: Something that would be really dope would be a physical copy of to you, after 2000 years because it would be 2000 years later.

Max: That would be really good! You might need to put in a record player too because I don’t know if they’d be able to play that thing in 2000 years.

Owen: Also throw in a generator because they probably don’t have a way to use the record player in the nuclear fallout.

Matt: Yeah, who’s opening this thing?

[laughter]

Max: Our time capsule is just a way to play our record.

Matt: Maybe a bottle of Evian so then they know what real water tastes like.

Owen: What if we put a bunch of water in it and we get really rich because we’re selling all this water?

Max: Put in a picture of an iceberg.

Matt: We’ll put oil in there! We’ll be rich in oil. The world is probably tapped by that point and then we’re like, “We have the last oil and water”.

Max: And pictures of wildlife.

Owen: We could just do a copy of National Geographic.

Matt: Some cicadas that are fossilized. That’d be pretty cool.

Max: If we found something from 2000 years ago, what would we want it to look like?

Owen: I’d wanna find a book…

Max: You wanna find a Bible? [laughs]

Owen: No, a book that says how the pyramids were made. [laughs]

Matt: Imagine it’s the Bible and you open it and all the pages are cut out and there’s a pack of cigarettes sitting in there. What a surprise!

Max: They find this old ancient text and it’s just cigarettes.

Matt: It’s just Marlboros. Smoke up and have some water! There that’s oil, you can do so much with it! I think we’ve got our bases covered.

[laughter]

Matt: It’s a fucking big ass box, it’s like a shipping container.

Max: Where are you gonna hide that for 2000 years?

Matt: Bury it at Vernon Street. [laughs]

Owen: We’ll put it in our backyard.

Max: When someone finds it in 2000 years they’re gonna be like, “Oh my god, this is the best night of my life!” [laughs]

Matt: "and it feels like this is the best night of my life!"

It all comes together. You could put something in amber so it would be like Jurassic Park.

Max: We’ll put Nick in amber. [laughs]

Matt: We’ll put Nick in amber for sure. [laughs]

Owen: The future needs Nick! He’ll be the guy to save the world.

Max: We’ll fossilize Nick. If we get one other thing, it’ll be that.

Matt: I’ll feel bad putting Nick in there.

Max: But it’ll be worth it.

Matt: It’s for posterity.

Max: Little bit of guilt.

Matt: Selfless though.

Just thinking about the future.

Max: It’s not for us.

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

Owen: Our new EP is out now on Royal Mountain, you can pre-order it on their website.

Max: You have to pre-order it.

Owen: I put a bomb in my head that will explode if you don’t pre-order the record.

[laughter]

Max: We will be touring! We will be coming somewhere near you at some point.

Owen: We will be playing everywhere in North America this summer, maybe.