Scream, sigh, simplify

>> Libidinous energy and alcoholic anger fuel
the Hot Springs’ debut album, Volcano

PURELY EMOTIONAL: Hot Springs

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I’m eternally single, so I’ve always got a lot of sexual energy to get out,” says Giselle Webber, singer and guitarist with the Hot Springs. “I guess that’s what happens on stage, but I don’t really know it until afterwards, when we get the reviews on the blogs and that’s pretty much all anybody talks about. Maybe if I get more play, people will stop saying that, but for now, that’s how it’s gonna be.”

Whether or not Webber’s claim that her voice, lyrics and stage presence are sexy by accident, the visceral appeal of the Hot Springs is purely intentional. On their debut LP, Volcano (on iTunes Aug. 21, in stores Sept. 18), Webber and her bandmates Rémy Nadeau-Aubin (guitar), Anne Gauthier (drums) and Fred Sauvé (bass) organize their schizophrenic rock energy into short, sharp pop sing-alongs, trudging rockers inspired by Black Sabbath and softer tunes that could almost qualify as ballads, a tendency prompted by Nick Diamonds (of Islands, and formerly of the Unicorns), who personally challenged Webber to stop screaming and make pretty music for a change.

Her vocal style with the Hot Springs isn’t exactly a scream, though there’s a banshee quality that can be traced back to her days with heavily politicized hardcore bands in Toronto and Montreal. The Halifax-born singer got her start in punk at the age of 13, but eventually got tired of scene politics, singing about “social justice” and collaborating with her ex—Malajube singer Julien Mineau, to whom she was engaged, was a member of Webber’s last punk band, Eksniilo, an experience that taught her never to get involved with fellow musicians that she might want to collaborate with (though sound engineers are fair game, she says). And yet, on the lyrical front, the Hot Springs was born of a desire to delve into the personal, and leave the political behind.

“I developed an approach that was based on pure emotion, really, really exploring all the highs and lows,” she says. “It was a way to actually address my personal life in some sorta sneaky metaphorical way.”

The bitch is back

Not long after Hot Springs hit the Montreal scene in 2005, with a sweet, serrated five-song EP called Rock Partouze (“rock orgy”), Webber branched out with a solo project, Giselle Numba One, a hip hop act that allowed her to revisit the spirit of her militant punk past, if not the sound.

“I need to rant,” she explains. “It’s a great outlet for me ’cause I’m a bitchy person, I’m politicized, I’m a feminist. I don’t want to ever be described as sexy in Giselle Numba One, I don’t wanna be that girl. I wanna be the angry feminist rapper that everyone’s afraid to hit on. Once you decide that you’re gonna be a bitch, it’s wonderful ’cause it’s no-holds barred.”

Giselle Numba One was Webber’s public face for 2006, playing loads of local shows alongside the likes of Kid Sister, Socalled, Thunderheist, Think About Life and You Say Party We Say Die. She has an album’s worth of Numba One material ready to go, but it’s on the backburner to make way for the Hot Springs’ Volcano, recorded one year ago at Montreal’s Breakglass Studios with Mirror writer Jonathan “Johnson” Cummins.

“Apparently, he said it was the worst summer of his life,” says Webber, clearing up the cryptic comment on the Hot Springs MySpace page about Cummins spitting ashes every time he hears her name. “He’s always produced bands where everything that he says goes, and I’ve never worked with a producer before. I’d often drink a lot while we were recording, so sometimes I’d get completely exhausted, or I would freak out and have temper tantrums and lie on the ground in the middle of the studio and never get up again. But I think we made a great pair, actually. I’d do it with him again.”

Volcano has been a long time coming, partly because the band was unsatisfied with the first mix, as was one of their prospective labels, and because contract negotiations were so complex. After a second mix was wrapped, the band was ready to sign with a Toronto indie outfit when the deal suddenly went sour. A whole heap of wrangling ensued and finally the Hot Springs created Quire, their own imprint on Aquarius/DKD, which makes them labelmates with the likes of Sum 41.

Webber describes herself, prior to signing what is essentially a major label deal, as a naïve artist, “a pure, virginal chanteuse” singing her tunes aloud to the tumbleweed in the deserted streets of Griffintown.

“Then, to be faced with these millionaire record executives with white hair and bright red faces arguing about it, I got kind of jaded. The songwriter isn’t supposed to be there, but if we were gonna sign to a big scary label, I didn’t want to be in the dark about what was going on.”

Rock and pole

With recording and business out of the way, the Hot Springs have touring to look forward to, and they’re still revelling in the novelty of the road. Webber reports that their regional tours have felt more like family trips than anything she experienced with otherwise-all-male bands in the past—Hot Springs have the same gender balance as her siblings (her parents spawned two girls and two boys), and they tend to make time for picnics and hikes on their days off.

Another fun aspect of touring, and one that benefits their career more than mingling with wildlife and admiring trees, has been honing their rock ’n’ roll performance. Nowhere have they made more headway than New York City, where crowds are known to utterly ignore precocious indie acts with no stage presence. Webber says that they’ve played harder shows elsewhere—a gig in Branford, Ontario made her cry, and it wasn’t the poor turn-out that triggered tears, but the fact that the town was so depressed—but the Big Apple has taught her invaluable lessons about, among other things, between-song banter: simplify the sentiment, cut to the chase and don’t be afraid to flirt with rock ’n’ roll clichés.

“‘Pink Money’ is a lesbian rock anthem, and I used to be like [in earnest tones] ‘This song’s for all the women who,’ and I’d describe it in a couple of sentences. Now I just go, ‘That song was about vaginas’ and everyone’s like ‘YEAHHH!!!’ Sometimes you have to lower the bar a little, but if you do it with a lot of balls, you’ll get people’s attention.”

Webber’s pick for the best Hot Springs show to date is a one-off gig they played just two weeks ago in Brooklyn. The crowd went wild, but the band can’t take all the credit.

“In Montreal, it’s really rare that you see an escort at a rock show, but [this woman] was definitely an escort—I mean, she had transparent high heels on. Anyway, I was so stoked when I spotted her, I pulled her up on stage by the shirt and she started dancing like straight out of a Van Halen video, and I was the pole. It was terribly tacky and I was really embarrassed when I realized that it looked like I was in the Van Halen video too. But it was awesome in a way, and at the end of the night, she said to me, ‘You know, I’m a hustler and those guys, they were trying to give me money to get you to show them your nipples, but I said, “I heard this girl sing, she’s a strong woman, she’s not gonna let you see her nipples!”’ I guess that’s the way sex workers tell you they like your band. That was the ultimate compliment.”

With Webber in a rock ’n’ roll frame of mind, there’s bound to be plenty more where that came from. Though she tends not to make long-term plans, she foresees the band forever moving in schizophrenic directions, with Giselle Numba One providing occasional hip hop vacations. And at this rate, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if she produced a third project, unless it was, say, a record of true-blue ballads, or music for kids.

“I’m way too ADD to stay in any one place for too long,” she says, “but I always write out of spite or anger or sadness, never anything positive. For some reason, it’s just more fun.”

CJLO pre-AM Extravaganza with Cities in
Dust and Uncut at la Sala Rossa on Friday,
Aug. 17, p.m., $10, $15 for all three CJLO
shows (info: cjlo.com)

CD launch with Miracle Fortress and
Elfin Saddle at le National on Friday,
Sept. 28, 9 p.m., $12