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Residency evil
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Part of the baggage that comes with being in a semi-professional band is the emotional numbness associated with being truly “toured.” This discombobulated state is usually brought on by an imbalance, that of mind-numbing familiarity ironically matched with the lack of solid grounding of being away from home. Kiss’s Gene Simmons has even gone so far at one time as decorating his home exactly like a Holiday Inn so he would always feel as if he was home while on tour. Hollerado, Montrealers originally hailing from Manotick, Ontario, have a cure for the “toured” syndrome—they’ll be calling seven different cities home, playing the same seven clubs for the entire month of February. Every Sunday, they’ll find themselves in Boston, Mondays in New York, Tuesdays in Lacolle, Quebec, Wednesdays in Hamilton, Thursdays in Toronto, Fridays in Ottawa and finally, every Saturday night, in Montreal at Barfly—before repeating the whole thing all over again. “We just really wanted to play this winter,” explains guitarist/singer Menno Versteeg. “Then we started thinking about how bands used to do residencies in the ’60s, like when the Beatles did their Hamburg trip and just became a better band. We started thinking of all the cities we would want to do and miraculously, it worked. Montreal is probably our favourite city of the tour because all of our friends will be there, we really love Barfly and best of all, we’ll be able to watch the hockey game before we play.” Industry hotspots like New York, Boston, Toronto and Montreal are obvious as far as creating a buzz with their decidedly genius “residency” tour idea, but Lacolle, Quebec? “To be honest, we had a hard time filling the Tuesday slot and just found that place on the map. We pulled in to get some gas there once and I just told the bar that we were going to show up every Tuesday for a month to play some music, and they actually agreed. Those might be our unplugged shows of the tour.” Hollerado’s brand of power pop has already garnered them a fair amount of attention, having secured them New York management, the production talents of Me Mom & Morgantaler’s Gus Van Go and Doughboy John Kastner, great slots at industry showcases SXSW, CMJ and NXNE, and even Kids in the Hall alumnus and outspoken Hollerado fan Dave Foley for the starring role in their amazing American Apparel satire video, “Americanarama.” Even with the fever-pitch industry buzz on the band, though, Versteeg is in no rush for a quick grab at the brass ring. “We got an offer to sign to a label and initially we were really excited, but then we thought, we just weren’t ready yet. We’ve only been a band for two years, so when a label finally comes aboard, we need to feel that it’s something we really want to do. It’s our goal to be a band that people really want to see as opposed to somebody telling other people we are a band they really want to see.” WITH GUESTS AT BARFLY ON |
