Holy Fuck, an electronica band from Toronto, has been storming the music scene since 2004 with its unique pseudo-electronic style and enthralling performances. It's toured with Wolf Parade, received a nomination for Alternative Album of the Year in 2008 by the Juno Awards, and this Dean's Date, members Graham Walsh and Brian Borcherdt will be at Terrace Club with a live DJ set. Street catches up with Walsh on the band's past, present and future.
Q: So how did the band start? How did everyone meet?
A: We all met through mutual friends in the Toronto scene. Brian played in another band that my best friend was in, and before Holy Fuck started, I played guitar with him and a couple of singer-songwriters. I met Matt, our drummer, when I was doing sound at a club and he was playing there with another band. It was all just random musical encounters.
Q: How would you describe your music?
A: That's a difficult question. To me, I guess it's just fun, instrumental, semi-electronic tomfoolery.
Q: What do you mean by semi-electronic?
A: Well, we have a drummer and bass player that come out, and that's the live acoustic part, and Brian and I do the electronic elements. I think it's just an approach, because when you look at typical dance music or other electronic artists, they have certain equipment and ways of producing music live on stage. But for us, our background came from rock, alternative, old rock bands and playing guitar and jamming - stuff like that. When we started doing this project, we were approaching electronic music patterns by using loops and drones and those elements, while using our pop-rock background in songwriting to build songs.
Q: Are your major influences also rock bands?
A: Oh no, our influences are everything really. We listen to tons of different kinds of stuff. I tend to like electronic music and techno. From a performance standpoint, we're used to playing like rock bands, and that's something we developed early as a band.
Q: What is your aim in a live performance?
A: Our goal is to just try and create an intense mood and have fun. I want to put something out there that's going to have an impact and is powerful and awe-inspiring. When it's really working, there's this vibe you can't really describe, and it's just a feeling of confidence and euphoria. There's a fair amount of improvisation as well, so when everything comes together, it's pretty magical.
Q: Is it true that you guys don't rehearse before shows?
A: Well, more or less. People have tried to turn that into a gimmick for us, but it's more because we live so far away from each other and tour so often that we don't necessarily have time to rehearse. It wasn't a conscious decision that we all made. Our early shows were kind of like that, when it was really free-form and we were an entirely improv band.
Q: How will your DJ set next week at Terrace be different than your usual shows?
A: Well, it will just be me and Brian, and we're just going to try to make people dance. We'll be playing some tunes we love. My portion of the set is pretty danceable - I've done some Holy Fuck remixes, and some of the songs are non-Holy Fuck, but have the same spirit.
Q: How did you guys think of the name Holy Fuck?
A: It's a very unexciting story. Brian made it up. I guess the inspiration came about because every Sunday night there's this concert series in Toronto called Wavelength, and it's really cool. There are all these interesting and experimental bands. And we thought it would be hilarious if we had a band called Holy Fuck, just to be able to see it on the weekly flyer when all the other bands always have really weird experimental names.
Q: What are you guys working on now? Do you have plans for the immediate future?
A: We're just wrapping up a new record that's pretty much done, and it looks like it will come out sometime in the spring. We spent the past year or so working on it, and there's a bit of downtime between now and when it will be released, hence the DJ sets. In the next few months or so, we won't be doing too many live shows, but we're gearing up for them when winter's over, and we'll be on the road again with the new record.
Staff writer Lisa Han conducted, condensed and edited the interview.
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