#my photo editing capabilities are almost zero LOL

[keicordelle]

I did know, when I picked Keshet's name, that it means rainbow in Hebrew. That's not why I picked it, but it does suit him quite well! Happy pride from a gay lizard ♡

[iameverything]

A Conversation: Monowhales

“Fuelled by a passionate desire to create a sound as unapologetic and powerful as the personalities within the band, MONOWHALES have taken the experiences gained fighting their way up the ranks of Toronto's music scene“

First off, you guys just released your newest single RWLYD (Really Wanna Let You Down) and I must say, it is so damn good. If your fans could take any message from the new single, what would you want it be?  Thanks so much! We usually like to leave our music up to interpretation but if there was one message I'd want people to walk away with, it's the idea that sometimes it's ok to put your foot down and say no, even if it means you don't live up to the expectations people might have for you.

As we live in a more conscious society and with social being a huge factor in peoples day to day life, were you guys surprised to find there were still individuals in music scene trying to control lives and appearances? I think no matter what you do for work or what social group you surround yourself with there is always some expectation to look or behave a certain way, for better or for worse. When you're a new band, everyone has an opinion, and you need to do your own work to see what input is valuable and what isn't. Not to mention the fact that as artists we are ALWAYS second guessing ourselves. Anyone who makes art can relate to this experience - one minute you're in love with your work and the next you can't stand it - it's a feeling borne of the ambitious self-editing any good artist has to do to reach their full potential. At a certain point if you want to remain sane you need to practice a bit of self-acceptance, and that's where the song comes in. It's all about drawing that line and deciding that all the work you've done up until a certain point is good, valuable, and worthy of love, even if it doesn't live up to the high hopes you might've had for it.

What sort of suggestions have you gotten to ‘change it up’? Maybe it's a Canadian thing but people don't usually just walk up and tell you what they're thinking. You experience the pressures to change as you see others access things you wanted, or when you put something out there and don't get the response you were hoping for. Like I said, a lot of the expectations we're talking about are internal.

While we are on the topic of the newest single, you guys first blew up the radio station with another single, one of my favourite jams 'Take It Back', and ‘RWLYD’ doesn't quite have as heavy tone to it as Take It Back, should the fans expect to hear more tunes like it going forward?  You're totally right that RWLYD is a bit different than the songs we've put out in the past. I guess you could say it's a distant cousin of "Real Love", since they both have that swaggering, stomping vibe. We have a pretty good sense of our sound these days but we still try to keep ourselves open to whatever comes our way artistically. The other songs on our upcoming record run the gamut of the genre, which keeps things interesting for us. We've been testing out a lot of the new material at our live shows this summer so if you make it to one of the dates on our upcoming tour you'll be able to catch a glimpse of what we've been working on!

The first time I was introduced to Monowhales, I was doing photography at the ROM for my good friend DJ Sanga, when he told me a band called 'MONOWHALES' were playing that night. I went in with zero expectations and you guys come out swinging and you came out showing exactly why people should take notice and I find that incredible. It was a bit ago of course but how did that night go for Monowhales from your perspective?No way! I remember that show very well - I was going through a really difficult time during that period, as were the other members of the band to varying degrees. Thankfully we had a show that night though, because I feel the most at peace when I'm on stage, fully locked into the energy and just playing music. It doesn't matter where I am or how many people are in the audience, there's no greater feeling in the world. That period of time was a struggle for us, and funny enough we wrote RWLYD just a couple of weeks later before we hit the road to support the release of "Control Freak". Since then we've collectively spent the last year working on our mental and physical health and we feel better than we ever have!

 One of the things I truly admire and makes me want to continue to interview bands and showcase musicians, is when those bands walk on stage, rock out, raise some hell and leave, and that is what I got from my first interpretations of your guys stage presence. Do you think that kind of rock and roll and the will to show that kind of stage presence is a dying out thing? or very much alive? I don't think it's going anywhere, but I have noticed changes in trends when it comes to what people want to see from the artists they listen to. When it comes to rock music, I personally feel it's hard NOT to leave everything on the stage and really bleed for your fans. It's all part of the experience and honestly just makes the whole thing so much more fun! That being said, I think there are a lot of bands out there whose music and overall vibe is more chilled out and nonchalant and if that's the experience they're bringing to the table and that's what their fans are showing up to see I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Performing is all about embodying the music the best way you can.

As I mentioned, one of my favourite songs from MW is 'Take It Back'. Could you go back in time when you wrote it and break down what it meant to you at the time and if you were glad that was the first hit song to showcase your music capabilities? We wrote "Take It Back" during the summer of 2017. It was a really exciting time because after a year or two of flying under the radar we were getting ready to really push things forward for the band and try to make an impact on the scene. When we were thinking about what song we should release, "Take It Back" stood out immediately. It was all written over a guitar riff Zach had come up with months before but it took a long time before we felt we had all the parts working together the way we wanted to. It's always fun to write relationship songs in this band, mostly because of the fact that we all write lyrics so the songs end up taking on bits and pieces of each of our life experiences. In the end we've created a brand new story that's totally relatable but not completely autobiographical. I think that's what allows other people to connect to it so well. We're all so happy with how all that stuff went down and wouldn't change a thing about it!

I hope those 'Take It Back' cover art donuts were quickly ingested??! We took that picture at the very end of a 16 hour music video shoot so needless to say we absolutely destroyed them.

I really enjoy the colors and the look used for the new Monowhales tour promo shots of Sally playing on the monkey bars, what inspired that whole theme? All of the concepts for our photos and videos come from within the band. Sally almost always has a vision for what she wants our album art or music videos to look like, sometimes while the songs are still being written. We're lucky to live in a city where we are surrounded by amazing artists that we've had the opportunity to collaborate with to create the images that people associate with MONOWHALES. In this case, Sally worked with Michelle Gerovac (@michelle_liane) to craft the perfect photo for the RWLYD track art.

Speaking of the tour, what can people expect from those shows? And more importantly, will there be a North Amercan wide tour coming?  They can expect brand new songs no one has ever heard before along with a bunch of our favorites from "Control Freak", along with the high-energy, head-banging, neck-breaking intensity we bring to each and every one of our live shows. We're working on booking up a little run in the USA next year and hopefully a quick stop over in Europe as well, but everything is still tentative at the moment so stay tuned...

What sort of things inspire you guys these days to create the music that you do? Since the beginning we've always pulled a lot of inspiration from our life experiences to create our music and most recently it's come from the decision to quit our jobs and focus solely on the band. We're in it 100% so it makes sense that we've been writing songs with titles like "All Or Nothing". Watch out for that one at our upcoming shows!

Rapid fire If you were not called Monowhales what else would you want to be called?Honestly almost anything would be better than MONOWHALES at this point lol. Favorite venue to play in? We've always had a soft spot for The Horseshoe. Favorite current underrated artist/band? I'm not sure if they qualify as underrated but personally I'm a huge fan of Basement Revolver right now. Favorite current song that isn't your own? Young the Giant - "Superposition" Who is Monowhales?  Sally Shaar - Vocals Zach Zanardo - Guitar Holly Jamieson - Synths Jordan Circosta - Drums