Hot Panda

Montreal’s not the only place good music emerges from in the Great White North. Allow me to introduce you to Hot Panda, an indie rock outfit that turns on a dime from syrupy-sweet chants and choruses to wildly chaotic screams and swirls. And no matter the musical mood, Hot Panda is entirely enjoyable.

We recently sat down with guitarist Chris Connelly to introduce you, lovely reader, to the band’s music and personality as well as to get the lowdown on the Edmonton music scene and how they ended up alongside artists like Neko Case and The New Pornographers on Mint Records.

SSv: I know you guys are from Edmonton and I wondered about the music scene there. So much is made about Montreal and other places, but you never hear about that.

Chris Connelly: Well, it’s a lot smaller obviously. [Laughs] It is a lot tighter than in other cities, perhaps because of how small it is. I don’t know if you know much about Edmonton or even Alberta, but it’s kind of the Texas of Canada. The government will always be conservative, there’s a lot of oil and so it’s that kind of thing. So if you’re an artist or somebody who doesn’t fit in that box, you really have to rally together. That makes for an interesting scene, or at least a tighter scene. Bands who don’t sound anything like each other will be close just because they are bands.

SSv: So where do you fit into that scene? Do you define a sound coming out of that?

Chris: [Laughs] Not really. I don’t think there’s a band that we identify ourselves with that much. There are bands that we’re similar to maybe, but nothing out of Edmonton. We don’t sound like anything around here right now.

SSv: What’s the story behind the new album and Mint Records?

Chris: We’ve been with Mint Records since last April and we recorded last February. We had an EP before that and they were interested from that. Some other labels were interested as well. But we went and had the full-length done and we really just wanted it to come out in the right way – not just to self-release it. It’s cool like that, but we wanted real distribution all over the place.

When we met with Mint, they seemed to have their head on their shoulders more than any other label in Canada. Plus they’ve also been around since 1991, so it shows that they’re lifers about the whole thing. They’re not just people who are starting an independent label now who are only doing it for a few years and then decide that it’s not profitable and they want to do something else with their life. They are committed to doing this and they made that impression on us. So those are good people to get in bed with because they’re dedicated.

The record has just been sitting essentially for a year since we recorded, because we have to find a way to fit it into their release schedule they already had planned out. So it’s weird to sit on a record that you’ve recorded over a year ago because you’ve already written so many new songs. It feels like you’re getting ahead of yourself before this one even came out yet. You feel you’re moving on in other directions, yet you can never fully move on because you need to stay invested in it. [Laughs]

SSv: How do you stay invested?

Chris: I think you stay interested because the curiosity is still there for what other people will think of it. Not too many people have heard the record, so there’s a certain wonder or curiosity about that. It hasn’t come out yet, so you’re invested and interested in what will happen once it’s out there.

SSv: The music you’re making now, is it quite different than what is on the album?

Chris: Maybe. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. We’ve never really sat down and talked about what we should sound like or things like that, such as ‘we should be a Sonic Youth band’ or ‘we should be really poppy.’ We just hang around and write music and we see what happens. When we were recording the album, one thing we were uneasy about was that we didn’t know what people would think of it. In my mind, none of the songs sound that much alike. So I can’t really tell what we’re doing now or how it fits with the album. It’s just about coming up with the best songs that we can at the time.

Also, we like throwing curveballs. If we’re working on a song and we’re stuck on it, someone will pitch an idea like ‘let’s throw an opera solo into it’ and we’re like ‘sure, let’s try it.’ We like the oddball idea and at least giving it a try to see if it will work.

SSv: I wondered what it’s like as a new band right now – it seems like it could be a great time to come out with a debut and yet a horrible time. Just wondering how you view things?

Chris: There’s a lot of stuff out there. There are two sides to it. It’s a tough time because there’s just so many bands out there and touring is harder than it was before. Gas is more expensive and those types of things. But I also think it’s a great time to be a band. It’s easier than ever to forge your own way. There’s less of a way to have to go about doing things. Now, you can just play around the city you’re from and build a name there. Then you just work your way out.

There are a lot of bands now that I’ll go to see and lots of people will be at the show but they will never have had a song on the radio or never will have read about them in a magazine. Yet they can draw 1,000 people when they play a show. So it’s more exciting to be a band now because it’s so uncharted. It’s a very different time for music.

SSv: You guys lived overseas for a while?

Chris: Yeah, Maghan [Campbell] and I lived there for six months in Oslo.

SSv: Why Oslo?

Chris: Maghan got into school there and at the time, we were dating, so I went there, too. [Laughs] It was a pretty awesome experience.

SSv: Did that time overseas influence the music at all?

Chris: I think it made me want to really make music. I’ve always liked music, but going over there, it’s such a good community there. We just fell into it nicely. There are a lot of great bands there. You just go out and see a band you’ve never heard of and you think, ‘Wow, that was fantastic.’ There are great grant programs in Norway, so it’s easier to be an artist and you’re even encouraged to do that financially by the government. That’s such a great seed there and it made us come back and want to really try to start a band, not just fuck around in a garage.

SSv: How hard is it to find people like that? Because you mentioned you chose a label for basically the same reasons – that you knew they were dedicated.

Chris: Yeah, it sounds good to be in a band and everyone wants to do it. But once you really get into it, it’s not that glamorous. It’s really tough. We actually have someone who was in the band originally who is not anymore and it’s for that very reason. He liked our music and thought he wanted to be in a band. But once it came to touring and having to be away from home all the time, he just wasn’t up for it anymore. He couldn’t commit to doing it all the time because he was one of those guys who likes to be at home.

SSv: You guys are heading to South by Southwest. You have expectations for that?

Chris: Yeah we’ve never been before or even to Texas before, so we’re excited to go. You always hear from other bands about it being the craziest of music festivals. I imagine there’s great barbecue and Mexican food there. Plus it will be in March and we get away from Edmonton.

SSv: From one Texas to another.

Chris: Yeah, but even the Texas of Canada is still Canada. So we’re excited to get out. [Laughs]

SSv: You hear those stories of the right person seeing the right new band at the right venue at South by Southwest…

Chris: Yeah, but we also want to be realistic about it. We just want to treat it like it’s another show. It’s just the show that we’re playing in Austin on that tour. I’m not wanting to put too much weight in being discovered at South by Southwest. If it happens, then that’s great. But it’s just essentially just a good show to have in Austin.