EMQ’s With Ivy Gardens
EMQ’s With Ivy Gardens
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Canadian Punk/Doom/Grunge band, Ivy Gardens. Huge thanks to their Keyboard player, Sebastian Hogg, for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
My name is Sebastian Hogg, I play keyboards. Sometimes it’s a distorted 60s Farfisa organ sound, and sometimes a choir of screaming samples. Always pounding a heavy, thudding bass synth with my left hand.
We are Ivy Gardens, a Stoner Rock/Metal band from Niagara, Ontario, Canada. As young musicians we played together for years, and officially formed Ivy Gardens in 2020 with a new focus and mission statement. Huge volume, high energy, and the heaviest possible riffs we could hammer people’s heads with. Over the past few years, we’ve been writing, recording and producing many singles, some creative covers, and an EP, while also touring across Ontario and the east coast of Canada. We’re an independent band with a specific vision for our music, and almost everything we do is driven by a DIY ethos that puts a lot on our shoulders, but allows us to create and present our art exactly how we want it.
How did you come up with your band name?
The name Ivy Gardens is a street name in our hometown, where the band started jamming together when we were young. On that street was the genesis of everything we do, from discovering the music that inspired us, down to burning CDs of our very first recordings.
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
We are based out of Beamsville, a small town right in between Niagara Falls and Hamilton, in Canada. The rock/metal scene between both places is a bit of a strange one. Bands tend to appear as quickly as they disappear, and for a long time, it was very limited on venues willing to put on loud ass shows. In recent times, however, it does seem like a more serious scene is developing, with more and more heavier/louder bands coming out, and more spots or shows to happen.
Hamilton has a lot of cool Metal and Punk bands, while Niagara has a fresh Alternative scene starting to blossom. Being right in the middle, we’re lucky to take part in both.
What is your latest release?
We are releasing our album Goon, on April 19th. It’s a culmination of two years of creative development, getting heavier, more vulgar and sonically belligerent. As of writing this, our feel good hit of the summer ‘Boner’ has been out for a while, and it feels great to finally send this out into the world. It’s always been a huge moment of our live set, and the perfect encapsulation of our heavy, sweaty, sludgey sound.
Who have been your greatest influences?
When we were younger, it was the early “grunge” scene and Seattle bands of the nineties. Gradually, we discovered the bands that inspired them, like The Melvins, Black Flag and the Jesus Lizard. Lots of alternative acts of the time, chiefly early Stoner Metal and Desert Rock like Sleep and Kyuss inform the sound we have today.
What first got you into music?
Each one of us grew up in households listening to Classic Rock, and after becoming friends at a young age, we gravitated to 90s music and much heavier music. We always tried to find the coolest band to show the other, and over time, this motivated us to attempt to be just like these bands we admired.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
John Garcia from Kyuss. Having him doing vocals on a track of ours would be sick. Our music being inspired by Kyuss wouldn’t make it hard for him to fit in.
Additionally, if Neil Young wanted a backing band that’ll work for nothing, he should hit us up. We do a mean Cinnamon Girl.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
Pretty much any of the big European Metal festivals would be sick. Would love to check out a different country as well as play to people who are really appreciative of our genre and our art. One in particular would be the PALP Festival, some of our favourite bands have played it. In America, maybe something like Red Rocks would be neat to be a part of.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
We haven’t been offered gifts from our fans, per se, but some have shared cool artwork they’ve made inspired from songs. It’s also really cool to see when someone learns your music too. So those are our little gifts we get.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
If your uncle is storing old Peavey gear in his garage, let us know and we will buy it all off of him.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Neil Young. Rust in peace, taken too soon. A real pioneer and genuine godfather of Grunge.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I enjoy making music with my buddies and getting to experience things with them through the band. The 3 of us are genuinely best friends, and getting to write music, and then tour and travel to perform the music we write is really cool. And of course, on tour so much happens outside of music, that you can do some very memorable things together as friends.
What do we hate? Not a lot honestly. We tend to have a good time. Occasionally we get writer’s block, or some shows you are more sore for than others. But we usually keep things fun.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
The modern social media landscape is dystopic to say the least. Being a band today is about gaming a social media system that craves a specific kind of short form content and dogmatic adherence to laughable trends. We do our best to use it for the purposes of spreading our music and creating cool content with the aesthetic to visually represent what we do sonically. It’s great for constantly staying in touch with our fans, but the landscape as a whole, and how some bands are forced to interact with it, is genuinely gross.
The devaluation of music on a broader scale, with the advent of streaming, is understandably frustrating for many, but we all grew up with Youtube and iTunes, and it allowed us to discover so much that we wouldn’t be able to otherwise, so we can understand how that particular trend is so cemented in modern listeners habits, despite the disastrous side effect of devaluing recorded music as a whole.
Suffice to say, the music industry is all kinds of f*cked up. But it’s always been that way somehow. There’s a big difference between the real art and creative expression that happens in music scenes, and the business that puts things on the radio and in your Facebook feed.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
“Welcome to Sky Valley” by Kyuss was a pretty important album for us. Very riff oriented but not flashy, lots of focus on groove, weight, and lots of energy and punk attitude. I think you can hear the influence in our upcoming album “Goon”.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
Vinyl gives you a big sleeve and lots of space for visual art to represent the sonic experience. It also forces you into the album experience as it was intended, no skipping around and listening to only bits and pieces. Cassettes are also a very compact and portable physical piece with their own character and charm. Tapes degrade as you play them over and over, and having your music wear down over time lends it an interesting impermanence. CDs give you visual art and packaging, and also high resolution lossless audio in objectively the best quality. Digital gives you all that, minus the physical packaging, for the ultimately efficient digital storage solution.
All of these have their charm and lend something different to the listening experience. Personally, I like the sound of a cassette tape that’s barely holding itself together.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Our last tour in July of 2023, we played our last show at a venue called Warehouse in St.Catharine’s. After being on the road for a month, we were really looking forward to coming back home and doing the final show of the tour at our home-town venue. The place was packed, we played with great bands, and it was one last hurah before finally getting into our own beds at home.
Definitely our best performance as a band. We had 16 shows leading up to it and we were in top form. The audience felt it and matched our energy in every way.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Carpentry, plumbing, electrician, saw dust eater, human vacuum. All of the above?
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Neil Young. Jon Fogerty. Neil Young. Geddy Lee. Perhaps even the folk-rock pioneer and “godfather of grunge” himself, Canadian icon Neil Young.
What’s next for the band?
After we drop our album “Goon” on April 19th, we are following it up with a release show April 20th, then touring the whole month of May. It’s going to be lots of fun doing nearly 20 shows in 30 days, and if you’re interested in what a truly DIY tour looks like, we will be keeping updates of the whole journey across Canada on our social media. After that we will get back into writing and doing more shows again, always trying new things and road testing new material.
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
Youtube is where you can find our music videos/live videos: https://www.youtube.com/@ivygardens420
Instagram we use to interact with people and keep updated on what we are doing: https://www.instagram.com/ivygardensofficial/
Facebook we use for any big announcements: https://www.facebook.com/ivygardensband
Bandcamp is where you can find released material: https://ivygardens.bandcamp.com/
We are also on pretty much every streaming platform as Ivy Gardens. Spotify, Apple Music etc.
Time for a very British question now. As an alternative to the humble sandwich, is the correct name for a round piece of bread common in the UK either a Bap, a Barm (or Barm Cake), a Batch, a Bun a Cob, a Muffin, a Roll or a Tea Cake?
A bun. Kinda thing you’d stick a weiner or a burger in.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Check out our upcoming album “Goon” when it drops on April 19th. Vulgar, belligerent, heavy, sweaty sludge. Designed to be experienced at maximum volume.
Disclaimer: This interview is solely the property of Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
