It’s hard to not fall in love with a band that describes their sound as “reverb-soaked vampires riding an acid wave.” The Zone @ 91-3’s May Band of the Month, Teenage Violets, brings a much-needed dose of rockabilly and psychedelic surf rock sensibilities to the local airwaves.
In the midst of their weekly rehearsal, Tyson Elder caught up with the band for a cup of coffee and to chat everything Teenage Violets.
Tyson Elder: Let’s get this out of the way. None of you are teenagers or flowers?
Dane Loucks: No, none of us are teenagers or flowers.
TE: Congratulations on being May’s Band of the Month.
Teenage Violets: Thank you!
Dane: It’s an honour.
TE: It’s not often a psych rock band makes it on to the Zone, and it’s been pretty cool to hear on the radio.
Dane: Are we a psych band?
TE: I’d say so… with some garage rock mixed in.
Garret: We are definitely a rock and roll psych band.
Dane: I was never sure if we could call ourselves a psych band. Thank you.
Dane: I just noticed that we have similar tattoos on our right biceps.
TE: The Rolling Stones tongue?
Dane: Ah, mine is just a garbage tongue.
TE: I got it for my grandpa.
Dane: Really?
TE: Yeah, my grandpa took me to my first concert… The Stones.
Dane: Nice!
TE: The Rolling Stones are my grandpa’s favourite band. He’s seen them dozens of times. It was his dream to take his kids to see The Stones, and then his grandkids, and now his great-grandkids.
Dane: Oh my gosh.
TE: We bought tickets in Seattle that got postponed due to Mick’s heart surgery. Whenever that happens there will be four generations at that concert.
TE: I could happily talk about tattoos more if you want, but let’s get back to talking about Teenage Violets.
TE: I know that you are all have different bands and music projects. Chris, you are in Bonehoof and with Sarah Osborne, Don and Garret are both in Scars and Scarves, Dane has solo projects and ThePurrverts.
Dane: I play mostly in bands. My solo stuff isn’t really a thing these days. I play bass in a doom band called Buzzard, and I’m also in a punk band called Start With The Cobra.
TE: What brought the four of you together to start Teenage Violets?
Garret: Don and I played together…
Don Chessa: and we thought about getting a band together.
Dane: Don and I played together at the Canada Day benefit for Indigeous people at the Copper Owl.
Don: That’s right!
Dane: Chris and I also played together at Logan’s at the Hootenanny, and he mentioned, “if you want to start a band, hit me up.” HMU. I think that’s what the kids say these days. Eventually, ThePurrverts weren’t going anymore and I decided to start the band. I contacted Chris and Don and they were both in immediately. Vince Vaccaro was actually our original drummer.
TE: Crazy.
Dane: He jammed with us once, but that didn’t work out. That’s when Don mentioned it to Garret and with some convincing he joined us.
Garret: Don was like, “you should just come jam with us. I think you’ll really like it.” I wasn’t playing drums with anybody at the time after my other band, Golden Hands finished. I wanted something more structured.
Chris Lloyd: For me it happened at the right time. Bonehoof as a band was starting to slow down and not doing much so I was looking for something new.
TE: That’s an interesting way that everything weaved together there. Lots of things coming to an end at the same time to bring you all together.
Dane: We can really just thank my mom for starting this band. She’s been nagging me for years to play this kind of music.
TE: Thanks, Dane’s mom.
[Group laughs]
TE: Let’s talk about winning Victory to Vinyl last year out at Darcy’s Westshore. How was that experience? I’ve never been to one of those Victory to Vinyl competitions. How many shows did you have to play to make it to the finals? Is it just the one and then the finals?
Dane: It’s just the one and then the finals.
TE: Are there stipulations to winning? Do you have to make a record with the prize money?
Dane: We did make a record with that money.
Don: That’s what they’re playing on the radio now.
Dane: It was a weird thing, it was the closest bar to my house. I told my girlfriend I was going to get a lifetime ban from there. It had nothing to do with the staff or the bar itself, but the patrons always had something to say about my Hawaiian shirts, moustache, or strangely about being tanned. Then I saw this competition was coming up, and entered the band.
Chris: We had no expectations of winning…
Dane: And then we won the first week and thought “this is weird.” Then we won the finals.
Garret: It was really fun, actually.
Dane: Chris couldn’t play the final show so we had a guy named Tolan McNeil fill in. Do you know him? He was in bands back in the ’80s. He was in a band with Mission of Christ. He’s a big metal and punk rocker guy. He’s moonlighted in Pink Mountaintops and other bands like that. Tolan’s been in bands with Steve McBean from Black Mountain.
Garret: Tolan has been around a long time, and he’s a great guitar player so he picked up our songs pretty quick.
TE: Dane, you got to judge the follow up Victory to Vinyl contest.
Dane: Yeah, I was a judge for band version this year. They had me judging on the first week, and it was great. Those kids that actually won this round really deserved it. They packed the house for starters, they were fun as hell, they looked like they were 12 years old, and they looked like they were having the best time of their life.
TE: You guys are playing Psych & Soul coming up at The Roxy on the Friday night.
Dane: My grandma is coming to the show.
Garret: I’m going to get my mom to come too.
Dane: Actually, come to think of it, the last time my grandma saw me play was at The Roxy. I was in that Hearse’s Kitchen Party play as Dream Sequence Elvis. That’s why I shaved my moustache off.
TE: Mike and Matt from Vinyl Envy do so much for the music community in this town. It’s things like seeing that psychedelic rock and soul was under represented in Victoria, and decided to create this mini festival out of it. Now this is their second annual and moved to bigger and better venues.
Garret: It’s a big deal, and it was run really well last year.
Don: It was so organized. They had great staff and a great sound person.
Dane: Mike and Matt are just two of the nicest dudes out there.
Garret: It’s going to be interesting to play that stage. I used to live in Victoria in the ’80s and I remember going to see movies there. I think the last movie I saw there was The Gods Must Be Crazy: Part 2.
Dane: Was that the one where all the animals eat the people? No, I’m thinking of Food of the Gods. It’s like a 1960s weird horror flick.
Garret: No, this was definitely a comedy. I think it’s South African or Australian, and it’s not good. If you showed it today people would say it’s so racist.
Don: What was that punk rock documentary they showed there recently? They had all the bands play after the screening.
Garret: Decline of a Western Civilization?
Don: No, it’s called Somewhere To Go. It was made by a woman from UVic about the history of punk in Victoria. It was really cool.
Garret: That’d be a great documentary to watch; Victoria’s got a serious punk scene.
TE: Thanks for sitting down with me guys. I’m looking forward to hearing you all month on The Zone @ 91-3. I’ll let you go back to your jam.
Teenage Violets: Anytime! Thanks for coming down.
Teenage Violets’ single Your Dress featured for the entirety of May, and you can download two more songs at The Zone @ 91-3. Rocktographers is proud to be a supporting sponsor of The Zone’s Band of the Month program.
Make sure to catch Teenage Violets live at one of their upcoming shows this summer, including their appearance at Vinyl Envy’s Psych & Soul on Friday, May 10th, 2019 at The Roxy Theatre. The band is also opening for Matchstick Skeletons in June at Lucky, and at Logan’s Pub opening for Bob Log III on July 4th, 2019.