We’ve got something in the pop punk vein for you today. With their latest album recently released and a lengthy history, they’ve got some good answers for our Band of the Day questions.
How did you meet?
John: Mostly just through playing shows in the local scene. I didn’t know anyone until I started playing shows.
Spasimir: I met Steven at my old band’s first show. I met John through a show as well. We all met Chris when he auditioned to join the band.
Chris: I found these guys from their Green Day medley. A couple months later I saw they were looking for a new guitarist, and I thought “Hey, I too can play all the songs in that medley” and asked to audition, and the rest is YouTube history.
How long have you been playing as a band?
John: Minority 905 has been a band for around 5 years.
Chris: This current lineup is just over 2 years old though.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
John: “Minority” comes from the Green Day song “Minority” and “905” comes from the area code of Mississauga, where I’m from.
What are your influences?
John: My two biggest influences as a songwriter are Billie Joe Armstrong and Taylor Swift. I’m also influenced a lot by Hayley Williams, Alex Gaskarth, and Ryan Key.
Spasimir: As a drummer my biggest influences are Travis Barker, Tre Cool, Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan, Lars Ulrich, Mike Portnoy, Neil Peart and some of the drummers of the big pop-punk bands now like Ryan Torf and Dani Washington
Steven: I love Green Day and Blink-182 as well as their respective bass players that have influenced both my bass playing as well as stage persona. My playing is also influenced by several jazz bass players such as Ray Brown, Paul Chambers and Jaco Pastorius.
Chris: The music from the Sonic the Hedgehog games from the GameCube-era started my interest in punk/punk-ish/rock music. Green Day showed me what being a rock star at its peak looked like. Jonathan Coulton showed me just how much work could go into writing songs before getting a hit.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
John: I think right now our music is in a little bit of a grey area since it’s not really as heavy as a lot of modern pop-punk bands. I think our new material sounds closer to like 2004-2008 pop punk/pop rock music.
Spasimir: Pop punk similar to bands from the early and late 00s with a higher emphasis on catchy vocal hooks and interesting instrumentals. I think what makes us stand out is that we don’t really sound like many of the current pop punk bands. We like to think outside the box and explore sounds that not so typical for pop punk. Another thing I can say is that John, Steven and Chris all have unique voices and can all sing really good, which makes songs in which they all sing together sound very interesting.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
John: Yeah, I like to have a theme for all our albums. For Dangerous Ambitions, a lot of the lyrical themes are centred around the idea of going after your own ambitions regardless of the challenges that you face. Another theme is facing your fears, even small ones because those can have big consequences too. The fear to speak up, for example.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
John: We’ve played so many now that I’ve lost count.
Spasimir: Usually when we have a decent crowd, people are having fun and jumping around. We like to joke around on stage so sometimes you’ll hear one of the band members say a joke or two.
Steven: We try to bring as much energy to our performances as we can, whether we’re playing to 5 people, 500 people, or 5000 people. We try to differ our stage banter from other bands by adding a jokey, friendly feel to the messages we need to get across to the audience.
Chris: Well, there’s occasionally alcohol, there’s four of us on a stage, and the other bands are watching, occasionally with their girlfriends, the sound guy also watches, and the bartender assuming there is alcohol, and people occasionally care about what original songs we play, and really care when we play a cover. Even more occasionally also there will either be a “real punk” there who will try to fight us, or a drunk person who isn’t coherent who also will try to fight us.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
John: We played this one show where every band was supposed to play a cover set of a specific band – we were Fall Out Boy. When it came time for the My Chemical Romance cover band, they played a bunch of songs that weren’t by My Chemical Romance. The crowd was not happy.
Spasimir: At one of our recent shows the owner of the venue got super drunk and kept on going up to everyone and saying funny stuff. He was also falling down a lot. It was fun to watch.
Chris: To clarify, Spas’ mention was my aforementioned “drunk person who isn’t coherent”. But, to add to the “real punk” context. There was once a member of a band that no longer exists who had some internal issues and was intimidated by our success at the time, and tried to fight John, who was a full foot shorter than him, y’know, in order to show how much of an alpha male he was. And also to show that he believed in real punk ideals, like, bullying people smaller than himself. I’m sure he went home that night and enjoyed a long session of 3 inch tug-n-pull by himself. What a great guy!
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / Etc.?
John: I use a Les Paul Junior and a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, nothing too fancy.
Spasimir: Mapex Mars Drum Kit, 14” A-Custom Hi hats, 18” A-Custom Crash, 19” K Custom Hybrid Crash, Sabian Paragon 19” China, Sabian AA Splash and a Sabian 21” Ride.
Steven: Fender US Precision Bass, Ampeg SVT 8×10 Cab and a Yorkville XS800H Head.
Chris: Fender FSR Deluxe Telecaster, Orange Tiny Terror, and a cab that is actually a PA speaker from the 60s made with beryllium, so it sounds neato and vintage in the good ways.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
John: Majority of our content and fans are on our YouTube channel. Also, If you’d like to keep up with us more, you can follow our Instagram if you aren’t already.
Spasimir: The new album of course. Also we have t-shirts for sale on our bigcartel.
Steven: New album! Music! Check out our YouTube channel! Music! Yeah!
Chris: ayo fam if u cud peep our mixtape its str8 fyr B pls chek it out thx <3
What are your plans for the rest of 2018 and into 2019?
John: I guess just try to get as many new listeners as possible and keep releasing new content on our YouTube channel. I hope Dangerous Ambitions can get us a lot of new listeners for our original music.
Steven: Stay the course and keep doing what we’re doing. Also maybe start getting our ideas together for a third record.
If you were second on a three band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
John: I don’t know who I’d choose to open for us but I’d like to open for All Time Low or Paramore.
Spasimir: I’d love to open for Blink-182. For the band opening for us I’d pick one of the bands we did our recent tour with: Poor Judgement or Closer to Zero.
Steven: I’d love to open for Green Day one day, maybe PUP. I’d also love for Taylor Swift to open for us one day.
Chris: Opening for PUP or Paramore sounds pretty great actually. I think we’d do a better job with how we are right now than Foster The People did when we saw Paramore (shots fired). To open for Green Day? That’s a tall order. Green Day is probably the best live band there is, I’d like to say we could do nearly as well, but we need some more time first for sure. Opening for us though? There’s cool local bands that I think are really great who I love sharing the stage with. In no particular order: Closer To Zero, Poor Judgement, The Wet Bandits, all rad bands.
What is the most you have yourselves ever paid for a ticket into a concert and who did you see?
John: I think the most I paid was close to $200 for VIP tickets for Tori Kelly’s concert in Toronto.
Spasimir: Probably around $110 for tickets to see Green Day.
Steven: $120 for Green Day. Worth it every time.
Chris: I don’t remember how much I paid for Paramore pit tickets at the Budweiser, but that was probably the most I’d paid for tickets, somewhere around $100 I think? I saw Green Day in the pit at ACC in 2013 for $50, and got a Ninja Sex Party VIP ticket when they played the Rebel last year for $70, both of those were better money deals at the end of the day, but, y’know, I had fun at all three of those, so money isn’t a determining factor on that.
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