Look! Over here! It’s a new Band of the Day! Hailing from… well, I’ll let you read on. Welcome The Hazytones to the fold…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are all from Montreal, Canada. Every member in the band is really active in the music scene here and it would be impossible to live anywhere else.
How did you meet?
I, Mick Martel, met Adam Gilbert in the Montreal bar scene, where he hang out a lot! For Victor, we were playing in a project almost 4 years ago and since then we have been jamming a lot together before he joined the band.
How long have you been playing as a band?
The band has started 3 years ago but with the new line up it’s been a little less than a year.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
A band name is always hard to find. We were brainstorming with the “Tones” word and we wanted to have a stoner influence in the name. I proposed “Hazy” and I thought it was perfect.
What are your influences?
What started the Hazytones was bands like Uncle Acid, Kyuss, Black Sabbath; the usual classic stoner influence. But we all listen to a lot of music which helps to create a unique sound. We are big fans of 90s rock (Primus, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden), and also 60s garage.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We have a mission to write music that is original. We don’t want to sound like a classic stoner band, but instead we want to build songs and sounds that you might not have heard before! Our live shows are always packed with surprises, like extra solos and extended intro/outro. We come from a town (Montreal) that has so many bands so we draw a lot of influences from all these bands we saw live during our younger years as musicians. Montreal is a city where everyone is trying to push the songwriter envelope further every time.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
Lyrics in the Hazytones have a simple base. I like to write metaphors with dark theme and real subjects. Our next album that is coming out October 5th has darker themes than the first one. I have to say as the only lyricist in the band I am satisfied with the second album’s lyrics. Since English is not my first language and I see fans across the world relate to my lyrics, I take big pride in that.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
Live shows are just a beam of energy coming at you. We never stand still and with the new line-up we do our best to never have you bored. With the Hazytones, we’ve done 4 massive tour so far; we must have done more than 200 concerts with the band. We can’t stay away from the road for too long and we’re going back on tour in October.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
As funny as it may sound, I find that in the stoner scene the public is sometimes a bit still. It’s not like a hardcore show where everyone does some mosh pitting. I guess our public smokes a lot of weed, but they have a good listening. The craziest thing we saw was probably when we played this punk fest in the south of France. We got there and they were still building the stage. We ended playing at 7am and I personally slept in a dog house. The next day the police raided our car for no reason. Or this one time in Mexicali, Mexico, the public had a surfboard and they were surf crowding with it. Public is awesome in Mexico.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
I play with a Fender full lamp 40 watt head plugged into a 4×12 Orange. It’s the best set up to get a good clean sound with a lot of bass! I play on an Airline guitar 1P by Eastwood, and at least once a night I get asked what kind of guitar it is. Bass player plays with a Musicman and a SVT Ampeg with a 8×10 speaker cabinet, a big beast! We love to sound loud as a three-piece.
What are your plans for 2018?
For now we are releasing our second album October 5th on Ripple Music. At the same time we are going to Europe for 25 shows. Later we will go back to the USA or Canada. We want to book some festivals in America next summer.
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!
I would like to have The Great Electric Quest open for us, we played with them at SMOD FEST in Nebraska and they were awesome! And for the closing band, a guy like Brant Bjork. This would be a killer line-up!
