An interview with Night of Kites

Montreal-based Night of Kites is a band to keep an eye on (http://www.myspace.com/nightofkites). They combine a banjo, a loop-peddle, and hip hop beats with dark lyrics and layered vocals and their shows leave you wanting more. Comprised of the former Bikeride and Fragile Feet, Night of Kites has performed at local venues like the Cagibi, the Green Room, and L’Absinthe, as well as at this year’s Duckstock. Newly formed, they are planning to put out their first EP in the fall. I recently met up with band-members Anna Binta Diallo, Tyler Fitzmaurice, Jessica Slipp, and Sam Haythornthwaite at their rented-studio on Bernard and caught the end of a jam session. I sat down with them in the alley-way afterwards and, over some beers and cigarettes, asked them about their sound, their band dynamics, and their perspective on the Montreal music scene.

JD: So, you guys are a relatively new band, formed from two different groups. How did that happen?
Jess: We got together as two different groups that were going to play two separate sets and then as we were trying to figure out our individual sets we realized that we both needed more help from someone else.
Tyler: It took fifteen minutes of jamming to realize that we should be a band.

JD: How did you decide on the band name?
Sam: We both really liked our own band names so we wanted to come up with something new that nobody had any claim to.
Tyler: And I fly a lot of kites. I have a kite that I fly all the time and it’s a two handle trick kite and I pull really sweet tricks on it.
Sam: He does.
Tyler: So we thought we’d throw that in there somehow.
Anna: We had to go through a lot of names just to agree on one. So, then “kites” came up and we added “night of” and then we just all liked it and that was enough.
Tyler: I think it really came to fruition when they saw me do a triple loop on my kite. [laughter] I think that was the clincher. It was the best back flip I had ever done on that kite.
Sam: You remember we were considering Northwind, or Zebras.
Jess: Yeah, Zebras was close.
Sam: But no one really knew anything about zebras.
Jess: In all honesty, when you think about it, our name, Night of Kites, really describes who we are as people; we are the kind of people who would fly kites at night.
Anna: We’re a nocturnal band.

JD: What does it feel like playing on stage together?
Anna: Well as a relatively new band, I think our first show was just [about] getting the songs right. We had a good energy because it was our first show. The second show was kind of a taste of what’s to come. We’re going to have to unite more, and feel each other’s vibes and feed off of each other.
Tyler: It’s a new step and a lot to throw together in a month, to have people that you feel comfortable on stage with and ready to play with. But it came together really kind of simply.
Jess: Organically and effortlessly.
Tyler: Organically. That’s such a band word.
Sam: I think it was harder for me and Jess than it was for you guys [talking to Anna and Tyler] because me and Jess are even greener as far as performing. The Cagibi was Jess’s first show and I hadn’t played in five years and had never sung in a band before and had never performed any of my own written songs, which was terrifying. And you guys were a little bit more experienced.
Jess: But that show went so fucking awesome. I would love to keep that same feeling that we had at that show for every show that we have again because we were fucking tight and it was good and it was honest. It was totally honest.

JD: So, is being a performer something that comes naturally to you? Do you feel like you have an effect on the audience when you play?
Jess: [laughs] Not yet.
Tyler: I do. I started to play shows when I was 12 or 13; so now it’s totally natural. That’s my favourite thing to do, to get that immediate feedback from people. And you know, people lie and they tell you it [a show] went amazing when it didn’t, but you know that when it went well, that it really went well and you get that immediately back.
Anna: I was a karaoke host for three years and I learned how to sing in front of crowds. But singing other people’s songs is much different than singing songs that you’ve written. It’s definitely about getting those nerves out of the system. But I think with every show you get more confidence. It’s only up from here.

JD: You have an eclectic sound and the influence of various genres is evident. How would you describe your sound?
Tyler: Well, these guys [Jess and Sam] did a lot of stuff with old hip-hop beats at first. Hip-hop beats with some nice reverbs on the vocals. A lot of layers was the crux of Fragile Feet, I think. And I, for the last few years, have been playing a lot of country music and I have a pretty hard twang to my guitar that I try to incorporate. I don’t like giving titles, but we combine hip-hop beats, pop sensibilities, twangy guitars.
Anna: I like how a lot of our songs have this dark feeling but with the instrumentation we try to layer it so it’s more engaging. So, it’s not just a pop song, it’s got more… We’re going to figure it out as we go along. We’ve all come from different areas of music but together we’re going to try to craft our sound as Night of Kites.

JD: What sorts of things are inspiring your music creation right now?
Jess: I think just feeding off of Anna and Tyler’s sound and hopefully them feeding off of ours. We’re starting to be this conglomeration of our sounds together. I am only inspired by what we are putting out right now. I actually can’t reference any other material. It just comes as it goes for me.
Sam: I think we’re starting to get to the point when we’re not looking at it as playing each other’s songs and we’re trying to call them our songs. Not really credit the songs to each other. Which is a good thing. Tyler and Anna are working very hard into putting their sound into our songs that we had before the band was created. And that’s working out really well.
Tyler: I think that’s one of our strengths. We all have really different influences and it comes out in the arrangements that we do. We find common ground and write electro pop songs.
Anna: We all kind of came with our own set of tricks, our own songs that we wrote outside of the band. We’ve never actually written songs together. I think that’s going to be the next step, to try to figure out how we’re going to work as a group; what are going to be our influences; are we going to share. I think what’s probably going to happen is that we’re all going to come in with ideas and feed off each other from there, cause now we have that support.

JD: So you think it will be a four-way merge of ideas?
Anna: Yeah, yeah.
Sam: I don’t know. I think me and Jess are still going to write our songs together and Anna and Tyler are going to write stuff. I just think we’re doing less now, like we’re coming up with more basic ideas then bringing them to Anna and Tyler;
Anna: Or we could do a switch off. Me and Sam could go and Jess and Ty could go.
Sam: That would be great.
Tyler: We can swap like Barnie and Betty and Wilma and Fred.
Anna: Or we’ll have a key party. Just drop our keys into a bag. You know what I mean?
Tyler: Yeah, like a big orgy.

JD: There’s something great about a band in which everybody sings and sings well together, and you do that. Is it something that you come by easily?
Jess: I think for Anna and I one of the best things is that our voices are so different yet flow together so perfectly. It’s really nice because she sounds so different than I do, but we can each do our solo parts and it is very recognizable who is singing what but when we harmonize it adds such a benefit to the song; it makes it so much more complete to sing that way. Then when you add the baritone… our voices are so different they compliment each other again.
Tyler: I just think, why not. If everyone can sing I think it adds a lot.
Anna: It’s fun.
Tyler: It gives us a lot of energy. It adds to a live show. It won’t be the way we record necessarily but it gives it a lot of punch if all of a sudden four people sing together.

JD: The songs that originated from Fragile Feet have quite biting lyrics, like “I love you better when I’m not sober,” or “Do we really know each other? Do we even want to be here?” The songs that originated with Bikeride, on the other hand, have a softer approach and yet still often reveal a vulnerable side of intimate human relationships, like in the song “Seas and Oceans.” How do you reconcile those differences? Or do you feel like there is a need to reconcile them?
Anna: When I write songs I like to tell a narrative that’s based on reality. Something happens and then I write a song about it. Jess and Sam’s style of writing is more detached. I think it’s a nice balance in Night of Kites, ‘cause it’s not always fun to just hear droning narratives all the time. It’s good to spice it up with some punch. It’s nice to have both.
Tyler: It’s one of the aspects that we felt that they [Jess and Sam] were adding, to have these catchy great tunes. Our song writing is more narrative based and more about story telling but I think that completes the balance of what they offer musically and lyrically.
Sam: I think you guys write songs as stories and we write songs as conversations.
Jess: Well it’s usually based on the moment, about how we feel. Whatever works lyrically at the moment and sounds good we’ll do it. “Before We Do” is a song based on what we do and the fun that we’ve had together and then you go to “Hide in the Mountains” and it’s a song about all the movies we’ve watched about zombies killing each other. It’s just kind of us having fun with lyrics.
Tyler: I think their process seems different. We’d write songs and then bring it to the group and it seems like you guys did a lot of writing together and your call and answer technique is part of that.

JD: The song “Before We Do” reminds me of the feeling I get when birds start chirping and the sky gets lighter. Is that the feeling you’re going for?
Sam: That’s exactly it.
Jess: Sam and I had the recording project Fragile Feet which would never have become anything without Anna and Tyler; it was just something we would have fun with. We’d get together at night and do drugs and drink a lot. At the end of the night we’d ride our bikes to a park in Outremont where we would sit under a willow tree and watch the sunrise and talk about how beautiful the sky was. Every lyric in that song is completely true to that feeling of watching the sunrise and hearing the birds chirp.
Sam: That song is about our strategy of leaving the party before you feel shitty and making the most of something and not trying to strangle every drop out of it but realizing, “Okay…”
Jess: [finishing the thought]”…the world is beautiful.” It’s about friendship.

JD: Maybe this is a feeling that is experienced by many people in Montreal.
Tyler: In these ten square blocks. [laughter]
JD: So, how much do you feel like your sound is influenced by being in Montreal?
Sam: A lot. Everywhere you go here there’re just people doing stuff. I’m from Victoria and not to slag Victoria but you can’t even get a gig there. But here, people are so enthusiastic, everybody’s doing something. There is a lot of energy that you can feed off.
Jess: Yes, but I think that energy is also something to be competitive about. There are so many good fucking bands that come out of this city. I don’t just want to be like some generic band; I want to be someone that is creating a new sound.
Anna: Also, the fact that we’re all not really from here makes it like a playground for us. We come with our histories of what music we like and what scenes we’re into and here we can do what we want because there’s so much going on. You don’t have to fit into a mould. Montreal can be a blank page that you can fill up yourself
Tyler: It’s changed me a lot musically to come here. I’ve only been here since the fall and I haven’t played anything but country music for two years. It’s not like Winnipeg is only country but it’s an inclusive country, old-time scene. I had to adapt my tastes to work properly in this city to play in the scene that I wanted to be a part of but I didn’t really know how to be a part of it. So, I see this as one facet of my musical interests. I get to exercise my pop sensibilities and have fun playing shows with my friends. I see it as a separate thing from other interests that I have.

JD: Do you think there’s a scene in Montreal (cultural, artistic, or otherwise) that influences you? Or do you think it’s an absence of a scene?
Tyler: I don’t have enough money to go to a lot of shows so I feel like if there is a scene it’s the mini-community that we have carved out with our friends who will come to our shows and support us and I think they would probably support whatever we did. I don’t think it’s reflected in the music that we do or that we write songs to please who are around us. It just kind of happens that we write these songs and all of our friends come out and appreciate the songs. I feel like it’s a playground, like Anna said, and it’s very supportive and inclusive place so far, from what I’ve experienced.
Anna: I have a lot of friends who are in different bands and they’re all doing projects and it’s cool to go to different shows and see how different the music is. Four bands can be really good friends and our music can all be really different. It’s not about a type of music. It’s not about experimental noise or pop or something really techno-y. We’re all connected by the fact that we’re creating music. Everyone does different stuff but it’s about the fact that we’re all out there. That’s the scene.
Tyler: It’s a family/friend scene.
Anna: I find this city really inspiring. I feel like when you go to a show you enjoy the music but it really makes you want to create. It gives you a different boast.
Tyler: It opens your eyes to different possibilities, which is probably not something we had at home. Like I said, I was stuck in a scene [in Winnipeg] and that was that. No one would get on stage with a loop peddle and a synth and just do something weird and fun. Something that really blew me away was technology being in the scene here. It’s fun to use machines. Don’t you agree? [laughter]

JD: Who are some local bands that you like?
Jess: Braids are fucking awesome. Their ambience, the poetry in their lyrics, and then their sound. For me it goes back to the vocals. They have an eerie sound. Last time I saw them play I was totally dumbfounded… Oh, and Tune-yards. Tune-yards has to be one of the best things that has happened to Montreal in a long time. I saw Tune-yards the other night and that woman knows how to use a loop peddle like I have never seen.
Tyler: That’s kind of harsh, ‘cause I use a loop peddle, as well.
Anna: [jokingly] I like Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade. [lots of laughter] Um; I don’t know.
Sam: What happened to the Unicorns? Did they break up?
Tyler: No, they went extinct. There’re none left anymore. The dragon ate them all.
Sam: How did they get on the ark?
Tyler: [seriously] One of the best shows I saw recently was Lake of Stew.
Sam: They are great.
Tyler: Those guys could have totally come from Winnipeg, and that’s that what I liked about them.
Anna: There’s just so much here, it’s really hard to pin it down. You could see a show every night.
JD: What do you have planned next?
Tyler: Winnipeg Folk Fest. Big goal!

To hear what they’re all about and to check for upcoming shows visit www.myspace.com/nightofkites.

Interview by Jordan Dunlop