Neverest

We caught up with Neverest recently, right before their show at The Garrick Centre in Winnipeg, MB. We chatted about whats to come in their future, their life-long influences, and who they would like to feature, and meet in the future! Check out what Spee, Paul, Mike, and Brendan have to say!

John Delaney: So I’m here with fellow Canadian pop band from TO area, it’s great to be chatting with you guys! How’s things going so far?

Paul: Great Man, tours been going really great so far

John Delaney: Now you’re abut halfway done your Canadian tour with Alyssa Reid, what can you say

about the tour so far?

Spee: So far so good, productions been great, people that have been coming out have been really, really supportive. And the crowds have been singing along for like, every song, for both co-headliners. Alyssa’s been great we get along with her excellent, she’s like a sister.

John Delaney: How did you guys decide to co-headline with Alyssa, did it just sort of happen?

Paul: Yeah it just sort of happened.

John Delaney: Had you guys played any shows with her in the past?

Paul: Yes, CHUM Fan Fest.

John Delaney: I imagine at this point, you guys are pretty much one big family, what’s it like touring across the nation as one?

Spee: It’s wicked, we travel separately, but when we arrive its like, a family get together where you haven’t seen them since last summer, it’s kind of like that except everyday. It’s fun.

Paul: We’ve made friends with these guys so quick, all of her band and everything, it’s great.

John Delaney: Now Take Me To The Pilot, they’re from Winnipeg here, how many shows are they with you for?

Paul: I don’t know, we don’t like them.

Brendan: We’ve done 5 shows with them.

Paul: Todays the last show actually.

Brendan: Yeah we’re happy to be here in their home town and we’re happy that they get to play to their home town as well. Yeah they’re awesome.

Paul: They’re such great guys, we love them man.

Spee: We spend most of our time in their dressing room, or they spend most of their time in ours.

Mike: Actually last night they called us Stereos on stage…

Paul: (laughing) Yeah they felt real bad about it.

Spee: They came up to us after during the signing saying “Dude I am so sorry”.

Paul: We were definitely laughing. We were actually watching side stage… but we did leave after that.

John Delaney: Do you guys know who is opening up for you on the rest of the tour, going out west?

Paul: We actually don’t know, probably a few other local talents. It’s actually exciting because we don’t know until we get to the venue, and then we meet them there, it’s pretty exciting.

John Delaney: Is there any cities coming up, or that you’ve already been to, that you guys were most excited for?

Brendan: We’re excited to play shows in BC, because we actually haven’t been able to tap into BC to much on our own.

Spee: Like, we have some super fans in Winnipeg, and actually they are already waiting outside. It’s stuff like that that makes us look forward to coming to Winnipeg. Normally I wouldn’t be like ‘Oh yeah, lets go to Winnipeg’, but what’s here, but the connection we have with the people here. And that’s what drives us to come back. It’s great man.

Brendan: Plus the Winnipeg Jets are back now…

Paul: Oh right, they’re back!

John Delaney: Now the tour ends in just over 3 weeks, whats your guys‘ plan for after that?

Paul: Actually, Europe. We have plans to go to Europe and release our stuff there.

Brendan: Mike’s going home!

Paul: Yeah Brendans half-German, so we have plans to go to Germany, the UK, maybe even Sweeden. And yeah, lot of others coming.

Mike: Christmas!

Paul: Yeah Christmas, our new single! Right now we have a new single out, it’s called ‘Love Sick’ which is out right now. Theres a little break we have at the end of our tour where we go shoot our video for ‘The Chase’. So we’re really looking forward to that.

John Delaney: Will we be expecting a full length CD sometime in the future?

Mike: Hope so yeah!

Spee: Hopefully by the New Year, we’re hoping to release it by then.

John Delaney: Will there be anyone else feature on that CD with you guys?

Paul: That’s a good question.

Brendan: We’re going to feature all of the Backstreet Boys, and all of New Kids On The Block.

(everyone laughs)

John Delaney: After touring with them you have to! Now how did that go, opening up and touring with NKOTBSB?

Spee: That was amazing. Let alone when we go to the concerts and we’re so close we can see his sweat and his veins popping, and half the time I join him, no-one really knows that haha. And then on top of all that, we grew up with them, and now we got to play stadiums for the first time, that we hadn’t played at before, so it was kind of like a double trouble for us, kind of scary at the beginning, but rewarding at the end.

John Delaney: What stop on that tour was your favorite?

Spee: Oh that’s a tough one, I’d have to say home, Toronto because, you know when you have a stadium in your home town, the Air Canada Centre, now I can say, I’ve played that. I go there to see all my favorite bands and artists, and the fact that I can go there and say that I’ve played there with the guys that I love, and we’ve been together for a year, approaching a year, maybe a little more than that. And we’ve had the opportunity to play their 3 times!

Mike: Montreal was my favorite.

Paul: Yeah Montreal, they were the loudest.

John Delaney: Now lets say you have a chance to do a song with anyone, who would that be?

Brendan: Anybody? I’d love to work with Les Claypool. That would be so cool.

Paul: As far as our genre goes, we actually have a song coming out with Howie D, our manager, from the Backstreet Boys. It’s called ‘Lie To Me’. And, you know who would be cool to do something with, Gaga, it would be awesome to do something with Gaga.

Spee: Yeah she’s wicked. I have so many different influences to. Chris Cornell is someone I’d love to do something with. Myles Kennedy from Alter Bridge those guys to. They’re an inspiration.

John Delaney: As a band who or what are your major influences?

Paul: For me, my first concert ever was NKOTB, most of us got into metal into high school, so it really ranges from a bunch of different things. But even now, we’re close with the Backstreet Boys, and our music in particular, we have a One Republic meets Backstreet Boys vibe.

Mike: Yeah we’re all sort of spread out for that question.

Brendan: My inspiration comes from like, Sublime, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, so as he said, we’re all spread all over.
Paul: It would have been amazing to work with Michael Jackson one day had he still been alive, that would have been the ultimate.

John Delaney: And I imagine you guys are well aware that you’ve become quite an influence on other canadian artists and musicians, how does that make you guys feel?

Paul: I don’t know about that, that’s the first time I ever heard that.

Spee: Yeah that’s huge.

Brendan: If anyone ever says that, ‘Yeah I’d like to drum like Brendan‘ I could die tomorrow.

Spee: Yeah that’s probably the biggest compliment, and musician could recieve. Having your own sound, that’s key, so as a band, as a unit that’s very important. And as individuals, if someone says like ‘I’d like to sing like Spee’, ‘I’d like to play like Brendan‘, ‘play like Paul’, ‘play like Mike’, you can’t ask for anything more like that. When fans come up and say something like that, that brings a smile to our faces.

Brendan: Paul and I say that everyday, we say ‘We’d really like to sing like Spee’

(everyone laughs and imitates Spee)

John Delaney: What advice can you give to them?

Paul: Get on the same page

Spee: Communication is key

Paul: Also learn the business. You have to go the extra mile.

Spee: Don’t take no for an answer, ever.

John Delaney: Fair enough, what’s it like coming out of such a music town such as Toronto?

Mike: Toronto produces some really, really good talent. Which then it becomes over-saturated as well, so it’s hard to stand out, but I think it’d great, because your also surrounding yourself with these people, and making connections. For example, a close friend of ours, is Shawn Desman, he’s from Toronto as well, and I don’t know if you’d think that, you know, Neverest and Shawn Desman, but yea we are. He provides advice to us, he’s like a brother.

Spee: He’s even remixed some of our songs, from a production standpoint, he’s a good friend of ours.

Paul: The music industry is very, very small, and everyone becomes friends. We’re friends with My Darkest Days, which is a hard rock band out of Toronto, as Mike was saying to, that different genres of music, that you wouldn’t normally thing would be friends, but it’s cool as we’re all in the same game, we’re all family together.

Spee: We were told that in the beginning, our manager said that, he told the story right away, that Rage Against the Machine was backstage at a Backstreet Boys concert, and they were just like jamming out. Like you’re thinking, like what the heck? But that’s the community. One of my biggest influences if Dallas Green, and we met him at the MMVA’s, just in the green room. And I walked up to him and just said “Hey man, how’s it going, good to meet you” and he asked for my name, and I said “Spee”, and he said “From Neverest right?”, I’m like “Yeah” and just kind of froze in shock, and then he started singing ‘About Us’, I was like in shock, to have your influence singing your song. But that’s what it’s like, everyones caught up in each others business, you know, it’s the community feel.

Paul: It’s nice, you wouldn’t know that like oh, Dallas Green listens to the pop-side of thing, but thats what makes it so much nicer, everyone respects each others music.

John Delaney: Have you guys ever been ‘star-struck‘ by anyone recently?

Brendan: Yeah actually people I looked up to my entire life, we played the show ‘We Day‘ which is a Free The Children charity event, we played with Joe Jonas and his drummer was someone I looked up to my whole life, he played with Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, everybody, I did a triple-take, I was star-struck. I thought ‘there was no way I’m in the same room as this guy right now’.
Spee: Tony Royster Jr. was our child prodigy and he was huge influence for me as well, as I used to be a drummer as well. Brendan and I have the same influences. He shook our hand and said “Hi I’m Tony” and Brendans like “I know” haha, and I looked at him and I’m like you never get star-struck!

Brendan: I lost it, it was funny. When we were in LA we saw a lot of people just walking around at a few grammy events. We were trying to due interviews and I’m trying to pay attention but there was the new singer of Sublime there, we saw Steve Carell and Will Ferrell.

John Delaney: Who would you guys ideally like to meet in the future?

Mike: I was going to say a collection of women; Katy Perry, Rihanna, Scarlett Johansson.

Paul: Jessica Alba haha.

Spee: I don’t know, I don’t even think about that. If it happens, it happens. To be honest I’ve met a bunch of my influences, I’d like to meet Myles Kennedy, and talk to him for a bit. Or Chris Cornell and talk to him for a bit. I had the opportunity to talk to Thornley for a bit, and Thornley’s a great Canadian artist. Yeah, Chad from Nickelback, I’d like to shoot the breeze with Chad, I could learn a lot from him yeah.

John Delaney: Now back to Toronto briefly, how did you guys establish yourselves so quickly in the industry?

Mike: We’ve had incredible support from radio stations across the country, from Much Music and various press outlets. Most importantly from the fans, we’ve got some really dedicated fans as you can see outside, and we owe it all to them. I mean theres something about being in the right place at the right time, but that only takes you so far, you need people to keep you going.

John Delaney: Is there a certain venue in Toronto that you like to call your favorite?

Paul: I really want to play to play the Mod Club in Toronto. We were going to play the Mod Club, but it got double booked. So now we’re playing at Tattoo Rock Parlour, which is also a really cool venue, and I haven’t played there yet, so that will be exciting.

Spee: Yeah those are the venues for me to, like coming up in the rock scene, and having those, those are like the higher class, still attainable venues. And then there’s like the Kool Haus, you’d need to be a somebody to fill the Kool Haus… I’d like to play there.

Brendan: I’d like to play a place called the Orbit Room, it’s a wicked spot. It’s actually partially owned by Geddy Lee, of Rush, a lot of like Soul and RnB artists play there.

John Delaney: Now to end things of where would you say you’d like to be in 5, 10 years.

Spee: On top of the world

Paul: Honestly, to have international success. As many markets of levels as we can. To still be on top of our game still, and be relevant. Because the ultimate is to have a career with longevity. I think our band has the potential to make it happen. We all come from a rock background, and we have a pop side to us, and if the market changes, so can we!

John Delaney: Alright, well on that note, I will let you guys get back to preparing for tonights show, I can’t wait to see it!

Spee: Yes thank you!