1) Social Distortion can be given the
nickname Social D, so can we call you Social P?
Our fans call us "SoPo"
actually :)
2) I
also feel as if your name can be traced back to a sort of medicine to cure
social anxiety. Is this true and if so how would one go about doing that?
Yes, we feel that music itself is a social potion. Music has been proven
to have a positive, healing effect on the brain, and music has also brought
people together throughout history. I actually found the name using a band name
generator site after typing in the word "Potional," which was the title of my EP
released in 2004, when I was working as a solo singer-songwriter.
3) Your music (self titled EP) is being offered
for a Name-Your-Price download at Band Camp. Do you feel as if fans of the
music will download it for free, enjoy it and then end up donating for it?
That’s how I feel most music should work, mainly because I spent far too much of
my youth buying entire albums worth of crap for $15 because I only heard one
song off of them. Also, will the EP ever be released on 7”, cassette or just
some form of d.i.y. CD?
We're offering the 5-song digital EP free as an
investment to build our following. It costs us nothing to give it away as a
digital download, but it gives us free exposure and puts us in people’s ears
J
I worked in advertising for 12 years, and I know that the most valuable form of
advertising is “word of mouth,” so the more people that download it, and share
it with their friends, family, and social media networks, the better. We’ve had
some people pay for it though. We do sell the same EP as a physical CD with
album artwork at our shows for $5 CDN. And we can mail it out (autographed) for
$5 CDN plus shipping costs upon request – just ask us J
4) The EP has been out since 2011. So what’s
new on the music front?
We’ve definitely got enough new material to
make a couple of EPs or a full-length album. Because we’re indie/unsigned, we
just need to secure some sort of funding to help us do it right so it’s of
“radio quality.” Right now, I’m exploring different crowd-funding options (such
as IndieGoGo, Kickstarter and Pledgemusic) and FACTOR grants through the
Canadian Government (which is what A LOT of Canadian musicians end up using –
even the established ones like Metric).
5) A
somewhat notable singer/songwriter type of musician recently said on Twitter
that she hoped one day that “female music” would become known as simply “music
music”. Now apparently, “singer/songwriter” might not even be allowed to be a
musical genre anymore if the fascists have their way, but as a female in music
yourself do you find the idea of the female being pointed or used as a genre in
some sense to be degrading or sexist? Personally, I feel like sometimes it’s
overkill to say “female vocals” if the person is a name such as Joan Jett where
you can pretty expect that to be the case, but having a band name like Social
Potion you don’t know if a male or female will sing and I do believe that in
some cases it does make a difference because, well, guys and gals sing
differently. Plus, I’m at a stage in my life where I’m very much pro-female
music and I’m listening to it more than male fronted music which is why I like
having the distinction but, I digress.
Well, if my being female brings us
fans we wouldn’t otherwise find, awesome. We’ve been featured on some female
focused music blogs/Twitter accounts/Facebook pages, which we totally
appreciate. I do find there are more males than females in music in general, but
I just try not to think about it, and think of myself as an equal. I love Stevie
Nicks, and that’s her attitude too. Social Potion recently played a show where
we were one of 4 bands on the bill. Of all the bands, I was the ONLY girl there
– there wasn’t even a female musician in one of the other bands. But the
funniest thing was that I didn’t even notice until someone pointed it out to me
afterwards. I think the fact that I didn’t notice is progress in itself
J
6) You are from Canada, which
surprisingly has a decent number of musicians outside of Celine Dion (And inside
Celine Dion, it’s too dark to sing! Sorry, ancient joke but I couldn’t resist)
Do you believe how many people actually have googled “If you die in Canada do
you die in real life”?
Really? That’s hilarious! Yes, there are a
ton of talented Canadian musicians – some of our favourites are The Band, Neil
Young, Rush, The Guess Who, The Midway State, Jane Siberry… the list goes on and
on. I’ve found that our being Canadian actually works in our favour when
submitting our music to blogs and stations because there are so many great
Canadian artists out there J
7) Coming up at the end of July, I’ll have been
married nine years. I couldn’t imagine forming a band with my wife for a
number of reasons (Mainly because I fail at making music on a whole, which is
probably why I write about it) Do you find it to be more difficult to be in a
band with only your husband? Would it be easier to have someone you could kick
out of the band or at least a third member to gang up on? Haha
Congratulations on being married 9 years!
It’ll be our 10th anniversary this fall and we’ve been a couple for
nearly 13 years. The most challenging thing about being a duo vs. a bigger band
is finding ways to create a fuller sound. In the studio, you can do layer upon
layer, play different instruments and parts, but when you perform live, you have
to find other ways to get additional instrumental parts in there. When we played
the NXNE festival (Canadian version of SXSW), we rented a Roland SPDX trigger
pad and pre-recorded different keyboard parts to be triggered live along with
the percussion. It took a lot of rehearsal and trial and error, but we pulled it
off live. Being married is a total perk when scheduling rehearsal too – we can
probably rehearse more often and at different times than other bands. I would
say being a band is a good way to “test a marriage,” but we always seem to pass
that test! Haha. We did try playing with two other people for a while but they
just weren’t a fit for our sound. The whole experience just made us appreciate
each other more and made us more sure of the sound we were going for and the
music we want to create. We are open to working with other people in the future,
on recorded material or live shows. On our EP, our producer Steve
Gadsden from Tattoo Sound + Music played bass on 3 tracks and lead guitar on 2
tracks.
8) Do you plan on having any children, and if so
would they ultimately end up joining the band, creating a real life Partridge
Family one day? (Do they have the Partridge Family in Canada?)
We do
like kids, but don’t plan to have any of our own. We have 2 little nephews
though, and we plan on giving them music lessons when they’re old enough. So you
never know, they could be “special guests” at Social Potion shows someday. And
yes, they have The Partridge Family in Canada and we’ve seen it.
9) Final thoughts, concerns, questions about
Americans, rants that aren’t from me, etc.??
We’d
just like let our fans know how much we love and appreciate them! Thank you for
listening to our music, watching our videos and sharing our stuff. You can learn
more about us and download our 5-song EP for FREE at
socialpotion(dot)ca
Nice. Love your sound! \m/ :)
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