Interview with Montreal's Mellow Casualty

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Mellow Casualty is a Montreal trio made up of three fellas who grew up in Kelowna. Their third album, God Fearing Mammals, will be out this fall. You can see them live at La Sala Rosa on August 15th for the “event of the century.”

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RMP: How’d you guys meet, and where are you from?

FRANCOIS: We are from Kelowna, British Columbia.

CHRISTIAN: Canada.

FRANCOIS: Canada, yeah.

RMP: Kelowna’s beautiful, you’re all from there?

FRANCOIS: Yeah, Ben and I were buddies in high school and then Christian was a couple of years younger than us but kind of part of the extended friend group.

CHRISTIAN: My best friends that I grew up with are the younger brothers of their friends.

BEN: The second generation of the friend group.

RMP: And you snuck in.

CHRISTIAN: I snuck in. I made my way in.

Ben: And now we’re all one big happy family.

RMP: And what brought you all to Montreal?

FRANCOIS: Ben was already here. I was trying to turn this project into more of a live band and more of a serious thing and I thought Montreal was a good place for it so I came out. Not too long after that, Christian moved to Montreal and he joined the band.

BEN: Yeah, we didn’t have a drummer for a bit. Our first show we played, in Toronto, with just a drum machine and it was rough.

RMP: Where was that?

BEN: Redwood Theatre. It was actually a beautiful venue with an amazing lineup. We were feeling really chafed afterword and we recently found a video of it. It’s pretty hard to watch.

RMP: So, was it more of a solo project before you came here?

FRANCOIS: Yeah, it was my recording project that I started when I was in high school. Friends of mine and collaborators would help over time. There was one album out and some singles but up until that point it was basically a solo recording project under a name to make it seem like it was a band. But then coming out here I really felt like wanted it to turn into a real thing.

RMP: When was that?

FRANCOIS: About three years ago.

RMP: So you formed as a band three years ago?

CHRISTIAN: More or less.

BEN: Has it been that long? [whispers]

CHRISTIAN: Well, we didn’t play any shows for about the first year, we were just practicing every week.

RMP: But you already had some songs written?

FRANCOIS: Yeah, I had recorded a new album that was about to come out, which was part of the reason why I wanted to start playing shows. I had recorded another album in the studio in that in-between stage.

There’s a guy, Bjorn, who lives in Toronto who is a really good multi-instrumentalist and he helped me make that album.

CHRISTIAN: Also a friend... not just some guy.

FRANCOIS: A dear friend, not just some guy with a piano. And we were getting ready to release the album so we wanted to play some shows and play some of the songs that were out already and that we were about to put out to kind of get things going.

RMP: And how’d you come up with the name?

FRANCOIS: Mellow Casualty came up when I was about fifteen. I don’t even think I knew what the word casualty meant when I came up with the name. I thought it was a cool word. And I honestly think that’s the same thing that I use to my advantage when I’m writing lyrics. English is my second language, though I speak fluently now, but I still approach English with a kind of sense of wonder a lot of the time. Certain words pop out as interesting and I think I use that to my advantage.

I thought Mellow Casualty was kind of low-key low-key but then I didn’t realize it was kind of like low-key death... which is cool. It’s kind of a play on words I guess.

CHRISTIAN: What’s the word... oxymoron.

FRANCOIS: Oh yeah, kind of. I made a Soundcloud when I was fifteen and that’s what I called it and it’s a name that’s been around so long that it sounds normal to me now, and I think to the people around me.

RMP: It has a good ring to it... and why the yellow theme?

FRANCOIS: Well, the last album was called Painting with Yellow. It was associated to the story of... [sighs] let me try to say this concisely. A friend of mine told me a story and said that the reason why Van Gogh started featuring yellow very prominently towards the latter half of his career was because his brother-in-law had encouraged him to... no, his step-brother I think–I don’t even know if this story is true. His step-brother encouraged him to start incorporating yellow. He said that maybe his paintings would connect with people more because he would be able to give them the feeling that most people are trying to get which is the feeling of happiness and brightness.

Around the time that I was putting out the last album, I was feeling that, musically I was trying to do the same thing–to curate a collection of songs that were putting forward a decidedly optimistic feeling and so that parallel kind of happened in my mind and I decided to call it Painting with Yellow... and to really double down on the whole yellow thing for about a year.

RMP: And you’ve recently been getting away from that?

CHRISTIAN: We’re going blue now, man.

FRANCOIS: It’s blue season. I mean, it’s such a cheat code–to keep things consistent.

RMP: It’s like a business.

FRANCOIS: And by the way, thank you very much. [laughs] With everything we do, I have a sense that it takes people way longer to tune in to what’s going on than anybody anticipates and with that in mind, the way to get a message across is to focus on one thing and push that message over and over again. So by the seventh time someone hears the name or sees a guy wearing yellow, they’re gonna say, “Wait, I’ve seen this before somewhere.” And it’s not until then that they start tuning in that there’s something going on.

RMP: Did you read some business books?

FRANCOIS: I’m interested in business. I’m not ashamed to admit that I want to approach this band like a great business.

CHRISTIAN: Francois used to live with some guys who played in a band called The Free Label. They’re a band from Toronto and they’re doing very well and Francois had a conversation with them and asked, you know, “why is this working, what’s going on?” And they said they decided that instead of treating it like, you know, “we’re all good musicians and we make songs and get to go play and it’s fun,” they decided to treat it like a business a bit more.

We’re all starving artists over here I guess, we all want to make it work, this is what we love to do. So I think having a more clear goal or path you can take to find some sort of success. You’re treating it like a business and looking at all the aspects and not just like, yeah we know how to do this, and if you’re lucky you get picked up by a label or whatever but you don’t know what’s going on. If you treat it like a business, I think there’s a freedom to that that a lot of artists maybe wouldn’t experience in their career.

FRANCOIS: I think there’s a funny paradox, especially with indie rock, where it’s considered cool to not try very hard and not be very entrepreneurial or make your artistic endeavor seem like an enterprise. But, aren’t we all trying to do something at the end of the day? Aren’t we trying to get something done? Why are we shooting ourselves in the foot by maintaining this attitude that we’re not trying. I don’t want to be broke, I want to make the videos that I want to make. I want to have the ability to make the song that I want to make. Yeah, I’m looking at it like a business because I want to keep this going.

It’s not making money like a business yet. [laughs] But you know, the intention is there.

RMP: Even the production quality of the videos and everything, I can tell you put a lot of effort into that.

CHRISTIAN: We’re pretty blessed, we have really amazing and talented friends who want to help us out and do things for us for way less than they should be doing it for.

BEN: We love Tommy... we love Jonah.

FRANCOIS: Yeah, we’ve been very lucky.

RMP: Do you do the editing yourselves?

FRANCOIS: I’ve edited everything so far. But the new one coming up is gonna be this guy Jonah who is a guy who I met because he messaged me on the Internet when I was about eighteen after I first started putting music out.

We started keeping in touch and over time he became a very very talented videographer and we always said we wanted to work on something together. So he flew from Michigan to Montreal last month and we worked together on the next couple of videos and he’s editing them as well.

RMP: Is that for the “Manhattan” video?

FRANCOIS: No, so “Manhattan” was still Tommy. Tommy’s our boy who did the “Am I Wrong” video and the “Idaho” video as well. This is for “Icarus.” We have some videos for the new album coming out.

RMP: Do you have a release date for the album yet?

FRANCOIS: We’re gonna be rolling out some singles and giving people a taste of what’s coming next and then playing a lot of shows. And then around the fall is when we’ll be delivering the full package.

RMP: Where are you playing most of your shows? And tonight is Quai des Brumes right?

FRANCOIS: Tonight’s Quai des Brumes. We’re going on a tour in the fall in B.C.

CHRISTIAN: Back to the motherland.

FRANCOIS: Then in September, we’re doing some shows in Ontario and then looking to head back to the Maritimes in October.

RMP: Which venues do you usually play here in Montreal?

CHRISTIAN: L’esco’s always fun.

BEN: L’esco, we’ve played twice, we love L’esco. We’ve played Brass twice, we’ve played Maison twice. We’ve played P’tit Ours but that was right after they changed their name so I don’t think people knew what was going on.

FRANCOIS: Montreal’s really good in that it has no shortage of those 150-capacity live music bars which is really what a city needs.

RMP: P’tit Ours has a capacity of about ten I think.

FRANCOIS: P’tit Ours has the capacity to hold a little bear. [laughs] These venues are great because especially when we were starting out and would hope to get fifty people out to a show and it was mostly friends and acquaintances. But if you had a really good night, you could get 150-170 people in there.

They’re small enough that if you have fifty of your friends come out and stand at the front it doesn’t feel too bad.

RMP: And how’s the camaraderie with other Montreal bands? And who are some of your favorite bands here?

FRANCOIS: It’s funny, tonight we’re playing with a bunch… well one band is from Toronto, it’s The Get Alongs. We have Green Eyes Witch Hands from Halifax and then we have a band called Raindog, they’re the only other Montreal band on the bill tonight.

I think the camaraderie is good. It’s good. I think we would still like to integrate a little more into the local scene. I think there is a part of us where we came from the outside and we didn’t really know anyone at the time who was playing shows or in bands and we kinda did our own thing. We basically immediately started off booking our own shows and then getting people to come out to join our bills.

I guess that’s one of the cool things about the Internet, is that you’re able to do that. You’re able to promote yourself and find your own fans. We’ve been meeting a lot of local bands and it’s been really fun and rewarding to make friends with people who are doing similar things to us. But yeah, we definitely came at it from an outsider’s perspective.

Favorite Montreal bands, I’ve gotta say The Wesleys.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, that’s the first band that came to mind… Joey Bird.

FRANCOIS: Joey Bird is sick.

CHRISTIAN: We love Bichael.

FRANCOIS: Oh, Taunt The Disaster.

BEN: God bless Taunt The Disaster.

FRANCOIS: Last Waltzon is sick.

CHRISTIAN: Last Waltzon is cool. Phase is a hardcore band that is pretty big and they’re co-workers and they’re fuckin’ awesome. This guy named Ben Vallee is a country artist; he’s amazing.

FRANCOIS: Also Fine Food Market.

RMP: Is Ben in Fine Food Market?

FRANCOIS: Ben is in Fine Food Market as well.

RMP: Yeah, I’ve seen him play, he’s good. And who are some influences outside of the Montreal scene? The new song (Icarus) reminds me a little bit of Sam Roberts.

FRANCOIS: I can definitely see that. I would say that, overtly, the general influences have been The Strokes and The Beach Boys. I think that you basically want to do The Strokes thing and just try to make it as different from The Strokes as you can so as to not give yourself away. But I think they’re the coolest rock band and I think everybody knows it.

CHRISTIAN: Geese.

FRANCOIS: Geese are awesome, have you heard of Geese? Cameron Winter is the singer of Geese and they’re a rock band from New York. They put out a really great album around the end of 2023. Album of the year for me (3D Country).

It’s always fun when you see a new guitar rock band and it feels fresh and it doesn’t feel like work... or larping you know? Which is the thing I was saying about The Strokes. I love The Strokes and my girlfriend suggested that we do a Strokes cover and I said, “I think that will blow our cover.”

RMP: How was the new album recorded, was it a different process than the earlier ones? Do you do most of that yourselves?

FRANCOIS: Every album is a new journey, completely from scratch. The first album was mostly done on a Tascam 8-track at home. I would bring it to the studio with this guy Blaine Swanson who has produced everything that I’ve done. The original plan was that he was going to mix my track recordings, but once we got there, we started doing some overdubs and vocals. The bulk of it was recorded in my parent’s house.

The second album was all done in studio in about seven days, me and Bjorn laid it all down. I wanted everything to be polished and well-recorded with nice instruments and in-studio.

Then, this one feels like a hybrid of the two. I bought a new 8-track recorder like the one I had as a teenager. It’s good because I can bring it here (to the jam space). We’ll do all the guitars on the album here because this is the setup I use on stage. I’m gonna be using that guitar, I’m gonna be using this pedal-board and that amp. So, I just come here and set up a microphone on my amp and do it in a couple takes with my recorder.

RMP: Do you try to do everything in one take?

FRANCOIS: I’m in the habit of it, very Clint Eastwood... show up and what does it look like that day and the song is a portrait of where we’re at that day and where we have been in preparation. That’s what I think works really well about “Icarus”, it has that mix of raw and the guitars are done in a kind of DIY way. The drums are for the most part one take that Christian did with no cuts.

But I think I’m in a place now where I have a sense of what things are worth doing in a studio for example so we did the vocals at Planet Studios with about a $20,000 vocal mic and I was working with this guy Jacob who mostly does pop vocal stuff. So, he approached this from this really polished perspective and his ideas for harmonies and doubles were coming from a pop production standpoint. So, there is a cool contrast where the vocals feel really polished and the drums, we did at Holy Mountain Sound, so they’re also hitting really hard. But everything else feels raw and real, it’s a blend of all of my favorite ways of recording.

RMP: Then you send it off to someone else to mix?

FRANCOIS: Yeah, I send it to Blaine who runs One House Studios in Kelowna and he puts the magic dust on it.

RMP: Does he master as well?

FRANCOIS: No, it’s mastered in New York by Josh Bonati who I hired basically just because he mastered Salad Days by Mac Demarco.

CHRISTIAN: Didn’t he also do Plantasia?

FRANCOIS: Yeah, and he did the Plantasia reissue.

RMP: Where are the upcoming shows?

FRANCOIS: We’re going to be playing our biggest show of the year at La Sala Rosa on August 15th. It’s going to be a release party for our second single, “God Fearing Mammals” and definitely come out to that, I think this is going to be the musical event of the century. [laughs] We’re going to be playing with Grumpy Truck from Toronto, The Satisfactory–really cool, kind of, mod-rock band–and Museums, a psych-rock band from Montreal.

RMP: How’d you come up with the title, God Fearing Mammals?

FRANCOIS: It was just my Instagram bio a while ago–God Fearing Mammal. I guess I love that juxtaposition of scientific language with, you know, some kind of spiritual reality right next to it. There’s a song, “Am I Wrong” on the last album where I had a line that says, “You’re acting like we were born in a test tube under the desert sun.” That line was always funny to me because it pointed to the fact that, regardless of how much you want to simplify things, at a certain point there is the mystery of... we come from this interpersonal miracle, and to imagine a world in which things are so simple as adding one and one and all of a sudden there’s another person. There’s something unexplainable about the whole thing so trying to reduce it to an oversimplified explanation, I think, reveals how not-simple it is to me. And there’s a little bit of that going on with the title God Fearing Mammals.

RMP: It sounds like you put a good amount of effort into the lyrics, do you actually sit down and write them or does it come to you at other times?

FRANCOIS: Let me tell you man, I feel like I’m just a vessel. [laughs] I really like words. I think words are really fun. I like joking around with the guys, it’s one of my favorite things to do. The lyrics and the titles are a very natural thing because I’m always thinking about how to put some words together that might create some kind of reaction.

CHRISTIAN: It’s the whimsy of ESL I guess for you eh?

FRANCOIS: It all goes back to the whimsy of ESL, which will be the title of our fourth album.