INTERVIEW: Grade's Shawn Magill talks anxiety and excitement over hometown show at Burly Calling

by Tyler Munro

December 6, 2012

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When Burlington, Ontario’s Grade hit their stride with 1999’s Under the Radar, they were met with an interesting set of circumstances: they essentially outgrew their hometown before ever really getting the chance to fill it. Far from a widely acknowledged hotbed of new music, Burlington was nonetheless ripe with a pretty stellar scene in the early ’00s; the problem is there just wasn’t anywhere to play.

“It was tough for bands to get out of Burlington to play anywhere else, or to get recognized enough to play shows in Toronto,” says guitarist Shawn Magill.

That’s changed, and the difference will come full circle this weekend when the hometown heroes headline the city’s 6th annual Burly Calling festival with a late-night set on Friday. But while the gig marks their triumphant return to the city that started it all, Shawn Magill is quick to point out that he never left.

“I actually live right behind the Boston Manor where we’re playing. I can just walk over on Friday,” he says. The catch? He hopes other people follow.

“I don’t know if people are still into us from this area or not. I mean, to be honest, they never really were in the first place,” he says half-joking over the phone. “We never did very well in Burlington, so it’ll be interesting to see if anybody even comes to the show. Hopefully they do.”

They’d be crazy not to.

Grade first got back together for a show in Guelph this past September and things took off from there. This Friday they get to attack their hometown with a new set of pressures, different from the industry demands that plagued them in their prime.

“Before it was like, if we don’t sell any merch at this show then we can’t pay our rent this month,” said Magill. “We don’t have to worry about that anymore, and it takes a lot of stress off of us. We’re just going to have fun, play our hearts out and hopefully we’ll see some old friends at the show.”

New material might never come, but what matters is that the band is back together and having fun again, though it’s not fair to say that their relationships ever really soured. As Magill explains, life took over and the band kind of got lost in the process.

“We didn’t really see each other a lot, and we still don’t aside from band stuff, but it has nothing to do with us not getting along,” Shawn assures me. As for Burly Calling, he’s been a fan since the beginning.

“Once December hits, I’m always stoked for it to happen. I get to run around the city all weekend checking out amazing bands,” he says.

He explains that Burly Calling presents positive problem, calling it “one of those weekends where no matter how hard you try, you’re going to miss out on some bands you want to see,” but adding that he hopes to take in sets from Monster Truck and the Wooden Sky, among others, before the weekend is over.

First, however, he’s got to get through Friday. Grade’s setlist isn’t yet set in stone, but Magill expects it to pull primarily from Separate The Magnets and Under the Radar.

“Those seem to be the two albums that everyone likes the most, and those are the albums we like the most,” he says, adding that they might also try a song or two from And Such Is Progress.

Burly Calling essentially started as a pub crawl six years ago when Saint Alvia used it to raise funds for their national tour, turning a normal stop in their hometown into a downtown-wide mini-festival. In they years since, it’s evolved into a four-day tear through the city with dozens of bands joining in on the fun.

Saint Alvia play the YMCA with Walk Off the Earth on Saturday, but first be sure to check out Grade’s gig at Boston Manor on Friday. They’re on at 11:40PM, following sets from Organ Thieves, This Is the Noise and the Video Dead.

Tags: Music, News, saint alvia, The Video Dead, Video Dead

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