Music

Ottawa expats Mass thrive in Toronto's noisy music scene

by Mark Teo

It’s no surprise, says Mass singer Mike Laderoute, that Toronto’s brightest musical lights are imported from other Canadian towns. To list a few: METZ, Teenanger, and Milk Lines all have roots in Ottawa’s music scene, a place where many of Mass’s members have also called home. “In Ottawa, lots of people get to a point where you go to one of two places,” adds Laderoute. “Montreal or Toronto.”

Such statements might sound cynical—there’s certainly some sarcasm in Laderoute’s tone—but Bytown should take it as a credit: Many of Toronto’s best emerged from Ottawa’s post-hardcore scene of the mid aughts. For their part, Mass, a grungy, static-soaked foursome, had members ply their trade in Shotmaker-worshipping post-hardcore acts like Van Johnson and Roads to Shiloh. “We all came up through that, and places like Brockville used to have so many hardcore shows,” says guitarist Steve Lam.

“We all played in post-hardcore, emo, and indie bands,” Laderoute says. “And we’ve been in bands that have toured and put out records. Now, we’re older, and we’re writing stuff that can stand up even when you just, like, play it on an acoustic.”

Despite their love for feedback (it’s easy to pick up on AmRep and Sub Pop influences in their music), the band’s candidly talks about their love for Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s ability to write songs that stand the test of time. “We’re going back to the stuff we like, and you’ll hear a lot of grunge stuff [in our songs],” adds drummer Andrew Butko. “We’re writing songs for ourselves.”

Mass has existed for roughly two years, yet only emerged with recorded material this spring. They emerged with the scrappy, live-off-the-floor No One, after seven hours of recording—“and none of us are sound engineers,” laughs Laderoute, “so we’re proud of how it turned out”—and spent no time marketing the record or even playing live. They barely even practiced before putting their songs to tape.

That’s all set to change—while the band is relatively untested live, they’re set to embark on a mini tour this fall, and we can thank Ottawa noise duo Big Dick for that. “They’re old friends of ours,” says Butko. “And they’ve been pestering us to do something. Finally, they caught us when we were drunk enough, and we were like, ‘Fine! We’ll play some shows!”

From there, they’re planning a mini tour in November and are planning on working on new songs, approaching Mass with renewed focus. “But we don’t even really care to get on a label or release our record [physically],” maintains Laderoute. Then he repeats it: “We’re writing these songs for ourselves.”

This article originally appeared in the November 2013 issue of AUX Magazine. Download and subscribe for free in Google Play for Android devices, and the App Store for iPhone and iPad.