Out of all the new bands to rise out of Toronto’s scene, Dilly Dally are the one that will hum in not just your head, but your heart the longest. The punk four piece brings harsh guitar into a world where pop hooks stand tall, turning the sound into their own thanks to the scratchy tone of singer Katie Monks’ vocals. Between Monks and co-founder guitarist Liz Ball, they make quite the statement on their debut album, Sore, and an even bigger statement on the stage.
When Monks picks up the phone from the comfort of their tour van, the four are listening to “Feel Good Inc.” and talking about Grimes as an art inspiration (Her Instagram alone could span a thousand Tumblrs. Actually, it definitely has.) Things seem lighthearted and fun because they are. This is their first big North American tour in support of the album. On Tuesday, November 17th, they play Great Scott alongside Animal Flag and The Dazies.
Instead of talking about their parallels to grunge and punk rock, we dived into the finer sides of the band: karaoke songs, evil cats, and the beautiful, campy, limitless wonder of teenagerdom in suburbia.
Allston Pudding: When you guys formed the band, did you know you wanted to channel this strong, semi-scratchy voice?
Dilly Dally: [laughs] No way. We don’t really discuss that kind of stuff. That’s so funny. Maybe we’re weird because we don’t. Sometimes I joke about that, like that we use our big loft jam space—a lot of different bands that are our peers play there, too—so that we host these top secret meetings in the middle of the night. It’s the council of Toronto punk music. Everyone gets together to discuss how we plot domination.
But no, when I was younger I would experiment with my voice all the time. Even still, I just hear something in my head and if I can’t make that sound right away then I just make the sound anyway until I can get it. Whatever you set your mind to, your body will follow.
AP: It seems like everyone’s pretty flexible in that sense to let you toy with your sound to explore new areas.
DD: Absolutely. I just love laying down some vocals. To be perfectly honest, no one has ever told me how to sing or how not to sing.
AP: Has anyone in your family or friends ever told you that you weren’t singing “the right way”?
DD: Nah.
AP: That’s awesome. That’s pretty rare, really. It sounds like you’ve got a supportive environment in that sense.
DD: I think people who want to work with me on this project, whether it be other band members or producers or labels, anyone who wants to be a part of the project, I think they get it. They get that my voice will do its own thing. And I think that’s what people like about the band, too. That’s my favorite part of my role in the band, being able to explore a lot of undiscovered territory with vocals. That’s what I’m excited about and love to do. Then I can take a simple song and simple lyrics and simple melodies and flesh it out a bit. It’s almost like the simpler it is, the more you can express vocally.
AP: Beyond that, you’re definitely a guitar band, a rock band, however you want to phrase it. There’s so many of those, but you manage to find your own sound within that. What tropes did—and do—you actively avoid?
DD: I don’t know. I think we all were naturally on the same page. When I write the lyrics and the melody, I have something in mind for this style. When I listen to our music, I don’t think it’s grunge which a lot of critics label it as. The chords may insinuate that sometimes, but to me grunge is a little different. What’s the same—and maybe why people use that label—is that it’s not very self-indulgent. It’s not really technical or meticulous. We’re not showing off with guitar solos. What that stems from is the fact that most of us didn’t go to school for music. We naturally have an affinity for pop songs.
AP: What kind of pop?
DD: Oh, you know, awesome power ballads you can sing at karaoke.
AP: Of course.
DD: I love songs that are universal. For whatever reason, once you add alcohol it really helps. It dumbs everyone down and brings you to this point of complete honesty and confidence. Then suddenly you’re in a karaoke song and it’s the coolest thing ever watching somebody sing a Britney Spears song or a Kid Rock song. There’s no pretension behind it and we’re fascinated by it.
AP: You mentioned guys didn’t go to a music school, but you did meet in high school. Do you remember how you became friends?
DD: We were in the same science class. We were assigned to do a presentation together and we thought it would be funny if we put socks on our hands. I’m pretty sure our presentation was just us laughing, hiding behind our teacher’s desk, using funny voices to say the facts or whatever. We got in trouble. We got in trouble a lot in that class.
Then it just happened. We would pitch tents a lot in the suburbs. We told our parents we were going to a friend’s house and then me and Liz and a bunch of other girls from high school would pitch a tent in a park and smoke weed and drink and party and run around. It was really beautiful, though. It wasn’t sad partying. We would bring an acoustic guitar and sing and cover bands we loved. We would talk about how beautiful the world is and look at the stars and spraypaint cool lyrics we liked everywhere.
AP: That’s a big distinction between happy partying and sad partying in the suburbs.
DD: Absolutely. As you get older, the partying is less beautiful. [laughs] When you’re young, it’s so amazing to be like, ‘Whoa, I don’t have to be my school self. I can break the rules and it’s okay. That’s actually allowed and I’m not going to go to hell and not get into college or live a successful life.’ That was it.
AP: What ways do you think in the years since then that you and Liz have grown since then?
DD: Well, you see, we have refined our rebellion now. It’s all on the record. We reeled it in and turned it into music.
AP: So suburb life was outside of Toronto?
DD: Yeah. We would always take the bus in to the city to go to shows. Actually, one time some friends and I had to whizz so fucking bad on the bus to a show. The bus doesn’t stop. We had to pee so bad and we had all these boxes of wine we were drinking, but they were all about halfway full. So at first we tried using a magazine as a funnel to pee into an empty water bottle, but the hole was too small. Then we decided to drink what was left of the wine boxes, open them up, and pee into the carton. Finally, at the very end of the bus ride, we dropped it [laughs] and it spilled all over the bus. We bailed. We bailed so hard.
AP: Oh God.
DD: I felt so bad for that bus driver. Oh man.
AP: Did you apologize or did you run for it?
DD: Oh, we ran. Which is, actually… well, I’m pretty sure we were unable to speak words because we were laughing so much. So, we don’t do that thing anymore. We piss figuratively onto public floors via music. Oh wait, Liz got a public urination ticket a few weeks ago in New York. Partisan grabbed that bill. We’ve got a great affinity with that label.
AP: There’s so many bands in Toronto that it seems like it can go one of two ways growing up there as a musician: you’re either a part of this supportive community that boosts you up the ranks, or you’re fighting amongst your peers to make it to the top.
DD: Yeah, but that competition is awesome. It’s a good fight. Literally, you have to fight to get your band heard because everyone is completely shot from listening to METZ and stuff. It took us a long time to get people who weren’t our friends to come out to show. With Canada, sometimes it seems like no one cares about you until America accepts you, but that’s a bit of a generalization. Everyone has their own journey. I love competition, and now we’re here slutting it out on the road to play in towns I’ve never even heard of. We aren’t as big as Drake yet. One step at a time.
AP: You have to be on a TV show first for that to work.
DD: A TV show?
AP: Yeah, Drake was on Degrassi.
DD: What? Fuck. I didn’t even know that.
AP: His character on the show always wanted to be a rapper which, clearly, is pretty funny looking back.
DD: Aww. Man, he’s so cute. That’s so adorable. Well, we aren’t looking to be on any TV shows, but we’re open to it.
AP: You could be on Degrassi: The Next Next Generation.
DD: You see, I think it’d be cooler to be on a reality TV show.
AP: What reality show would you be on?
DD: I don’t know. There’s that one show, My Cat From Hell, where this guy retrains fucked up cats. We would want to be on that. Yeah, let me know if you hear of a show like that. We’re down to work with cats.
Dilly Dally will be playing Great Scott this Tuesday, 11/17, with Animal Flag and The Dazies. Tickets are still available in-person at doors.