Photo by S. Garfield

Hailing from their newfound home of Montreal, Lonely Parade are a trio originally from Peterborough, Ontario. Comprised of longtime friends Charlotte, Ani, and Augusta, the group has been writing songs together since they were teenagers, blending elements of punk, math rock, and noise. In support of their upcoming album The Pits – released September 14th via Buzz Records – the band will play their first string of shows in the United States.

When they hit Cambridge on July 27th, they will share the stage with T-Rextasy and Mint Green at the Lilypad in Inman Square, an all-ages show presented by Illegally Blind and Allston Pudding (where have we heard that name before?). To get ready for that gig, we spoke with Charlotte and Ani about touring the U.S. for the first time, what to expect from their new album, and the changes that come from moving to a bigger city. 

Allston Pudding: You’re about to embark on a big leg of your tour throughout the Northeast. Is this the first time you’ll be touring the region?

Charlotte: We’ve all been down to that area for personal vacations with our families, but we’ve never actually played a show in the states before, which is really exciting.

AP: Do you know the other bands you’re playing your show in Boston with?

C: T-Rexstasy and Mint Green are also on the bill. I just had the chance to check them out today, and both are really cool. I’m really excited. There are already a ton of people replying to the event, which is really cool. It’s a nice thing to see there are gonna be people there.

AP: Where else are you excited to play during the tour?

Ani: I’m excited about Chicago, mostly just because that’s one of the cities I’m most excited to visit. I think we’re all really excited about New York, because I’ve never even been to New York City. Being able to play in Brooklyn is going to be really cool. Detroit as well. Not only is that the first show on the tour, but it also seems like it’ll be a really cool city.

C: I’m excited for Philadelphia. I went there once for about 20 minutes and spent $40 on parking, but it was really good and seems like a good walk-around city.

AP: You recently moved to Montreal as a band. How have you found the adjustment moving to a larger city?

A: [We’re originally from] Peterborough, about 80,000 people, so it has a small downtown , music community. I think because of that, it was a lot easier for us to become involved in the music and arts scene. Here in Montreal, I think we often feel a little overwhelmed about how many shows are going on and how many bands come out of the city or move to the city. Sometimes, that’s a good thing, because there’s all these shows to go to and always new people to meet and new bands to see. But I think it’s going to take a little while to settle in here, at least music-wise. We’re really enjoying the city and having no problem finding jobs, making friends. But the music scene is a little more complicated to integrate into. I think just because it’s such a highly populated place, there’s actually room to have a punk scene, specifically, a hardcore scene, an electronic scene. Where we’re from, there’s one electronic artist, one metal band, a few punk bands. So everybody plays shows together.

AP: Have you found your new scene to be welcoming and into what you’re doing musically?

A: I’d say so. A lot of the people we’ve become friends with in the scene happen to be people who are also moving to Montreal at the same time as us. We know people from Edmonton, Newfoundland, the West Coast. They all moved here at a similar time as us. It certainly makes it a lot easier to make friends. We’re all trying to find out how we fit in.

AP: Your new LP, The Pits, is coming out in September. How have you found integrating new songs into live performances?

C: We were playing a good half of the album on our last tour, so we’ve been playing them for just under two years now.

A: I think people who have come to a couple of our shows already probably knew the songs before the recordings came out, which is nice.

C: It’s just nice to finally have songs that we still like playing and that people are starting to recognize. For the singles we have, you can see people’s eyes light up.

AP: Have you found that those songs have changed or evolved over those two years?

A: We play “Not Nice” a lot faster live now than when we wrote it for the recording. We weren’t even playing that song for awhile. We wrote it almost in crunch time because we wanted to have a longer album. That was the last song we wrote for this album. We didn’t really play it for awhile after we recorded it because I think we just needed to figure out how to make it sound good. That’s really the first time we’ve written a song so close to the recording. A lot of times, we’ve had songs for almost a year before we record them, so they’re very much fully-formed songs. But with “Not Nice,” we wrote it, then sort of tucked it away for awhile. We’ve only just started playing it again because we knew it was going to be a single. It’s fun to play now. Whenever I hear the recording now, it’s kind of weird, actually.

C: Other than that, it’s sort of stuff that we added in the studio. Little vocal licks or guitar riffs. I don’t think much of the other songs have really changed very much. They just took on a more fully-formed life.

AP: On “I’m So Tired,” you switch between some different tempos. Do you often write songs in that style to keep the audience on their toes, in terms of energy?

C: That was definitely on our mission when we were younger and trying to impress people.

A: I think we’re finding ways now to be a little more subtle with that, because it is still fun to throw people a little bit. I think “I’m So Tired” might be my favorite time we ever tried to do something like that, because it’s not really that flashy. It’s not like math rock or something.

C: It deflects from being so technical because it’s just so heavy.

A: Then sort of switches to a simple, punky riff.

C: The notes and the melody are very simple, but the structure of it is a little different. I think that’s a good combo. We always used to write songs that were kinda cheesy on the guitar and bass interplay, and also had like four different time signatures.

A: Even though we’re writing songs now that are a little simpler in so many ways… I think we’ve known each other for so long that playing music together feels very natural. So we know we’re capable of writing songs now with some transitions and parts that are somewhat complicated. We still want to do that, but we also want to be a little more subtle. Sometimes we either play a song really, really well, or totally do not land it at all. So you’ve got to find a sweet balance.

C: It’s more accessible too. I find that if a band is super-obnoxious with their technicalities, it takes me three or four listens to get the hook or get a grip on the song. I feel like the stuff we’re making now is maybe a little easier to get into now.

AP: For “I’m So Tired” you were trying to capture the feeling of drowning in your own head. Is that method of designing a song – by trying to simulate an experience or feeling – something you do with a lot of songs?

C: That’s definitely how I think about music. I think about the melody and the overall feeling of a song often before I think of the lyrics. That song definitely has a straight up driving feeling. When I’m trying to write a song and I’ve got lyrics that are a certain way, then I’ll try to write something a little more in style with the lyrics. So “Not Nice” was sort of a bratty, pop-punk type. Ani’s gonna hate this, but it’s sort of like a Blink-182 song. I was kind of in a bratty mood.

AP: Do you write as a band or separately?

C: Lyrically we do write by ourselves. We often used to bring ideas to the table of songs and sounds. We kind of still do that. Sometimes Augusta will bring a guitar riff, and we’ll turn that into a song, or I’ll bring a bass lick. We’ll all piece it together in our own ways. It’s definitely a collaborative effort. There’s never a song that gets written before it gets played.

AP: What are some other songs you can point out that fit the example of translating a feeling to music?

C: I usually only get musically inspired when I feel really shitty, which is kind of a catch-22, where it’s like I don’t really feel productive when I feel like garbage, so I can’t really write songs, but that’s also the only time I write songs. “Weekends” was kind of about being really angry about being mistreated by somebody, so it’s definitely got a more aggressive mood to it. “Index Finger” is more of a confused feeling, I guess.

AP: “Weekends” and “Index Finger” are the opener and closer of the album, respectively. Can you walk me through the flow of the LP?

A: We do stress a lot about track listings. Usually the way we think about it is [pacing]. We all love making mix CDs, so working out the tracklist is really fun.

C: [“Weekends”] sets the tone.

A: It’s pretty punky, pretty fun.

C: “Olive Green” is more mellow. Lyrically contemplative. There’s a lot of self-reflection in this record of relationships and how you are in relationships.

A: I don’t write any of the lyrics by the way. That’s Charlotte and Augusta. It’s pretty much 50/50 on this album.

C: I have four and Augusta has six. We sing about half the songs each, then do backups on each other’s songs a lot of the time.

A: We all have solo EPs that we work on. There are a few songs that started from those projects.

C: “I’m So Tired” and “Index Finger” both had other lives in my solo project.

A: Repurposed Charlotte solo lyrics.

C: Much better repurposed.

AP: Speaking of those solo projects, how similar are they to your work together as a band?

A: I’d say pretty different. I’d say that Lonely Parade is such a product of how the three of us sound together. Charlotte’s and Augusta’s solo music, lyrically and melodically, sounds like they could be songs for Lonely Parade, but they are very different in a lot of ways. The music we write on our own is a lot more simple musically, but a lot more complex lyrically. I think it’s easier to write super-personal stuff [solo].

AP: What are some of the narratives you’re telling?

C: They all kind of revolve around the event or the feeling that the song is based on.

A: Both you [and Augusta] write really personal songs. But I feel like your songs are just vague enough that I think they can be relatable to anyone. “Not Nice” can be a really universal experience for anyone that uses Tinder and has a really bad time. But it’s specific to you.

C: Some of the stuff that I personally was writing about was this terrible person that was in my life and kind of ruined my young adulthood. Just a really toxic situation. All these songs pretty much revolve around this time in my life when I was obsessed with this person.

A: [All the songs] come out of a period when we were trying to exist in Peterborough as young adults for the first time, very recently having graduated high school. Being young adults in a town that we grew up in. It was time to leave, I think.

C: It’s pretty much the arc that made it not fun for us to be there anymore.

A: It’s a good reflection. [We had] a show in Peterborough last weekend. It was so fun. Now we’re removed enough from it.

C: There’s a lot of really good shows there still. It’s just… we grew up there.

A: And moved to a different city. As many people do.

C: I don’t want this to be a shit-talk of the Peterborough music scene! I’m glad we learned the ropes of playing shows in a smaller city.