Julie
Doiron
interview
by Chris Shapka
publication: August
1999
Moncton's Julie Doiron, formerly of Broken Girl and Eric's Trip, was through town solo in May. Her next tour is with Ottawa's the Wooden Stars as her backing band, plus she took the photos on their recent album. This interview was conducted after her set at the Fox and Hounds in her van.
Chris: You have a new record out.
Julie Doiron: Yeah, I guess so. It's a five song
EP. It's almost 20 minutes long, so it's almost a record. It came out
just a couple weeks ago in the States. I don't think it's in stores yet
in Canada, but it's trying. It's on Tree Records out of Chicago. It was
manufactured and is being distributed by Southern Records.
And in Canada on Sonic Unyon?
Yeah. In Canada Sonic Unyon has exclusive distribution
for this particular release. We'll see. It's not in any stores yet, but
hopefully it will be soon.
Your last record was on SubPop. What happened with
them?
SubPop they pretty much dropped me almost right after
the record came out and they didn't really put it in the stores and they
didn't really do a whole lot. Although they did give me some tour support
money to go on tour in the fall, but then they dropped me in January,
and that was that. Five weeks went by with me calling and them not returning
my phone calls and no one would talk to me, and then I finally called
up and said, is there anyone there who can tell me what's going on with
me? And the receptionist laughed, and she got somebody. He came on and
said, "Hi, how are you doing? You've been dropped." And that
was that. But they were great for most of the time that I was on SubPop,
either with Eric's Trip or by myself, just in the end it kind of went
bad. At that point, Joyce Linnehan, my A&R person, had resigned and a
few things were happening at the label. So it wasn't surprising that I
got dropped. A lot of people I know have been dropped. I was actually
glad to be off. It meant I could be independent again, and start doing
other things.
What happened to Sappy Records?
Sappy is still a label. But for about a year or so
we haven't really done much because we ran out of money. So no Sappy applied
for a government grant from the New Brunswick government to record my
record: a recording grant and a marketing grant. And we received it, so
I recorded a record in January with the Wooden Stars, and that will be
out in September on Sappy. Actually it is going to be a joint release
between Sappy and Sonic Unyon. That seemed like the best thing to do at
this point, it won't just be a Sappy release. At this point I'm better
off being independent than on SubPop, although SubPop did do me some good.
Will you be touring with the Wooden Stars?
Yeah, in August. That record was supposed to come
out in May, but this EP I was doing with Tree was coming out in May and
they requested I not release the album in Canada until September because
it would ruin the sales of their EP. Which is understandable. But it's
kind of a bummer for us, because the only time we can tour with the Wooden
Stars is in the summer, because two of them are in school full-time. So
we're gonna manufacture it in time for the end of July, and we're going
on tour for the end of July and the whole month of August. And have it
with us at the shows, but it won't come out in stores til September. That
was the only solution I could come up with to solve that problem. Because
there's no point going on tour and not being able to sell the stuff, which
is kind of a bummer right now because I ran out of my EPs, and there was
supposed to be more shipped, and they haven't arrived, so I'm doing shows
with my old record. And I think I have 3 CD copies of that left, the rest
are on vinyl. We'll have them again in August with me I'm sure.
Is the crowd reception to the new album the same
as the old one?
Everybody so far who has listened to it has liked
it. A few comments have been that it's really dark. I didn't set out to
make a dark record, or EP, or whatever this is. But people seem to be
liking it.
I just heard one song today and it was pretty good.
A little less than your last record...
A little less?
Yeah. You had drums and stuff on the last album.
Oh. You mean a little less instruments? Well, yeah,
the last record some songs ended up having quite a few instruments on
them. Some songs were a little more mellow. This is definitely more bare.
We did it in a day, and I mixed it until six in the morning. I probably
didn't mix it the way I would have liked to have mixed it if I had been
more awake. For two weeks before that we had been recording in Fredericton.
We left Fredericton and drove all the way to Ottawa and the next day in
Ottawa I recorded that EP with a guy in Ottawa that I know. That's the
mood I was in, I guess.
How's the tour been so far?
The shows have all gone really well. I'm travelling
with my kids and my husband. Ben vomited in the car a couple times so
far. He gets really carsick, and so do I. But luckily I don't throw up.
I get sick to my stomach all the time actually. Let's see, Ben vomited.
Touring like this is a little bit hard because they require a lot of time
and energy. But my husband has been really great and getting up with them
in the mornings and letting me sleep. Sometimes when we try to start the
van it doesn't start. We turn it and nothing happens. It doesn't catch
with anything. I had it fixed in Montreal, and they said it was a short
circuit and it wouldn't happen again. But it happened today, and we just
hope it doesn't happen in the desert or in the Rockies.
I'm in the van right now with Julie, and it's
got some character, I must say.
It's definitely messy. It's definitely a van
on the move. It's not a typical tour van. It's not sweaty stinky, but
it's stinky stinky. There's some stuffed toys, some Kleenex, Ben's truck.
What kind of music do you listen to? Mostly
for the children?
These tapes on the floor? Oh God no. We have
Beekeeper. Have you ever heard of Beekeeper?
No.
They're awesome. But they just broke up in the fall.
They're from New York. Awesome awesome awesome. Have you heard of Ida?
No. Really. Well, Ida's from New York too. I was gonna say Carla, who
plays bass in Ida, Beekeeper was her band, her and her brother. And they're
great. They put out and EP and an album. Their album just came out on
Southern in the fall. It's so good. They're so great. They used to do
a lot of shows with the Wooden Stars. They're pretty good friends. Let's
see, here's Georges Pressance and Rickie Lee Jones. These are our tapes.
Ron has other tapes. Ron's travelling with us, helping us drive, selling
merch. Bruce Springsteen. Belle and Sebastian. We're fans of the Clash,
but I don't think Ron is, so we haven't tried to play it with him yet.
What else do we have? We have some Ron Sexsmith. The Mommyheads.
How do you know the guys from the Wooden Stars?
Mike Feuerstack used to live in Moncton. He lived
there till he was sixteen and he was in an old punk band with Rick who
played in Eric's Trip. Mike was the singer and Rick was the bass player.
What were they called?
The Underdogs. They were a legend, a well-known band
in Moncton for the time. And Mike had to move to Ottawa with his family.
They were all skateboarders and they used to go visit Mike and I was going
out with a friend of Mike's, so I would visit as well in Ottawa. I got
to know him like that. He's also best friends with my husband. We're all
pretty good friends. I always really loved his music, and we've always
supported each other. We got the Wooden Stars to open for us quite a few
times in Ontario. Then Sappy did the first Sappy tour in 1996 and the
Wooden Stars came out on that to promote their Mardis Gras album and so
they came on that tour. That's when I got to know the rest of the band.
That was 1997 I guess. 1996 was the tour with Snailhouse, Mike's side
project, and Orange Glass. 1997 was the Wooden Stars, Lonnie James, Peter
Parker, and me tour. Then my album was coming out on SubPop in August
of 1997, and that tour was in July. Joyce from SubPop suggested I go on
tour with a band because I was going to be touring the States and she
wasn't sure how I would do playing bar settings solo. Nobody would know
who I was. So I needed a band, and called a few people who said they would
like to do it, but they couldn't leave their jobs. And then *she* suggested
the Wooden Stars. And I didn't think that would work. When I was on that
Sappy tour I asked Mike and the drummer Andrew and I thought we might
go as a three-piece. And I guess when they were driving home from that
tour Mike and Andrew told the other two guys that they were going on tour
for five weeks with me in Canada and the States and I guess they all wanted
to do it. That's how I got the whole band. I thought, holy cow. I couldn't
imagine it, but it's been really great. We'd only been playing together
a few days before we came here on that trip. Now it's really fun, but
we don't practise together nearly as much as we should. We're playing
together in June, at the end of both of our tours. We're meeting up for
this one show in Toronto, and I'm a little scared. It's been since April.
We played the Brave New Waves and Exclaim birthday show in April and we
haven't playing together since. And we're not going to have a chance to
practise... but we'll do fine. They're playing in Montreal the night before
so I'll go see them and maybe we can try something at that show. I don't
know. They're pretty comfortable playing, so I'm sure there won't be a
problem.
Before I forget, why did you change from Broken Girl
to Julie?
Oh, I just didn't think that Broken Girl was suitable
for me. I always felt really self-conscious about that name. Really shy
about it. I just always felt weird.
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