“Take some acid.”
Words of advice from Tasha Class about her upcoming show on November 6. Tasha plays drums for Melted Faces, a band that got their start in a backyard in Vancouver.
“My drummer [at the time] lived there. It was this crazy house. The landlord was like, a crackhead. They had bedbugs for a while,” she described. “All of a sudden, there’d be 20 people in the backyard just watching us play. It was pretty fun.”
It was clear upon meeting Class that she has a lot of fun with her music. When asked about her first show with Montreal band UUBBUURRUU, who performed as part of Montreal Psych Fest last month, she said “It was crazy. We practiced right beforehand and we drank a bunch of whiskey. None of us had slept, at all, from the night before, ’cause Melted Faces played at 5 in the morning.”
While fun is an important aspect of Class’ music career, she does work very hard. She does management and promotion work for Melted Faces and takes her job very seriously.
“I’m a real tough-ass chick,” she said. “I really believe in getting my band the most bars have to offer, whatever it is. You have to get paid, you need money for traveling if you’re a touring band, you need places to sleep, you need to have beer at the bar to get drunk, you know. You gotta have your shit together.”
Tasha and Melted Faces frontman, Sean, moved to Montreal from Vancouver a few years after forming.
“It’s way easier here, way easier,” said Class on breaking into the music scene. “In Vancouver it was such a small scene. I found it was all the same bands playing in the same venues every weekend. I dunno, it was kinda cliquey. There was like, the ‘cool scene’ of kids. We’ve got cliques here for sure, but it’s more welcoming. Montreal really welcomed us. We’ve played great shows with great crowds, we’ve played shitty shows with like two people there. It’s really easy to book a gig here.”
Class’ advice for new Montreal bands: “I’d just say contact venues. All you got to do is contact the booking manager for a venue and they tell you what night is available. Then you contact bands that are similar to your sound and boom, you got a show. It’s pretty simple. You run your own door, and generally if you make enough money from the bar then you won’t have to pay for the venue, so it’s pretty awesome.”
Check out Melted Faces and Montreal duo The Dahlias on November 6 at Divan Orange.
Photo by Skylar Boushell for Melted Faces.
