We can trace Little Girls’ career back to 2009 when the music blog Gorilla vs. Bear posted their song “Youth Tunes” with an appropriate caption: “sometimes dropping a link to your two-day-old MySpace page in our comment section can result in having one of your songs given away for free right here on the blog.” The result: instant blog fame and the quick release of the band’s first album Concepts on Toronto label Paper Bag Records. Fortunately, they are still the band you name-drop into conversations during Canadian Music Week or NXNE so that your peers think you know what you’re talking about when it comes to Toronto’s music scene. The Varsity took some time to speak to Josh McIntyre, the brains of the operation, about what the band has been up to as well as the ever elusive sub-genre “doom surf.”
THE VARSITY: So what have you been up to since the release of Concepts?
JOSH McINTYRE: That came out on Paper Bag Records last October. Officially, as of three days ago, I’m not with them anymore, which I’m quite happy with. We got caught up in a bit of a legal battle for a while, which kind of sucked. I’m not going to get in to the details but basically my experience was not so great with them, and it’s over now so I’m really thankful. We’re signing with some new people soon. We’re doing something with Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada, and I’m not sure about the States yet, but we’ve been talking to some people there about putting out the next record.
TV: Do you feel that Toronto crowds are familiar with your work now?
JM: Yeah, we’ve played a ton in Toronto, almost too much. We’ve been doing a lot of shows at Parts and Labour and open up for a lot of Canadian and American bands that have come through to tour. We kind of have an ongoing joke as being the Parts and Labour house band because we play there with the band Metz all the time, so we definitely play Toronto shows a lot.
We’re doing two shows for CMW this Thursday. One is at Wrongbar with Metz, Austra, Ell V Gore, and Valleys. Then later on in the night we’re going to play the Hand Drawn Dracula showcase at the Garrison with Actual Water, Makeout Videotape, etc.
TV: Is the press still saddling you with weird genres?
JM: Definitely. Me and my friends have this ongoing joke about calling it “doom surf.” When the band first started, NOW Magazine dubbed us as “doom surf,” which is nothing — there’s no such thing as “doom surf.” Then others are saying, like, “surf goth,” and just putting together buzz words to create this new genre but it’s basically just post-punk.
TV: So semantics aside, it’s post-punk. You’re not going to endorse the doom surf label?
JM: No, no. I’ve been saying minimalist post-punk just because it’s kind of stripped down, and that’s not even a buzz genre; that’s just what it is.
TV: I read that you were influenced by a lot of different genres and artists, ranging from hip hop to post-punk.
JM: I listen to a lot of hip hop. That’s basically most of what I listen to right now. I was producing hip hop for a while, so when I make music, it’s done the way a hip hop record would be put together. I had been producing hip hop for two years before Little Girls so when I did them all myself I’d have like a drum machine and then do bass and then layer things on top the way my favourite hip hop records were put together. But that being said, I do listen to a lot of other music, including post-punk.
TV: Does it influence your writing process?
JM: It’s going to change now a little bit because we’re writing as a band so that’s actually coming together the way a band usually writes music where we just jam. People come in with ideas and we turn them into songs but when I write and record on my own its done like a hip hop record.
TV: Do you have contemporary hip hop albums or artists to recommend?
JM: I would say all I ever listen to right now is Odd Future. I’ve been obsessed with them for quite a few months now. Their videos, artwork…everything they do is just incredible
TV: What would you be doing right now if you weren’t making music?
JM: Who knows – I don’t know what I’d be doing if I wasn’t making music. I’ve been playing music since I was about twelve years old, and that’s all I’ve ever been really good at.
TV: Are you going to see any bands at CMW?
JM: I know Kurt Vile is playing on Friday at the Great Hall so I’m probably going to want to see that. Austra, who we’re playing with, are really good, I haven’t seen them yet. And just a bunch of my friends’ bands are really good like Ell V Gore, Actual Water, Makeout Videotape, and Metz.
