interview with NeoNera
Have any of you played in other bands? No
What are your names? / Who plays what? Dylan Gunnell - Guitar, lead vocals, Evan McCluskey - drums, backup vocals. Stephanie Leger – Bass, backup vocals.
Have you had other previous members? Yes, our original bass player who was with us before Steph joined.
Where are you from? Ottawa, ON, Canada
What year did the band form? 2013
What's your style of genre? Heavy alternative rock
What inspires you? Mostly what we see in the news, and what we’ve experienced. We are a social justice band, so our aim is to highlight things that we care about as a band. There’s also an aspect of catharsis in being able to write about these issues that are shaping our society and hopefully having some impact on the listener where they’ll start to care to the same degree. We are also inspired by our own failings and exploring how we can better ourselves.
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? We go through a variety of promoters when it comes to lining up shows, at this point, we don’t mind putting in the work to book our own shows and sell tickets.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? Not exactly, we are happy with the direction the band is going and building ourselves up on our own for now.
What are your songs about? We tend to write a lot about social justice issues, songs with substance, and meaningful topics. Our latest single Saviour is about toxic masculinity and "white night" syndrome. Some of our songs are written based on politics and flaws in our systems and with our leaders, stuff that gets us fired up to write.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? We all contribute to writing the songs, musically they often come to us from a jam in practice or a riff someone wrote that we build off of. Everyone contributes lyrically as well.
Do you compose in a certain environment? Pretty much always at our practices
Have you done any covers live? No
What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Least maybe 5? Most I’d say around 75?
What ages are most of your concert attendants? 19 - 60
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? Our set generally stays the same, unless we’ve written something new and decide to throw it into the set
Do you have a regular place you play live often? Cafe Dekcuf in Ottawa seems to be the place we play most often.
What was your first gig like? Solid, we played in a garage on Halloween and tho it was just a small little thing we nailed every song. Two of the songs from that set are songs we still play today.
What was your latest gig? Café Dekcuf, November 2019
Where have you played live this year? In 2020? Nowhere
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We have a variety of t-shirts for sale and some stickers.
Where can people buy your merchandise? On our website: neoneramusic.com or through our Facebook store.
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records nowadays?
You have to adapt to the times and caring about how people listen to their music is only going to keep you in the past. There will always be people who will continue to purchase physical copies and enjoy the experience of that. There has never been any real profit in streaming, so go to your favorite band's shows, buy their merch, and repeat.
Downloading and streaming are definitely convenient ways to access music nowadays, but personally I still love buying records, and supporting artists as best I can because we all know artists make barely anything from streams.
How do you think the music industry has changed because of this?
In some ways, it feels like there is greater access to so much music now with the internet than there ever was. But that does result in a lot of people not paying much for their music when it is so widely available.
I hope that people still respect and cherish albums as a whole in the future. There’s still a market for vinyl, and collectors out there but it’s still somewhat niche and artists have to work hard to make a buck.
What do you think of my work? Great stuff, keep on connecting people with music.
How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? Any media attention is helpful!
Do you have any role models or idols?
Steph: Flea, and Laura Leezy (Khruangbin)
Evan: Vincent Price, David Bowie, Anthony Kiedis, David Byrne, Denzel Washington
Why do you think that they exist? Never ask Gods the reason for their existence.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Both. There's a lot of older bands that stand the test of time and have written some truly unique and amazing music and young people continue to discover their legacy. But I'm still inspired and always discovering newer bands that push the limits and stay creative in their writing and performance.
What have been your biggest obstacles? Corona
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Always push your limits, try new things, and don't feel you need to fit inside a box., Be humble and kind, respect the people that help get you where you are.
Do you have any new material? We have just released a new single Saviour along with our first video. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=G1vGjOecLtU
What are your web sites? www.neoneramusic.com
