An Interview with Pottery

Words by Nathan McLaren-Stewart

Photo by Brooke Rutner

Pottery is a name that’s fastly becoming printed on the pages of all the music press, it’s a hot word to throw about when you’re talking about the cool new bands you know, and in fairness, rightly so. The Montreal five piece have been working hard for the past year writing and recording their debut album after a successful EP threw them onto global festival stages and touring the US and Europe. The band have their roots deep in DIY, which is how I came to know the members. Now, the morning after a sold out London show, they’re sitting in a cafe which doesn’t exactly look like where you’d normally find them. They’re still coming to terms with the hype around them, but they humbly sit with a few cups of coffee whilst Jacob toys with the idea of getting a beer already, and we catch up over the whirlwind past few months.

The release of your debut LP is coming. There’s been a lot of hype around you guys for quite a while; you’ve been picked up by a good record label and supported the likes of Oh Sees and Fontaine’s DC. How does it feel having all that hype before the release even comes out? 

Jacob: It’s nice, it makes it feel…

Austin: Rewarding!

Jacob: Others perception of the record is gonna feel better than if people didn’t know about it. People have already been saying “oh this is gonna be good.”

Paul: Also, you know us from DIY touring before and now you’ve seen us having this experience. People buying us drinks and dinner, it’s nice man.

Peter: You’ve seen us all over the place man!

Yeah, I’m watching the rise of Pottery. You guys seem to have been thrown into the deep end. I remember when you first sent over the E.P you guys didn’t have much plans to tour, let alone get over to the UK. How’s it been coping with that?

Paul: It’s a lot easier. It’s still the same amount of work but there’s more perks now.

Austin: And it’s nice because we have an agent and a manager and that. We don’t have to do much with that side of things

Peter: Yeah, that tour we met you on years ago, I had booked it all for Paul’s other band. It was hard having to deal with so many people.

Jacob: It’s nice to have someone to hold your hand. We’re still doing the same shit but it’s nice to know there’s people there to help and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Well yeah, we met through DIY touring and all of you individually have roots in that community. With the start of Pottery were you still wanting to keep it DIY?

Jacob: I guess we like to keep things in-house. 

Paul: Well, not really. We recorded in a studio which is something we couldn’t afford on our own. We were able to get an engineer and pick him out.

Jacob: We wanted to work with someone who was still pretty close and we found that with Schenke (Jonathan Schenke, producer). When we started talking to him we realised he was just like us.

Paul: And we still recorded in Montreal.

How did that relationship with Jonathan Schenke come about? 

Jacob: When Chris told me to look for engineers I just looked through my records and I found Parquet Courts ‘Light Up Gold’ and I thought, ‘who’s this Jonathan Schenke guy that had produced it?’ I messaged Chris and it turned out that they only lived a couple of Metro stations apart. We went up and met with him and thought “this guy’s awesome!’ 

Peter: He was really enthusiastic about the album. 

Austin: He was really into it, yeah.

Paul: We recorded the whole album in my back room, where I record my solo stuff, so we had all the songs demoed out. We sent that over to him, he got a better idea, and we got all excited. 

Did you find it quite valuable having someone with that level of experience? 

Paul: Yeah absolutely.

Well, pretty much all of you are also in Paul’s other band or doing various other stuff, what made the group of you want to come together to do this? 

Paul: It was Jacob and Austin who were getting together in a jam space and playing guitar together/writing songs. Eddie, you know Eddie from my band (Paul Jacobs and the Big City Babies) said there was a dude from his work, which was Austin, who wanted to play guitar in my band. We had Austin playing in our band. One night when we were drinking, Austin asked Meag, also from my band, to play drums and I was like ‘dude, let me play drums.’

Austin: I asked Meag to play drums?

Paul: Yeah! It could’ve been Meag in the band but who knows! 

The record, ‘Welcome to Bobby’s Motel,’ came with a really bizarre press release story that you wrote to go with it. It’s certainly a bit of a concept record, did you find it easier to write under that method? 

Paul: The name and everything came after writing!

Austin: The concept kind of just came out of a joke. 

Paul: And the description isn’t even really what it is, it’s just an easier way to explain it. The way to explain it is it’s a place that you go to in your dreams that feels familiar; you feel that you’ve been there before. Have you ever had that kind of dream?

Yeah. It’s sorta like deja-vu. 

Jacob: It’s also that feeling of security I think. Making the best out of every situation. Being comforted. 

If you were to meet a guy in a bar named Bobby, would you feel secure and safe about him? 

Paul: (laughs) You know what’s funny? When we were looking for wifi we saw one called ‘Bobby’s iPhone.’ We were like ‘oh shit, it’s a sign!’

Jacob: Probably not, if I met someone named Bobby I’d probably be like ‘oh wow, cool.’ 

Paul: I think he’d be a handsome man.  

Jacob: If he’s got a mustache and he looks like Austin and Paul, I’d be like ‘yeah, alright.’ 

Paul: He doesn’t have a mustache on the cover?

Paul you did the album artwork, is that right? Then you all worked on the video for ’Texas Drums.’ Have you always wanted to keep that visual/creative side within the band?

Paul: I’m always fighting for that. 

Peter: It would just be so much easier if we worked with less people than to make it bigger/have more involved. 

Paul: I wish we could just always keep investing in-house. Instead of a budget for a video just go buy a camera. 

I guess it’d keep the visuals consistent.

Paul: Yeah you can keep it consistent! And that’s what it’s all about too. I hate when a bands aesthetic is all over the place because they’re hiring different artists all the time. 

Jacob: It’s like what Unknown Mortal Orchestra do. Over the course of all his records, he just used his advances to get a better tape machine, get a better board. He just does everything; takes pictures and puts it all together for an album cover. Everything is so consistent.

You guys have really paid your duties to DIY touring and your local scene. What has been the biggest learning curve now working with major labels and agents?

Jacob: Working as a team. We’re still figuring it out but getting everyone to help each other. 

Paul: And try not to party too much too. Especially if you want to keep touring throughout your life, you’ve got to have some self-control. 

Tom: I hate to say it’s a job but you’ve got to remember that. But we still have a good time as well.

Jacob: You’ve got to take care of yourself. And people can see when someone’s burning out and partying too much. You can see a band and be like ‘wow, those guys are kind of fucked.’

Peter: Because we tour with those guys. 

Jacob: No, I’m not pointing fingers. It’s just when someone’s burning out. 

Paul: Final words, something about metal. Keep supporting, uh, we’re not servants of God, uh…