With Gay Abandon Interviews... Les Beyond!

Photo by Sam Kaplan

Montreal's Les Beyond has been described by audiences as the “musical equivalent of a food coma.” That description might throw you off and make you think “is that a good thing?” And the answer is “YES!”  

Using an array of pedals and a guitar, Les Beyond adds layers of soft guitar murmurs, creating a drone soundscape so captivating that it transfixes you, and before you know it, her set is over, people around you begin to stir, and then you realize – the musical equivalent of a food coma has just enveloped you like a tryptophan-laced aural wave of hypnosis. 

After relocating from Vancouver, and leaving her main band of the last six years, Shearing Pinx, Erin Ward focused her musical attentions on her solo project, Les Beyond. She has been busy since arriving in Montreal, playing events like Nuit Blanche, Halifax's Obey Convention, and touring with ambient haze-babe Grouper. She has also had a string of new releases, including a freewave release through Halifax's Divorce Records, which can be downloaded http://divorcerecords.ca/mainpages/freewave.html " target="_self">here.

Les Beyond is not only a clever name for this solo project of this queer drone artist, but it can also be seen as a reclamation of a lesbian identity beyond the typical “singer/songwriter”  assumption. In her words, it's beyond the lez. Her music definitely goes beyond, much further, and breaks any stereotypes of not only what kind of music queer women are making, but makes you wonder why people aren't making music that sounds as riveting as Les Beyond. 

Keep your eyes peeled for Distroboto machines, as Les Beyond has a super-fun, super-limited  three-inch CD single available now! She is also playing live at Cagibi on Thursday July 15^th 2010.  Look for more information and show dates on her myspace.

I had the opportunity to have her live in-studio, read the interview here!

With Gay Abandon:  And we are here with Les Beyond.

Les Beyond: Hi.

WGA: That's Erin from Les Beyond. Erin, I hear you're originally from New Zealand.

LB: It's true, I left New Zealand in 2001, and then I was in Melbourne for a couple years, picking up a weirdo Australian tinge to my New Zealand accent, and then I moved to Vancouver.

WGA: And did you leave your New Zealand slash Australian-tinged accent in Australia?

LB: Well I was actually just getting to that 'cause in Vancouver, what I think I was doing there was further corrupting my accent into something that is completely unidentifiable and a constant source of amusement to the rest of my family. Uh yeah, so that's the evolution of the accent.

WGA: Will you speak a little "Newzy" for us?

LB: ...Maybe.

[both laugh]

WGA: Maybe? Tell us like a good, there must be one phrase that everyone is like "oh that's so New Zealand-ish".

LB: Well, I moved house recently, and I realisze just by saying "moved house" that that's something that is strange to Canadians. But in New Zealand it's called "shifting house", "shifting" and in Australia I guess it must be called "moving house" there, and I guess you just call it "moving" in Canada. But moving, you know, has a broader definition to me, there you go, it came out "broada", a "broada definishin" to me, so for me personally I feel like I should say "moving house".

WGA: Yeah, that sounds good. So, you moved from Vancouver..

LB: Mmhmm.

WGA: ...to Montreal...

LB: Mmhmm, it's true.

WGA: ...how is that going for you musically?

LB: Ah, well I moved here in late August, which is I guess the classic time to move to Montreal, late August/early September, and then I hibernated. "Hibinated", there you go, there's another Newzyism. I hibernated for the winter, which was apparently not a bad winter by Montreal standards but for me that was probably the worst winter I've ever had. But that being said, it was relatively decent and kind for a winter. And so I took the winter off and I really hibernated, I only really sort-of played one show per month, which was actually really nice for me because in Vancouver, I got to the point where I was playing with various projects, sort-of four to eight shows per month. Which is, if you think about it, ridiculous.

WGA: That's crazy.

LB: Ridiculous. So now I'm coming out of the hibernation. "Hibinashin".

WGA: "Hibinashin".

LB: "Hibinashin". And I'm starting to actually play places, like for example I played on Friday, was it Friday or Saturday? Saturday. I played on Saturday at The Silver Door, here in town, and today I'm doing this thing on the CJLO, and then this next weekend coming up, I'm actually going to Halifax to play a music festival there.

WGA: Oh cool! Can you tell us a bit about that?

LB: Halifax? I'm going out there for Obey Convention, which is I think in its fourth year this year? And it's pretty exciting..

WGA: It's Divorce Records, right?

LB: Divorce Records, yeah. The guy that runs Divorce Records is pretty amazing actually. He is responsible for making Halifax more awesome. I've always enjoyed going out to Halifax, I've been out there a few times with my old band, and it just seems like kids are really interesting there. And you know they say, you know normally when you go to a show it'll say "show at ten" but the show doesn't start 'til 11:30? In Halifax, it's "show at ten", show is at ten. So this a really kind of interesting thing to me because I've never actually been to a town where the show is actually when it's scheduled to be.

WGA: That sounds like my kinda city!

LB: Yeah people are punctual there.

WGA: I like punctuality.

LB: I like punctuality too. I appreciate it. Anyway yeah, I was actually talking about how awesome the festival was. Divorce Records is doing amazing things for music in Canada. And then they're putting on this really awesome festival, [the] Obey Convention, and there's lots of awesome bands coming up from all parts of North America to play in Halifax. And I'm playing with a band called Chanteuse.

WGA: Have you played with them before?

LB: I've never even heard their music, I'm sad to say.

WGA: [laughs]

LB: They could be really amazing, but I don't know.

WGA: So you have a very interesting band name. It's Les Beyond. [both laugh] Can you tell us a little bit about that, especially what it has been like for you to move to Montreal with a name like Les Beyond?

LB: Lots of people call it "lay beyon". "Lay beyon".

WGA: "lay beyon"

LB: "lay beyon" which kinda sounds a little dirty.

WGA: It sounds a little bit like...

LB: ...Like a body part.

WGA: Like real technical terms of lady parts.

LB: Lady parts, "lay beyon".

[both laugh]

LB: Anyways, so I prefer it to be called "lez beyond" cos it sounds more like "lesbian", but it's like beyond the lez.

WGA: Mmhmm.

LB: 'cause really the sort of music I play isn't really typically lesbian, nor is it typically played by lesbians. So it's yeah, that's a little bit about Les Beyond.

WGA: Do you get that often when people find out that you play music, and that you're a lesbian, do they ask you "oh is it like singer-songwriter style"?

LB: Absolutely.

WGA: Like Women In Song.

LB: "Women In Song Festival."

[both laugh]

WGA: "Oh are you playing a Women In Song festival in Halifax?" [laughs]

LB: Yeah it's funny to me cause I don't actually even own an acoustic guitar, although it would be nice, I don't own an acoustic guitar, so I feel like I'm sort of letting down the lesbian side a little bit by that.

[both laugh]

LB: And I don't do singer-songwriter, and I don't own an acoustic guitar. Nor an electro-acoustic guitar.

WGA: What kind of new stuff do you have, do you have any new releases? Or something along those lines?

LB: Yeah, yeah I do actually. There's a few things coming out. I've got a Distroboto release coming out, which you'll be able to buy in the Distrobotos around town. It was supposed to be out early May, but it's still not out, so your guess is as good as mine as to when that's gonna happen. Um... and then there's, I'm doing an online only release for Divorce Records though their Freewave releases, and that'll hopefully be available soon, it was once again supposed to be available in early May but we're still waiting. I guess they're really busy with the festival, so sometime there... You should check out DivorceRecords.ca frequently, I think it's slash freewave, but I'm not sure. There's a link on their site. So that's an online only, free download. If you want to donate money, of course please, thanks. And then on Saturday, the show I just played at Silver Door, was to release a tape I did, a split on a Montreal label with a Montreal band called Silver Dapple, which are also recent relocates to Montreal. They came from Calgary. And Lethbridge.

WGA: It seems like that's the thing to do, the West comes here. There was I think that migratory pattern out west from Montreal.

LB: I think that's what birds do, isn't it?

WGA: Well, I guess it's seasonal, but most people seem to be here permanently which is amazing because that means there is even more great music here in Montreal, and I know even more great musicians who are moving from the west coast to Montreal this month. It's so exciting. I wanted to ask you a little bit about what your set up is, because I've had a lot of people ask me before, you know I've played them your music on my iPod or whatever, and they're like "oh yeah" and they're just assuming that you do it all on computer or some kind of those kinds of tracks. And I'm like "no, that's all one take", and then I start to tell them but of course I'm just like "blah blah blah", so maybe you can actually like give our listeners a little bit of a heads-up on what you're actually doing when you play live, and then we'll shortly get to that.

LB: Ah. Yeah. I don't want to destroy the magic a little bit, well too much, but I will give you a little bit of an insight. I actually, embarassingly, don't really know how to do too much on a computer, so I don't really use them at all for things other than the internet...

WGA: ...and Google...

LB: ...And Google. I record a lot of stuff to my computer, but once again it's all like single-track stuff. I refer to what I do as sort-of live composition, I don't know if really technically that's what I do but it's a lot of what I think I do. But I have a relatively simple set-up with this project. It really can just be me and a little suitcase with a mixer and a couple pedals in it, and then I can go anywhere. Anywhere.

WGA: Cool! So it's you, a guitar that's not acoustic, there's no singer-songwriter vocals. It's you, a guitar, pedals and a mixer that fit into a little tiny what could be a make-up case.

LB: Mmhmm. And then I sit on the make-up case. It adds a whole other level of functionality, which I feel like is sort of part of being a lesbian.

WGA: Yeah, and it's especially probably really good 'cause you have tools in your make-up kit, instead of make-up.

LB: Well, I know one time when I tried to fly to Vancouver [giggles] recently, I went to go and play a show in December there, and I actually had a little butter knife in my case, and I tried to take it on as carry-on, and they weren't really very happy about that. Then they also took my wire cutters off me, which I'm still quite sad about. They'd been through wars with me. But for some reason they thought I could hijack a plane with them. The butter knife I can understand because you could hurt some people.

WGA: The butter knife, that's a lethal weapon. And wire cutters, maybe there's something you could do with a butter knife

LB: I could squeeze someone's finger really hard with wire cutters.

WGA: Maybe their nose, if their nose is that particular shape...

LB: Oh yeah yeah!

WGA: Long and pointy.

LB: Yeah, okay I totally understand why they took them away then!

WGA: Yeah, I guess so! Did you have anything else that you wanted to add before we get to you...

LB: Oh yeah! I wanted to just also mention that I'm really really fortunate that I got to play a couple shows with Grouper, who's amazing, and she has been... I don't want to use the word idol, that's too strong, but I really have admired her and I loved her music, and I feel really fortunate to be able to play with her, and in different time zones.

WGA: Tell us about that.

LB: I played with her in a huge big church in Vancouver, and it really felt like the amazing amount of reverb that she does was an oppressive force from god pushing down on you. It was phenomenal. It was a religious experience in itself, and the acoustics in churches are always my favourite environments to do anything in, be it just walking loudly or what-have-you. So I played that show with her in July last year, and then I found out she was coming here, and then we got in touch and she was like "come on tour" and I was like "okay".

WGA: That's fun, where was the tour?

LB: It's just a little tour, Toronto, and then London Ontario, which I've never been to.

WGA: Sounds exciting.

LB: We played The Museum of London, which sounds very exciting in itself.

WGA: Yeah if you, like, Twitter that "I'm playing the Museum of London", people are like "oooh!"

[both laugh]

WGA: And then you write "...Ontario". In lowercase letters.

LB: Within the parentheses.

WGA: How do we get ahold of you?

LB: You get in touch with me through my myspace, which is myspace.com/lesbeyond, which is exactly what it sounds like, l-e-s-b-e-y-o-n-d. I have shows listed there too, when I am playing next..

WGA: Exciting! Thanks for talking with us! Les Beyond, right here on With Gay Abandon!