WR986: DITCH!

WITCHPOLICE RADIO: All right, welcome to Witchpolice Radio. I'm here with a band that is new to me, really, and I think new to the podcast, new to a lot of people who are listening to the show. One of the things that I think people who listen regularly know is that, you know, it's a Manitoba podcast. But I'm very focused on Winnipeg. Being here in Winnipeg, it sort of makes it a lot easier to find local bands that are playing the city. But every once in a while, we like to sort of go beyond the perimeter and find people doing other stuff in other parts of the province. And I think that the best way to start this off is if the three of you who are here today want to introduce yourselves, what you do in the band, and then maybe a bit of background about the band and we can sort of take it from there. TOBY: Sure. I'm not the frontman. That'd be our buddy Joey, but he'll get a spot last. My name's, yeah, my name's Toby. I'm the bass player. I also do a lot of the production kind of stuff in the band. And oddly enough, I do live in Winnipeg. It's why we're in from different locations here. But yeah, we've been started up together maybe four years ago and then that's when we're all playing together over at Bailey's house and Joey showed up and... yeah, that's all I'm about, really. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: All right, so who else have we got here then today? BAILEY: So I'm Bailey, I'm the drummer of the band. We started playing in my parents basement. So pretty classic, you know, bands. Yeah, yeah, Toby and I were playing, you know, just kind of getting our legs underneath us at least. I was definitely just learning the drums, getting it together. These two, you know, humored my bad playing long enough for me to get, you know, somewhat good enough for the band, for the album. But yeah, it all started with Toby and I. Toby and I, we go back to high school together. So, you know, after high school, he picked up the bass, I picked up the drums. We started playing a bit. JOEY: We're kind of going in chronological order for introduction this year. BAILEY: So Joey pops up on the scene. JOEY: Well, and that led to some kind of jam band. I'm Joey, by the way. I am the singer and guitar player of Ditch. And yeah, these are, these are my mates Bailey and Toby. And yeah, we have been cooking up some music for a couple of years now and quite a while. We are. I'm personally a big fan of the show, so I'm excited to be on here and have something to plug. It's. It's really exciting. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Well, that always makes it easier, right? If you got something to talk about, it's a lot easier than just coming on to talk about being in a band. That's great too. You have a new record and we'll definitely, definitely get into that. But I mean, I guess, you know, we've alluded to the fact that Winnipeg is maybe not necessarily where all of you guys are right now.Where are you geographically? You know, because I think a lot of people might be unfamiliar with what you do and who you are. JOEY: Well, I live in Miami and I usually wait for people to be a look and then I say Manitoba, so it's a little less glamorous. Bailey? BAILEY: So I lived in Morden my whole life and now I'm just living just outside of Morden. And we're kind of in the country right now. So this is our, this is where we currently practice and we're kind of out far enough that we can. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Okay. Okay. So Morden. I mean, I've been to Morden, you know, mainly for the festival in the summer, you know, been a bunch of times. I think I like a lot of Winnipeggers, probably that's their main experience in Morden. I don't have a great grasp on what the music scene is like there as far as original music and not people coming in to play a big event like that. So I've had a few, few artists from Morden on the show before. But what's your sort of, I guess, take on what the music scene is there? I know Winnipeg's close enough and so are a number of other communities that you can probably fairly easily get shows sort of around the area. But in Morden itself, what's it like? JOEY: Morden itself has been like so welcoming as a community to us. It has a huge...sorry, I should start by saying it has a huge music community. There are some tremendous musicians here, like just in Morden. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Yes. JOEY: Not including Winkler. Like, you know, like it's. It's a really music influenced area. And when we, when we popped up on the scene, you know, people were just really supportive and invited us to lots of shows and we've got, you know, lots and good, good friends we've made through them. You had our good pal Derek helps on. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Right. Yeah. His record was fantastic too. JOEY: Yeah. 'At Night A Tree Grew'. Oh my God. Like the fact that that came out of the Morden area was so thrilling to like us and, and yeah, because like there's not like a ton of psychedelic rock out here. There's lots of great music. A lot of it's like country folk, you know, that sort of idea. But like all of a sudden out of the, I guess the trees, this like psychedelic forefront came out and it was just really, really exciting and we've spent a lot of time jamming with Derek and kind of learning the art of that. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Well, that was kind of my next question about the stylistic thing. I mean, it's a question that no one likes answering because it's hard to answer, sort of where you fit in, you know, genre wise. But I mean, I have this perception, I think a lot of Winnipeggers do too, that everything outside the city is dominated by folk and country. And I mean, the city is all, you know, large parts of Winnipeg are dominated by those genres as well. But you're doing something a little heavier. I mean, I wouldn't call it heavy necessarily, but it's much heavier than a folk band or a country band. I mean, do you have sort of a way to classify it? I mean, I guess maybe the obvious thing would be called alt rock or something along those lines. BAILEY: What we've sort of landed on is the alt rock thing, but we don't. JOEY: I really think, I think that covers the umbrella of like what our sound is. But I think like each song individually could be categorized as however it comes out. You know, we try not to write old rock songs. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Sure. JOEY: We just write a song and then, you know, like whether it's. It's the. The kind of poppy simplicity of Same Service or the disco of Lady Finger Killer, you know, like it just like that just like happened. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: And then I guess, so the brother to that question then is how is that received out there? I mean, are there a lot of other bands that play in a similar enough style that you sort of have a scene there for what you do? Or does that require going a bit outside of Morden? JOEY: We're a little bit heavier than other locals. Like bands do come through that are, you know, just as heavy as us or whatever. And that's not what we're aiming for. But no, it's... our style is very, it's not abrasive but it's at the forefront, you know what I mean? Like it's in your face in a certain way that like doesn't work to play in a coffee shop. So like we have to be kind of like selective where we play around here. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Sure, sure. And is there, I mean, are there venues that work out there for what you do? JOEY: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. BAILEY: Legion of Doom has probably been hosting us the most there, our pal Carl Reading throws a Legion of Doom every fall in the basement of the Legion. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Cool. JOEY: And there was a. Well, you played in a synth band. BAILEY: Yeah, I was like electric to whatever. Very cool. Yeah. So why like a. You know, there is a lot of folk music in Morden, but there is quite the genre diversity. JOEY: Like yeah, there's. And there's Rocks bar, there's Travs bar, Travelers Inn. If you want to play a real exciting night, that's a good place to play. We love travel. There's lots and lots of good menus and. TOBY: And maybe a good way to phrase it is that it's. It's. When you go to a show in Morden, oftentimes you don't end up going to a folk show or a country show or a rock show. It ends up just being a mixed bag. You're just coming for the music and whoever, whatever lucky three bands are up that night, you just gotta enjoy it. You know. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Those are often the best shows too, right? Where you have, you have just a completely disparate sounding artists on the bill for sure. I mean in the city as well. I mean, not to dwell on the Morden thing... this is my last question about that. I hope for now, and then we can talk about the record itself. But what has it been like, you know, again, because it's very Winnipeg centric, this show, and I'm here in Winnipeg. What has it been like? Sort of trying to get into the music scene here because obviously this is going to be where a lot of your audience will be, whether it's seeing you live or hearing you online or however they're hearing your music. I mean, has there been a challenge to sort of get yourselves known within Winnipeg? JOEY: There has been a bit of a wall with that, but it's kind of like on us in the sense that we didn't have any material out there. You know, we had like a few live videos and stuff, but, you know, working so hard on this record. We've been working on this record for years now. It's been done for a year. Yeah, we're dilly-dallying, you know, like the. The touches, you know, just spending too much time on it. But. But so, like, it was hard to, like, reach out to venues and try and explain ourselves and like, sort of that. So you don't. I don't kind of like blame it on the. The venues or anything like that. I'm excited to see what it's like now that we have material and to like, you know, send out the next list of. Of emails out to venues and say, you know, be able to put a foot forward and say, hey, this is us. This is what we sound like. Are you interested? WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Yeah. Now you have the calling card. You can link them to the record and then they can. JOEY: Exactly, yeah. Because we've. We've emailed a lot of venues and reached out to a lot of spots and we've played a couple of really, really awesome shows in the city, but it's not, like, consistent enough for us to make the drive out. Toby's always driving out here. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Well, for sure, for sure. So, I mean, I guess with this record you mentioned a couple of seconds ago that it's. It's. It's been done for a year. These are songs that have been sort of in the works for a while. And one question I like to ask people a lot, when that's the case, and that is the case for a lot of artists, I think is. Is how do these songs feel to you now? Do they feel old now? I'm assuming you're still working on new stuff? Sort of constantly. And these are new to a lot of people listening, right? I mean, myself included. But do they feel old to you? Do you feel like you've sort of progressed now past these songs? Because they. They. They're sort of. So. I don't want to say dated, but, like, you know, they've been in the can for a while. JOEY: Right. I. My opinion on this is known. So what do you guys think? WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Well, what's your. I don't. I don't know your opinion. So let's hear it. JOEY: Surprise. I am so ready to. Like, we've been working on new material, and I can. I have been whipping these fellas, like. Yeah. To the finish line, please. I want to put out, and I can't seem to let it go. We thought a new album. We're. We're writing, you know, nothing more than just some ideas we've got down. But we've been just, like, some of those songs I brought to the guys, like, from years ago, I think. Same service section I wrote in 2016. Yeah. So for me, a couple of them are, like, are really old, and they have new life, and they're still exciting, and we love to play them. But. Yeah, like, to. I don't want them to be taking up so much of my brain space anymore. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: You kind of have to now, though, right, because people are hearing this record. You got to play these songs. JOEY: Yeah. And. And that's okay because there's new ways to.. The spark is reignited. Yeah. Now that they're released and have something to share, and 100%, they feel different. They do feel different now that they're. old. But we are, like, happy with them, you know, like, we're happy to play them. We're not dog tired of them. TOBY: I was just gonna say it's interesting, definitely, to see the things that people say some days, you know, at work and stuff. I'll share the album around and people tell me about it, and by the end of the day, I'm like, man, this is all I've talked about all day long. And some of the questions people ask are pretty funny. They asked me. One of my coworkers asked me what my favorite song on the album was. After I asked them the same question, I was like, you know, I can't even answer. That changes once a week. And that's probably whatever I'm working on right now. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Aside from the songs being. Some of them being old, obviously 2016 is quite a while ago now. Do you feel like the sound of the band has Progressed, I guess. How has the sound of 2025 changed from maybe what these songs would have been like when you originally wrote them? And then the sort of another question related to that is, is, are you. Have you been able to sort of shift some of these older songs into whatever your newer sound is? Like, have they. Have they developed over the years and then morphed and molded? JOEY: Yes, we. I'm. I'm glad that we played the songs for as long as we did before we recorded them, because they really made a lot of changes. I listened back to, like, some old videos we have of us, and they are like. Like, Bailey put the fill into Acid the week we were going into the studio. And I cannot hear that song without that. BAILEY: Ah, going into the heavier section. Yeah, that's... we were tweaking these things all the way up until the very end. And so we're very happy that we definitely had, like, a sound. I think we were all kind of narrowing in on over time and slowly, like, literally over years of us playing. Like, we. We all had the same idea, I think, but it was just, for me at least, getting the technical ability there to execute, you know? JOEY: And the band definitely started more as us just loving playing music. And I've always been a writer. I'm a songwriter before I'm a singer or guitar player, really. This is just a way to do it. But it started as us just having a blast. And then eventually we, like, I brought same service and we had fun with that. Then we wrote a song on our own and whatever. And then it ended up being like, hey, we have a couple of really cool songs. Should we be like a band? I guess. And then I was like, yeah. And then. Then came months of trying to find a name and months of, you know. BAILEY: It'S two months to come across the name. JOEY: Yeah. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: What were some of the. What were some of the other options? Did you have any, like, really terrible ones that came up as potential? JOEY: Oh, I can't remember. We shan't share. We shan't. I've listened to enough of your episodes. Nobody digresses. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Right on. BAILEY: Toby, do you remember any? TOBY: No, I do remember. I think one of them. But it sounds like we got. Sounds like it's not getting let out there. I don't remember exactly what it was. JOEY: I'll tell you one new name after each show. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: What is sort of the goal with this now? You have this record out, obviously, like you've said, it's kind of. It can act as a calling card. You can get more shows in the city and elsewhere. Where do you hope to take it? Take the band. Now that you have this cut out in the world now, people can very easily hear you on whatever platform they use to listen to music. What's the next step now to. To progressing further to this path? JOEY: For me, it's personally like more material. I want to write certain songs. The most fun we had was when we wrote the actual songs and played them at the first show. You know, like that first time we played Lady Finger Killer. BAILEY: So like that's songs, you know, a big chunk too. We wrote like threes, four songs at once and we perform them all and. JOEY: Yeah, all at once and that's the rush. So like, for me, I want to go back to writing some more, some new tunes because like we talked about their old songs, right. I want to add them as, as fodder to the canon more than, you know, our main, main meal, you know, every show, like it's. I want to be able to like sprinkle some of these tunes in and like excite people with like the older stuff. I want this to be older stuff, you know. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Right, right. Fair enough. For sure. So I mean, I guess like with, with playing a genre of music. I know again, it's nebulous alt rock, we'll just use that as a term for the purposes of this. But you know, playing a style of music that, that has potential to be attractive, very wide umbrella audience. Right. I mean, you're not doing something super niche. You're not doing something that's necessarily hard for people to wrap their brains around. You're playing a fairly straight ahead style of music. Where do you want to see this goal? Like what is the sort of the ultimate goal, I guess with this banner, are you happy to just be doing what you're doing or do you have ambitions to sort of take it further? And I ask that mainly because you're doing a genre of music that is, you know, potentially could reach a very wide group of people. JOEY: I really don't think that that's... BAILEY: For me at least. When we were writing the songs, it was always. I feel like whenever we wrote something that even one of us just didn't like a little bit, we didn't do it. Yeah, like we didn't, we didn't write it. We changed it up and we compromised and then we, we like. I like all of the songs personally and. JOEY: Yeah, like, I don't have any ambitions to like aim us towards a certain, you know, whatever. Like. Yeah, it's, I'm a big fan of, of jam bands that, you know, go. Go across genres. You know, like you can put out a country album and then it's album and where's the Mat? We're not going to do that. You. Yeah, but like, you know, it's, it's more about just like letting the songs just happen. That's the most exciting part of it. And if we someday end up sounding, you know, like a certain genre, then okay, that's where we were supposed to be. I don't know. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Sure, yeah. JOEY: Follow the stream. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Makes sense. Makes sense. Are there certain artists that all of you listen to that you can agree on or is it a pretty diverse listening habits between you? BAILEY: There's a, there's, there's a Venn diagram. JOEY: They're all, they're getting there. Yeah, it was, it was very separate at first. BAILEY: So what are your, what are your top three listener like bands you're listening to then? JOEY: Me, right now? WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Yeah. JOEY: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards, Number one. Oh boy. BAILEY: I'll tell you, we share that. We share King Giz. JOEY: Yeah, yeah. It's. Well, Viagra Boys, Tiger Boys. That's gotta be. All three of us are like, yeah, I, I don't know. That's, that's. And then some folk country stuff. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Okay, fair enough. JOEY: Like singer songwriter stuff. That's. That's where I'd sit. Outside of Gizzard and bootleg Gizzard, there's not much room for any other music in my life. BAILEY: Your top influences is Toby? TOBY: Well, firstly, I like Viagra Boys a lot. Like you were saying. On top of that, I do listen to a lot of pop punk as well. I've been listening to a lot of Hot Mulligan these days. And besides that, I don't know, I like to spend my time listening to like old 2000s rock and stuff. BAILEY: Like Big Wreck, that sort of thing. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Okay, sure. TOBY: Yeah, A lot of fun. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: What's, what is the plan as far as first playing shows? Do you have anything booked in the relative and near future. I mean, this is a podcast. Someone could hear the week it comes out. They could hear it like five years from now because apparently I can't stop making the show, you know, so. But, but for, for people listening now, people are listening at the time this is coming out. Do you have anything sort of on the horizon in few months that people might want to check out? JOEY: Yeah, we've got June 27th booked for Rocks Bar. It's kind of going to be like a album celebration, not like an album release party because, you know, it's out there, it's out there already. But you know, we're just going to get out there, jam some tunes that we love and throw, throw the album out there and. Yeah, celebrated. So, you know, remember that day? June 27th, Rocks Bar. But other than that, you know, we've got maybe a couple little festivals and pop up shows this summer, but it's, it's pretty fast and loose the way we, we plan it. BAILEY: Hopefully we can get some city shows. JOEY: Yeah. TOBY: Yeah. Well, we should have at least one later this year if everything works out. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: How do people hear this? I mean, again, you know, being in Morden, a lot of Winnipeggers listen to the show. They might not be, might not be able to get down there and see you live until you play in the city. What's the best way to hear your stuff? How can someone find out what you're up to online? JOEY: Well, you can always go to our Instagram page which has our link tree, which Toby made for us as the tech guy of the edge. Little quick Power clause. We didn't know what a link tree was which will bring you to Spotify, YouTube, Apple, music, all. All of that stuff. And that's where you can find the album itself. And, yeah, follow the Instagram and keep an eye on us. When it asked us where to publish it, we published it at every possible streaming service. So it could be places that we don't even know and actually keep your eyes peeled around the city. We printed like a couple hundred CDs, and I've just been leaving them over the place, like giving them to people or putting them on lamp posts. So if you see one, it's free, take it. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: That was my next question, actually, because I'm. I'm definitely like a dinosaur and I listen almost entirely to physical music. I don't. I don't use Spotify or Apple or anything just because I'm old and set in my ways. Right. So it's nice to hear. It's always nice to hear when the bands are putting out physical stuff. I mean, a lot of people do that still and have done it for decades, but there's a lot of bands that are putting stuff out now that they just don't even think about it because it's not the way their audience consumes music or the way they consume music themselves either. JOEY: Right. We. We had talked about only releasing this album on cassette. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Okay. Awesome. Yeah. JOEY: Ultimately decided that was a poor idea, and so instead we gave away hundreds of free CDs, but, you know, it was. It was a marketing idea. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Yeah. Well, there are still lots of us listen to tapes. We're out here. JOEY: Oh, me too, man. I know, I know. But it's too easy to find good tapes. There's no trail like the vinyls. You know, you go to the thrift stores and there's just racks and racks of good cassettes. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not as good as it used to be about 15, 20 years ago when everyone just was dumping all their tapes, like, you know, in large quantities. But. Yeah, and I know what you mean for sure. So. I mean, if someone wants to get a CD, I mean, is there a way to get those or. You have to sort of find one random? BAILEY: Come to our show. TOBY: Come to a show. BAILEY: We'll give them away. JOEY: Yeah, they're free. WITCHPOLICE RADIO: Awesome. JOEY: If you want one and you live far away or something, let us know, we'll mail you one.