Gabrielle - Lead guitar back vocals
Vera - Guitar, bass, lead vocals
Jamie - Bass, guitar, lead vocals
Lynn- Drums, back vocals
Shock Treatment: How did you all meet and decide to form the band?
J - Lynn and I met up to discuss starting a new band and one of the members of Dirty Cheetah (Lynn’s other band) mentioned that we should check out Vera! We started jamming together and it was a great connection. We added Gab a couple of years ago and it’s been complete ever since. We also have a lot of replacements filling in here and there and they are always super fun!
Shock Treatment: I've read Taxi Girl's sound being compared to everyone from The Distillers to Nikki Corvette! How would you describe your music to someone that’s never heard the band before?
V - Tidy Punk. You can hear elements of all kinds of genres, from old school punk, to garage rock, to alt/indie, even Devo ! Oh and we have really sweet harmonies too :)
J - I would say it’s a bit of a mix of all the good stuff. I think calling our music punk is selling it short in a way because it’s so much more than that.
L- I would call it DEJÀ VU PUNK, I feel like it gathers a little bit of all genres and smudged / smashed up onto our album.
V - I had a guitar teacher when I was 14 years old named Christine who taught me all the classics I could learn on an acoustic guitar at the time: Radiohead, Porno for Pyros, Jane’s Addiction. That along with making mixtapes with my cousin Sara, really got me into grunge and punk. Once I heard L7, Babes in Toyland and Hole I knew that I needed to be in a band.
J - I saw Green Day when i was 12 and they brought a girl on stage to play Knowledge on guitar in Calgary. I immediately was like I WANT TO DO THAT. I loved Green Day, Rancid and the Offspring and all the Fat and Epitaph bands growing up. Not a lot of girls in those days so I knew I wanted to make music and be seen.
L - Well for me, music was implanted in my veins. My roots are folk (Ti Blanc Richard).
Being young all our holidays were spent together playing music, singing and dancing. My dad and his brothers were all musicians, so I started playing piano as a first instrument... The list is long. Then having a brother who loved heavy metal kinda made me know all about it. I'm a proud French Canadian and would listen to French music as well and still do. My first concert was Warrant, I lived across Detroit, so I got to see many concerts as a teenager. My taste in music varies, so very hard to really know what my influences are. Didn't enjoy the country music much but really appreciate it today.
Shock Treatment: Taxi Girls is currently based in Montreal. What’s one thing you feel that everyone should know about Montreal but probably doesn’t?
V - We have a beach! It’s by the Saint-Lawrence River in a neighbourhood called Verdun. I’m there as much as possible in the summer, it’s really one of my favourite places in the city, hands down ! Verdun Beach FTW !!
J - This is the best place to raise a kid. Also there is always something to do!
L - Many hidden spots to go to or things to do, but I will say there is so much to do all year long and no matter what time it is, there's always people up. It's very lively and we love to eat and drink good things.
Shock Treatment - Tell me about Taxi Girls debut LP Static. What can people expect from these new tunes compared to the songs you’ve previously released?
V - This album is very diverse. Expect the unexpected because you will undoubtedly be surprised. Our other songs fit more neatly into the genre of punk or garage rock, whereas I feel we were really thinking outside of the box more with this album. Our inspirations were also more varied which I think you can really hear.
J - yeah exactly. We also just matured into a version of ourselves that allowed us to be more comfortable and stubborn in our song writing.
L - There's something on this album for everyone, it doesn't just reach out to a genre it really is a variety of flavors that hopefully will reach out to new listeners and travel the world. It's a fun album from song A to Z. Hoping it keeps people listening til the end. (fingers crossed)
Shock Treatment - For the new LP, you decided to go with Stomp Records, what led to that decision?
J - To be honest I don’t fully remember the trajectory on this but I think Lynn’s friend Julie (who works for stomp) plugged us to Matt and Mike. They invited us into their office and just said “so we want to put our your record, it’s really great”. And they’ve been incredible.
L - I will give all the credit to my husband Joe. He's the one who approached Julie and wanted her to listen to the album, so bad et voilà the rest is history!!!
V - It was super fun ! We shot the video with Loicia Samson since we loved working with her for the Lion’s Share video. Her vision is very on brand with our music and really works with our sound. We shot the video in 3 locations, one of which was inside a U-Haul truck we rented, scantily clad in the cube mid-March in Montreal was freezing but it really paid off ! We are all really happy the way it turned out.
L - All I remember was DAMN IT'S COLD, the scene in the CUBE out in the cold !!! But it doesn't really seem like it. Loicia, is a great visual artist, we just briefed her on the song and she completed her magic, she's really great to work with, she's quick and gets it done fast.
V - We are already in August, and we just opened for The Offspring which was a total dream come true for us. We have a couple more shows to round out the summer, and in September we are off to the Canadian Prairies for a mini tour !
J - and after that we can take a break to work on our bursting notebook of song ideas! I am looking forward to that because writing is my favorite part of being in a band :)
L - Hoping to fly out in EUROPE, I think it might just happen...TB Confirmed!!!!
But let's see we have lots to do. Aside from all of us working full time, we manage to somehow pull some spark into our jam space and keep it fun, otherwise why are we doing it!
Shock Treatment - Where can people go to find your music and follow the band?
V - Taxi Girls Montreal . We are everywhere :)
