FOR FANS OF: Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Queens of The Stone Age
ZIG MENTALITY are a stoner rock, DIY band from Ottawa, Canada, consisting of brothers Jig (lead vocals, bass guitar), Liam (lead guitar), and Quinn (drums, vocals) Dube. They released their debut EP The Sesh last April, and followed it at the end of the year with single "Best Direction." So far this year, they've released single "Triggered Emotion," and as of last week, "What Weighs on You." Personally, they're one of my favorite bands. ZIG MENTALITY are incredible at what they do, their music makes me feel alive, and as shown in this interview, they're very well-spoken, smart, and passionate.
Read on to get to know a little about them in their own words.
1) What were your favorite parts of 2020?
Jig: My favourite part of 2020 was having the opportunity to interact with my brothers in a way I haven’t experienced in my life before. We explored each others personalities and have grown quite a bit as a result of us being locked down together. Strangely fantastic. I also really enjoyed the 2020 the UFC’s content, pretty much all year.
2) What do you miss most about touring? And, what's an unforgettable moment from any tour you've been on?
Jig: I miss the discomfort of touring. Being forced to operate on a strict timeline, with like no sleep, but having a duty to see to it that you put on a good show, on time. It’s good for the soul. That’s absolutely the kind of thing we’re craving being locked up at home all the time. The mosh as well, damn, I miss the mosh.
3) What's your plans for 2021?
Quinn: We are already working on making a ton of new music. I am going tree planting in the summer but that's not stopping the train. We are excited to experiment with all kinds of new ways of making music, and see where our sound goes as we write these new songs.
4) Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
Our influences range from bands like Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, to bands like Show Me the Body, to artists and producers like KAYTRANADA or Stephan Bodzin. We try to infuse our music with the unique elements from each of our favourite artists.
5) Name 3 of your favorite releases from last year.
Keep My Name Out Of Your Mouth - Black Keys
Plain Jane - BLikeBrett
Regicide - Ready The Prince
Good Grief - Cleopatrick
Baby Girl - Bryce Vine
6) What are the hardest parts of being in a band with your brothers, and what are the best parts?
The hardest part of being in a band with your brothers is sometimes you wish you weren't in a band with your brothers because it's business, and that means all kinds of other bullshit interferes with the actual personal brother to brother relationship. But we have seen and experienced a lot as brothers under the umbrella of this band and we know where we're at.
The best part is you get to experience travelling, sharing a creative vision, and being part of a team that is of closer bonds than with random people. These experiences lead to learning more about one another and ourselves at the same time. The experiences within the band are in large part what deepens our relationships as brothers, outside of the band, that's just a blessing.
7) How has your sound changed over the many, many years you've been a band?
Well, in many ways, the sound has been subconsciously looming for a long time. I remember discussions dating back years from now about how we gotta blend X with Y and create Z but since we’ve gotten comfortable recording ourselves more and more, we kinda just let our intuition take control of things and takes its own life. We love and respect that. What it produces tends to naturally feel great to us. So that’s the sound, the relationship between our individual ideas, put on an audio canvas, and it kinda seems to have its own life, so we’re expecting a continuous flow of new sounds.
8) If you could tour with anyone in the entire world, who would it be?
Ultimately there is nothing we would love more than to do a New Rock Mafia tour. Cleo and RTP are always great guys to be around, it's just too bad the world is taking an L right now. Show Me the Body has some pretty sick shows, the place is always going nuts. They would be dope to tour with.
9) How do you measure success, and do you feel you've reached it?
Trying to figure that out every day of our lives, so far I feel we’ve been at least successful at that, trying.
10) What do you love about music?
I love the idea that music teaches us to see things from a broader perspective. A BMF sounds best in contrast to a soft verse. We like when things repeat, because it causes physical reactions within our body. Only because we are able to listen to something as a whole, to perceive, note 1, the silence that follows it, note 2 and so on. This is of course a language we humans seem to naturally grasp, that’s so cool.
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