Meet deepsix - a band from Uxbridge Ontario, Canada. deepsix consists of Nate Hobor (17, vocals & rhythm guitar), Scott MacDonnell (18, lead guitar), James Finlay (17, bass), and Karl Damus (18, drums).
They took over our Instagram story last month - you can check that out on our story highlights, @thecheetahpressmag - and released single "bloodmoney" at the beginning of this month.
They're a great band full of people who are clearly very passionate at what they do. Read some questions answered below by Nate Hobor to learn more about his band, deepsix.
1) When & why did deepsix form?
We formed our band in the last couple days of 2018. James and I decided we wanted to get something going after the NRM (New Rock Mafia) Jam Factory shows in December of that year, but nothing came to fruition until the rest of the guys found each other at a party and jammed. We all got together a couple days later, wrote tyler durden and here we are now.
2) What genre is deepsix?
We all have a super different and wide range of influences that we try to incorporate into our sound but I think the easiest way to describe us would just be rock.
3) Who are your biggest inspirations?
Band influences in terms of ethos and what we try to emulate with our music and shows would definitely be artists like Chastity, PUP and the New Rock Mafia, bands who step outside of the mainstream realm and create something organic and new. In terms of sound, we all come from different musical backgrounds and tastes but some artists we definitely pull from in our own personal playing are IDLES, Royal Blood, Destroy Boys, Talking Heads, Larnell Lewis, Power Trip, Rush, DEAR-GOD, Alexisonfire, cleopatrick, Ready The Prince and countless others.
4) What do you love about music?
I love that music has virtually unlimited boundaries. If you can organize sounds together, you’re making music. I think there’s endless possibilities to it, and deepsix isn’t really an experimental band but I love how open music is as an art form.
5) How has covid affected your band? Has it negatively or positively affected your creativity?
Covid has affected us in a weird way. Not being able to jam or practice together has definitely been a strain on us creatively, so we are trying to maximize our time working on recording new songs and re-working old ones. In some ways, it has helped us because it’s forced us to sit back and focus on the quality of the music we are looking to put out, and really make each song the best it can possibly be. cobain and bloodmoney would sound nowhere close to where they are now without the pandemic forcing us to really dig into those songs and pull out all the potential we could.
6) Your recent single, bloodmoney, can you tell us the inspiration for it and the meaning behind it?
I’ve never been great at writing personal lyrics so I love writing about things I’m passionate about, and politics is one of those things. I try to be as outspoken as I can on social issues and problems that are currently relevant in our world, and using what platform I have to talk about those things. bloodmoney is a song about capitalism and multi-billionaires and glaring wealth inequality which I think is especially relevant at a time when millions of people have had their entire lives upended by a pandemic, while the rich keep getting richer.
7) Got any plans, music release-wise for 2021?
We’ve been working on a project for over a year and a half now. As I mentioned earlier, Covid kind of threw a wrench in our writing/recording process so we aren’t exactly sure when it will be done, but we’re working our asses off to make it the best it can be. That’s all I’ll say.
8) How did you learn to play?
We all pretty much taught ourselves our instruments for the most part.
9) One piece of advice for anyone wanting to start a band.
My one piece of advice would absolutely be to go to shows and make connections. I’ve met so many friends and made so many amazing relationships by just talking to people at shows and reaching out to people online. We wouldn’t be close to where we are currently if we didn’t have the amount of help and support we got from so many people, and I think meeting people in the scene who know what they’re talking about and learning from their advice is the most important thing you can do when you’re starting a band. Next step is to keep your feet on the ground, be humble, allow yourself to be humbled and respect everyone. Don’t be a dick. Be grateful for everybody that reaches you a hand or teaches you a lesson.
10) Coolest thing to happen at a show, worst thing to happen at a show?
I would have to personally say the coolest thing to happen would be at the last show we played, in the West End of Toronto. At that point, cobain hadn’t been released yet and it served at our set opener at every show we played. On this night, the whole front row was singing every word to cobain with me. I know it’s probably cliché to say so, but that moment was absolutely insane for me. Realizing that these songs I write in my bedroom affect people enough that they know the lyrics to them before they’re even released was a really crazy thing. In terms of worst, last November we tried to set up a show in Uxbridge. Uxbridge has absolutely zero scene for this kind of music but we wanted to just throw a big show with some friends and have a ripper. It ended up being in a huge church gym and we got our homies from Mile End and Fury in Few to come up for it. I could’ve predicted this but not very many people showed up, and the sound in a giant concrete church gym is not the greatest for playing distorted loud instruments. Scott’s gonna kick me for saying this but it’s still probably one of my fondest show memories just cause we got to play with the homies and a bunch of our friends showed up for it. But the sheer amount of people that weren’t there was pretty funny. If someone who is reading this was at that show, I appreciate you.
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