Everlea is a band that has only been on the music scene for a few years but with the success of their self-titled album and experience sharing the stage with big names in the scene, they were ready to hit the stage headlining. On November 21st, 2009, lead vocalist and guitarist Justin Dubé, guitarist Casey Shea, bassist Pat MacLean, and drummer Brendan Soares headlined their first show to snug crowd at the MOD Club. But prior to filling the venue with their pop rock sound, lovable melodies and intuitive lyrics, Justin took the time to sit down with Valerie Bennett to talk about Everlea’s experiences on stage so far, how they’ve grown over the past few years, and what’s next for the band.

Valerie: So this obviously a big show for you, you’re headlining in your new hometown. How does that feel?

Justin: It’s intimidating but it’s exciting, you know? This was the step that we needed to take because we just came off a run with a bunch of really good shows in Toronto. Through the help of our booking agent and making some relationships with Live Nation, they both felt – both the promoter and our booking agent – that this was the next step because the last show we did in Toronto was Taking Back Sunday and that was in August. Before that was with Mariana’s Trench at the Opera House, before that was with Secondhand Serenade here, and then before that was with LIGHTS here. So they were like, “You know, it’s time that you guys headline a show here.”

Valerie: You’ve shared the stage with the likes of Taking Back Sunday, LIGHTS, and Midway State. What has the experience been like?

Justin: It’s been awesome. Sharing the stage with Taking Back Sunday a couple months ago was a dream come true. They’re a band that I grew up listening to and it was really nice to meet them. And I can’t believe it actually happened. It went well – we didn’t suck onstage… I don’t think! (Laughter.)

Valerie: No, it was great! It was a good show.

Justin: (Laughter) But no, it was fun so that was really cool. And playing with bands like LIGHTS is always amazing. I think we’ve learned a lot, especially me just watching her and how well she sings live, it’s made us kind of, you know, want to take it to the next level with our performances and make us want to be at the same level that those bands are at. I think that that’s been a really good thing, you know, playing with bands that can kick our ass. (Laughter.)

Valerie: So it’s been a learning experience that’s benefited you guys in a show like tonight?

Justin: Yeah, yeah totally.

Valerie: Nice. So what’s been your favourite moment on a show or on a tour. What’s been your favourite show?

Justin: The last show that we played with LIGHTS was last month and somebody drove all the way, well they had their dad drive them, all the way from Baltimore. When were in Baltimore recording, we opened for Secondhand Serenade, and this was like two years ago, and they followed us ever since then. They saw that we were playing in Buffalo and they were like, “We’re going to come to your show!” and I was like, “Yeah right.” They actually drove all the way, like an eight-hour drive, just to see us play in this little Mohawk place, which is a really small room. So that was a pretty humbling experience to know that you have that impact on someone’s life, that they’re actually willing to get their dad to drive them eight hours to see you play Buffalo. That was pretty cool.

Valerie: For sure, that’s amazing. You’ve also done a few acoustic sets, like the one in the summer that you played in Barrie. What’s the vibe like when you do that, when you play an acoustic show?

Justin: I always like playing acoustic shows just because it’s a different thing. I feel like the interaction with the audience is a lot easier because it’s not a big rock band, blowing everybody away. You can joke around a little bit more; you can be more dynamic, because there aren’t as many people on stage, right? A lot of times it’s just me and Casey. Also, you can hear the vocals actually. (Laughter) I think that that’s always really fun when people can actually hear the harmonies and everything like that because we really work hard on that kind of stuff. So that’s my favourite part about playing acoustic – being able to sing and know that people can hear what you’re saying.

Valerie: And I’ve seen a lot of acoustic videos from you lately, some covers and some of your new stuff.

Justin: Oh, with Brooks [Reynolds], right?

Valerie: Yeah. Is that just something you like to do for fun?

Justin: Yeah, that’s just like the benefit of having friends who are really talented. Brooks is really talented and he’s a really motivated person so he just wants to get out there and do stuff all the time. So having friends like that is awesome because he’s like, “Dude, I want to do this! Do you want to play a song for me because I just got this new camera and I want to try it out!” So that’s how that came about. His kind of motivation has pushed us to get those songs ready because they weren’t really ready. He’s like, “Why don’t you just finish that song you were working on and we’ll record it.” That’s kind of where that came from, and we also live really close to where that is, all of that stuff on the beach, so we just walk down to the beach and he brings his camera and we do it.

Valerie: Nice. He also shot your video for “Cigarettes” in the summer and you released that in the beginning of October. What was that experience like?

Justin: That was really cool. We did three days on the Burlington beach and he had this concept for the video. We just let him do pretty much did whatever he wanted because it was like he was doing us a favour, right? We didn’t have to pay; he put out all the cash for that. He rented all this gear and had to put the down payments on everything. We were just kind of along for the ride. It was funny though because we had a big show for North by Northeast playing with Mariana’s Trench in that same week and we were pretty stressed because we were on the beach – like sand was getting in our gear and it was raining, and we had to then go play this show. We played that show on Thursday and then on Friday morning it was finally going to be sunny and he wanted to get some sunrise and sunset stuff. So we had to wake up – and we didn’t get back to Burlington where we were staying with some friends until two in the morning – at five in the morning and we had to be ready to go. So that was pretty intense. I was just so excited about everything that I found it really hard to sleep that whole time so I was really tired. (Laughter) But yeah, it was cool. It was good.

Valerie: That’s great. So obviously you’ve come a long way since your EP Friends Hurt Friends, you know so long ago now. How have you guys grown as a band in the past five years?

Justin: Well… I think it’s just like anything; the longer you do something, I think that they way that we’ve grown the most is just that we see how much we need to still grow, you know? Like when you start out, it’s kind of like, “Yeah, we’re going to do this and do this, and this is going to happen, this is going to happen.” But then, the more you do it and the longer you do it, the more you realize you have so much more to do and I think that we’ve benefited from working with some really good producers who made us more aware of things, that bands aren’t really aware of. Just like being good performers and being really tight and being good musicians. They just kind of instilled in us that you should always be striving to be better, right? I think that just five years of that has made us, kind of where we are now – still wanting to be better and still striving to write better songs and just to be better at everything. I think that also we’ve grown because me and Brendan and Casey, we’ve gone through so many member changes. Now I feel like with Pat in the band it’s pretty good because we’ve been playing with him in bands for a long time. He’s kind of coming from the same thing, he was in a band that rotated members a lot and now it’s kind of like we’ve found each other and whatever so it’s kind of cool. (Laughter)

Valerie: Nice! So in 2007 you recorded your self-titled album and then in 2008 you re-recorded it with producer Brian McTernan…

Justin: Wow, how do you know that?

Valerie: A little bit of research.

Justin: That’s different. (Laughter)



Valerie: So why it important to work with Brian on that?

Justin: It was important just because we had done everything on spec before, and so I think the product we had was okay but we needed to take it to the next level. And working with Brian, he was someone who produced some of my favourite records growing up. He did that Recover EP Ceci n’est pas recover and that was one of my favourite records growing up – like I would listen to it on repeat. Finding out he was interested in working with us, we were like, “That’s amazing.” Just sonically, he finally was able to give us the sound that suited that record. Before we were kind of like, “We want this, we want this,” and we didn’t really know and he was just like, “You know this is going to work, you guys. This is the sound I hear for you guys.” He also taught us, because we did a lot of preproduction on the songs with him and sometimes we didn’t end up changing anything but he was really big into trying everything so that you make sure that what you have is the best idea, you know? So we did preproduction and we did three songs from scratch with him, then we rerecorded all the drums – because he has an amazing drum room there – and we rerecorded a song with bass and he remixed everything. He’s got all of our really nice gear and stuff. It was awesome living in Baltimore. We lived there for like a month and then we went back like after Christmas for a week or something like that.

Valerie: Nice. It must have been good to go back.

Justin: Yeah it was cool. And his family – they are so welcoming and stuff. I think that, just back to your question, the biggest benefit we got from him was just sonically, it sounds so good. He has really good connections. The guy who mastered our records, George Marino, he mastered the Coldplay records, and Nirvana and Pinkerton. It was pretty cool to have someone like that master the record.

Valerie: Yeah, for sure. So you guys released a sneak peek of a new song for Skate4Cancer. What can you tell us about that?

Justin: It was kind of through Brooks actually. Brooks is really good friends with Rob and he was like, “You guys should get in touch with each other.” So we did. We had just lost like our mentor – like when I was speaking earlier about how we were benefited from producers who would always kick our asses – he was a producer, a manager and we actually started a record label with this dude named Kirk. He died from testicular cancer last April, so it was after that, [Brooks] was like, “I know that this is something that’s close to you guys and if you want to help out and contribute a song or whatever…” And that’s what it is and that’s what the song’s about.

Valerie: So that’s why it’s important to you? You’ve been affected by it personally?

Justin: Yeah. I think that everyone has really. I’ve never really written a song that’s so just unambiguous, it’s just right there. It’s pretty raw but it’s pretty pop-y too.

Valerie: What does the song focus on and what is it about specifically?

Justin: Just how wrong it still feels, just the feeling of helplessness and kind of confusion, I guess, when you lose someone really close to you. I mean when he had cancer they gave him an 80 per cent chance of survival. And, also the song kind of deals with the process of having a really close friend who has cancer and seeing their deterioration and stuff.

Valerie: When can we expect to hear the full track?

Justin: I’m not sure. I think that Rob is releasing a compilation when he comes back from Australia. LIGHTS has something on it and we’ll have something on it. I think that’s going to be in the summer, so not for a bit.

Valerie: Right on. I’m looking forward to it though when it does come. Finally, what’s next for Everlea? What can we expect from you guys and what does the future hold?

Justin: We’re doing a new record right now. It’s going to be a little bit before that comes out so I think we’re going to do in the mean time, just to keep people kind of in the loop with what we’re doing, is put out an acoustic EP maybe and just put it out for free. In the mean time too, just to keep people in the loop because we’re not going to be playing that many shows just because we’re recording, Casey is our video guy and he’ll be documenting our lives. (Laughter)

Valerie: Doing some little vlogs? Is that what you guys are calling them?

Justin: (Laughter) Yeah, yeah.

Valerie: That’s great. Well I look forward to hearing the new album. Any idea when it’s going to come out?

Justin: Probably not until the summer.

Valerie: All right, I look forward to hearing it. Thanks so much for meeting with us. I really, really appreciate it and it’s been great talking to you!

Justin: Thanks!