Carbonated released their single titled “Empathy”. One of the unique characteristics of this song was the whole funky psychedelic element. The synthesizers i heard were magnificent and I personally isn’t the most familiar with this specific subgenre of rock music however “Empathy” plays as a good ‘first impression’ record that helps me get a good idea of the genre as a whole. It instantly begins with multi-colorful instrumental before carbonated idiosyncratic vocals transitions in. their voice is quite unique. It’s obviously distinguishable and doesn’t seem to be a cardboard copy of any other artist that’s in the industry today. However, that individualistic trait makes them more of a pop out band in my opinion. They show off their dynamic voice in different parts of the song, allowing melodramatic belts to progress the hit forward. The five piece, indie band from toronto canada who met in 2017 is here to stay and we don’t see them going anywhere!
Listen to "Empathy" here and get to know .carbonated. more in our interview below!
Hello all! Care to introduce yourselves to our readers?
Hi, we’re .carbonated. – a psychedelic indie pop band expressing the sonic interpretation & appreciation of pineapple from Toronto, Canada.
.carbonated. has five members:
- Lobes: vocals, guitar and synths
- Jamie: guitar, synths and vocals
- Michaël: percussion
- Shaheeny: synths and guitar
- Kohje: bass and vocals
Can you give us a brief history of your musical careers?
Everyone in the band (except Jamie) isn’t from Toronto. Lobes is from Ottawa; Michaël is from Montreal; & Shaheeny and Kojhe emigrated from Iran and Venezuela, respectively, about 10 years ago. None of us had ever met before .carbonated.
How did you come up with your band name? Is there a meaning behind it?
Oh wow, that’s a long story! It took us FOREVER to find a name we all loved and that hadn’t been used before. We initially had picked the name “Gross Domestic Happiness” but after a few weeks we hated it and had to go back to the drawing board.
We finally landed on .carbonated. and haven’t looked back!
Is there meaning behind it? Some in the band would say ‘no – it’s just a name we dig’ while others might say that the name signifies how we are trying to evolve pop music into something more than it currently is and that the name ‘.carbonated.’ represents that aspiration.
Do you write your own music? Can you tell us a bit about your writing styles and how you combine everyones to create your sound?
Yes, all our music is 100% written by us. Jamie and Lobes write the lyrics. Sometimes songs will come about from a band member bringing an idea to practice and we jam on it to flesh out the arrangement/parts. Other times we will send ideas (as little sound recordings) over WhatsApp to see if they resonant with other members and whether we should continue producing that idea into a finished song.
Creating our sound is grounded on the notion of ‘what serves the song best” and “what can we do to make the song sound better”. We have a philosophy of ‘there are no bad ideas until we play them’ so we try out all ideas to see what works best for the song. Oh, and we eats lots of pineapple for inspiration for our sound!
We’re really into your new song Empathy! Can you tell us a bit about it?
Awww shucks, thank you so much for your kind praise! Empathy came about and was put together so fast by us – everything just fell into place immediately.
One day at practice we were about to go outside for a break and Shaheeny just started playing that opening synth riff of Empathy and we all literally stopped dead in our tracks and looked at him and shouted “What the hell is that?!?!”
We know it’s cliché when artists say they wrote a song in 15mins but yeah – that song was created in around 15mins.
Where did the inspiration behind Empathy come from?
The inspiration for Empathy happened about three years ago. Lobes had just gone through a very painful break-up with his long-term girlfriend and was struggling hard. It was also around the time that Donald Trump was elected; Black Lives Matter was gaining ground as part of the national conversation on equality and systemic racism as well as First Nations reconciliation in Canada. On top of these moments there was also the beginnings of the #MeToo movement.
Lobes was trying to figure out how these cultural and societal winds of change affected him – he was trying to understand these other people’s points of view; people who didn’t have the same background as him and life events as him – and how he could help and be more understanding of their causes. And being an ally, listening and utilizing and growing his empathy was how he thought he could do this.
Who are some of your musical influences that have influenced you as a band?
We have so many influences – Tame Impala; LCD; Radiohead; Washed Out; The War on Drugs; Beach House; Kanye; Jenny Lewis; Mars Volta; Ratatat; Gorillaz; Neil Young; Joy Division.
What’s next for .carbonated.?
Our goal for 2019 is to open for an established band in Toronto. We have four shows coming up in the Spring in Toronto and we want to play as much as possible in 2019. We continue to write and record new music as well as further develop our video projections for our live shows.
Oh and we hope to get a pineapple/pineapple pizza sponsorship too.
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