It’s been a really good year for METZ
They’ve got the label, and they’ve made the Polaris list; it’s been a really good year
A record label deal and the Polaris Prize shortlist have made 2013 big for band,
In the mid-1990s, at opposite ends of town, two teenagers were discovering and exploring rock ’n’ roll. Alex Edkins lived in Stittsville. Hayden Menzies lived in Orléans. Both were sons of military men, but it was their pursuit of a musical dream that would bring them together and that would eventually lead to the formation of a band named METZ, which is doing pretty well for itself these days, thank you very much.
But first back beyond the fringe:
“Like most suburban situations there wasn’t a heck of a lot to do,” Edkins says. “I had one other good friend who would find cool records and pass them to me and I’d tape them. We started playing music together and would teach each other how to play guitar.” In his family home, Edkins’ brothers played the piano. He refused. He had another stringed instrument in mind. His first guitar was a Yamaha that his mother had had “from her flower child days. I still have it.”
Grunge was big at the time. Edkins “was into” bands like Sloan and The Melvins. And then — then he found punk.
He started listening to college radio. “I’d tune in at 10 p.m. on a Monday night and I started to hear all this new music.” He found bands like Fugazi and Jawbreaker.
Along with the music came listings for shows in Ottawa.
“People were putting on these shows for these bands in Ottawa. So I started to get a ride to the bus stop in Kanata and bus downtown to go see some of these shows. Basically from there I got absolutely hooked and would end up going into the city three or four times a week to see any band that was playing that I had heard on the college radio stations or had mailed away for their album or something like that.”
On these forays, he met Menzies.
“He oddly enough was basically doing the same thing from the other side of the city. Eventually I moved downtown and was able to be closer to the action and the musical community down there.”
It was a pretty hardcore punk scene, Edkins says, but it was very close-knit and he says he immediately felt welcome. Menzies, who was a drummer, was already in bands.
Edkins, who was a guitar player, soon got his break.
“Hayden had booked a European tour with one of his bands and at the last minute one of the members had to bail. He asked me to fill in and I jumped at the chance. After that tour that band disintegrated but we had already made the decision that the two of us were going to continue and start something new.”
That would become METZ, which was formed seven years ago. The name was chosen because, basically, it looked and sounded right. Both Edkins and Menzies had been to the French city, Metz, but the ambience of that town had nothing to do with the name.
When they got to work they started slowly.
“I was working at The Green Door in the kitchen. I was doing that at night so we would jam early in the morning at Hayden’s place. We started to get some demos together,” Edkins says.
At the same time, they were thinking of leaving Ottawa.
“It was just time for a change of scenery.” So they moved to Toronto, but bass player Chuck Saso stayed behind. “It was one of those serendipitous things where we met Chris Slorach through friends. I think it was Hayden who mentioned we were looking for a bass player.
“We just started to jam together and it was pretty obvious that there was some kind of cohesion and chemistry there.”
Eventually they got up the nerve to do their first Toronto show and it slowly built from there. “The first show was at The Boat in Kensington Market. Upstairs, no windows, very warm, a show with a band that has recently broken up called Quest for Fire.”
They continued to work the Toronto scene and even did a Canadian tour and a couple of trips down East.
“We stayed pretty much local, crafting our sound and working on our show.”
They were working nine-tofive as well.
Edkins worked in film, Menzies is a visual artist and Slorach was a show promoter.
In a way, the men of METZ are a self-contained unit. “We have our specialties that we all do and it does make for something that we have full control over and it is a functioning unit.”
After several years of relative obscurity, things changed almost overnight.
“We had been working with the idea of putting out a record. The Constantines were one of the first bands in Toronto to take us under their wing and let us play some shows with them. They were on the Sub Pop label for a while.
“We got a contact at the label from The Constantines and we sent them some demos from the album we were working on.” That was two years ago. “At the same time people were taking notice of our live show and more and more people were coming out and there seemed to be some excitement around the band.
“We got offers to play with some of our heroes (like) Mission to Burma, No Means No and Mudhoney.” Then came the thunderbolt. Sub Pop is a legendary Seattle label. It was there at the beginning of the grunge sound.
The folks at Sub Pop listened to the demos and basically signed METZ up, simple as that.
“This was a total dream come true for us.” And the deal came as they were just finishing up their first album.
“We had done singles and seven-This was the first thing we were proud and confident of releasing into the world. We thought it was a cohesive album that really showed what we were capable of doing. We worked our butts off into making the best record we possibly could. At the end of the day, we are happy with how it turned out.” Truer words. This album has made the Polaris 2013 shortlist. It has also launched them on a massive run of touring through Europe, the U.S., Canada, and soon, Australia, New Zealand and maybe Japan.
Despite the success, Edkins seems unruffled.
“Chris has experience in the industry and that’s helpful. And we’re not young guys (they are now in their early 30s). We’ve all been in this industry for many, many years and we’ve learned a couple of things. We approach the band with level heads and we are trying to do things in a very smart way.”
Along the way, Edkins married a woman he met in the kitchen of The Green Door, all those years ago. Neither of them are vegetarians.
Now was the right time because the road ahead looks pretty bright.
“We now have the opportunity to do what we love to do on a more fulltime basis. It’s still something where it’s a lot of work.
“When the record came out the response was quite amazing. People were asking us to travel all over the world to play and we jumped at the opportunity because it’s rare that this sort of thing happens.
“We figured we’d go for it and we’ve sort of been globe-trotting since. This is the most extensive touring we’ve ever done.”
In fact, when we spoke Edkins and the rest of METZ were in a van heading to Pearson Airport in Toronto for a flight to Boston and a gig in a club called The Sinclair with a band called The Men.
For many years the band wasn’t able to play in the U.S. Menzies had been caught sneaking across the border to play a benefit concert and he was banned for five years.
“But when we finally got over that hump, we hit the States with a vengeance. We have done two full tours hitting all major cities.” No arenas yet.
“That’s when we change our sound from Noise Rock to Pop Rock. That’s what we make and it comes naturally to us.
“It’s a bit of grunge and punk. We are trying to do something we can call our own, but we are big music lovers and no one can really escape their musical influences at the end of the day.”