Spooky Nights

Toronto Band Bad Tits Play POP

Fringe ArtsColin Harris — Published September 28, 2010

“It’s like a nightmare on rave street, like if [Halloween director] John Carpenter had a band,” Grainger said about Bat Tit’s sound. “Our concept for [Bad Tits] is for it to be like if you were stoned and walked into a bar and something weird was happening.”

Playing alongside Josh Reichmann in a live setting is something that seems really new to Grainger. “I’m playing a half drum kit, half sampler. Everything’s heavily effected, very experimental, very improvisational. We don’t have any written lyrics, we just sort of improvise,” he explained.

Compared to other members’ past projects, this is a totally new approach to establishing a sound. “We get down to the basic requirements of music, and it ends up being far more performance oriented. It’s a lot more free, it’s also weird, a lot more weird than the other things I’ve done,” he explained.

The band’s debut EP, Garbage Nights, was released this year and recorded in Toronto during last year’s garbage strike. With barely anything written beforehand the group spent an afternoon creating improvised psychedelic noise-rock.

After releasing Garbage Nights, Bad Tits had a reason to start playing live, although immediate results were not all so satisfying. “We got together and tried to play these songs that we only ever played in an afternoon in the studio, and found that not only did it not sound good b­­ut it didn’t translate.”

This lack of translation forced Bad Tits to rework and write more material that Grainger called “a lot more dance-oriented.”

This approach to recording is new territory for the band. However, it has also become “part of our [motto] with this band. Don’t commit to anything early on, enjoy the moment of creativity and not revise it too much,” he said. “[We’re] trying to make something different.”

For the next recording session the band will approach the album in a similar way. “We’re not going to be precious about it, that’s an attitude [we] reserve for solo material […] but with this one we’re probably going to record the next release in our practice space,” Grainger said about their post-tour plans. “We’re probably going to take the attitude we have from the live show and bring it to the studio.

If the live shows work out, the band is ready to put more energy into the group. However, Grainger said he wasn’t interested in pushing the music onto people unnecessarily. “If it works it works, if it doesn’t, what are you going to do?”

Bad Tits play with Holy Fuck and Indian Jewelry on September 30 at the Little Burgandy POP Loft (6600 Hutchison St.). Tickets are $15. Show starts at 12 p.m.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 07, published September 28, 2010.