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The frontman-with-a-band turned trio, Yester Daze’s chemistry is palpable even through a screen.

Underground punk and stadium rock had a love child, and in 2018, Yester Daze was born.

While the Montreal-based band was originally just vocalist Brandon McShad with a Bowie-esque arrangement of frontman with a backing band, the shift to simply introducing themselves as a three-piece band was organic, as the members all began writing music together.

Their first single, “Beautiful Day” was released in 2019, also included in their debut EP, Yours to Follow, that came out in February 2021, produced and recorded at Avbury Studios, in Pte. Claire.

After two years of intense pandemic lockdown, Yester Daze is now taking the stage again. Their first show back in Montreal was on 15 April, at Piranha bar.

But that was not their first show following the end of lockdowns.

BB: How was it playing live after two years in a pandemic?

Brandon McShad (Vocals + Guitar): Our first show back during pandemic was actually in Toronto, which was really fun, because it was our first time playing there. And that was a really cool experience itself. But like our first show back [in Montreal], it was a little more stressful just because, you know, people we actually know are there. So it was kind of like, we didn’t want to you know, suck to our friends and family. So I was a little stressed during that personally. But honestly, it went really well. And the crowd was great. And it was just a lot of fun. And there was a good energy there. So, I mean, it was really just, it’s great to be back playing after you know, two years around.

Zach Lemay (Bass): Yeah, Toronto was our first show back from the pandemic, technically, but it wasn’t quite the same just because all our friends and family weren’t there, as Brandon said. It was a lot more exciting. I think. I wasn’t so stressed though. I was just really excited.

McShad: Yeah like once you’re in it, you kind of forget about [the stress] too. I find usually after like the first or second song, it’s good. It’s usually like you get the reception and you’re like, okay, it’s fine. We got this, we’ll be good.

BB: And how would you compare playing in Toronto to a new crowd with playing in Montreal to friends, family and familiar faces?

Matt Ware (Drums): I thought it was a lot of fun. It was pretty cool. Because we didn’t know anybody there, aside from like, a handful of people. And there’s still a ton of people that just walked in, which is really cool. Because I don’t know, I feel like you don’t see that too much here in Montreal [random walk-ins staying at a show, discovering a new band] but it just happened randomly in Toronto, you know, this band that not many people know and a ton of people want to come and see us. So that was pretty cool.

Lemay: It was very clear how different maybe the whole audience within the scene is and Toronto just, we had some people that like never really show up to our regular shows like people in their 40s and 50s that had no clue who we were, and just showed up because they were out for a drink and decided they want to see some random band and I don’t feel we [Montreal] have that just as much. In Montreal, a lot of people will turn away sometimes at the door when you tell them there’s a fee to the ticket or whatnot. In Toronto people were a lot more willing to just come in honestly.

McShad: We played at Lee’s Palace, and it has its own reputation, like people tend to start there and stuff. So people just come in, just because it’s like a night on the town kind of thing. And it’s like their music scene seems a lot more supportive than [in Montreal]. Here it’s, I don’t know, it’s friends mostly. Whereas, in Toronto they’re like “We want to go out tonight and go like see a random show.” Whereas here, it’s not too common. But it was really sick. Matt and I drove there together, and it was just a fun drive. Just the experience is really cool. Because the whole time we were like “oh shit, like, we’re actually playing in Toronto, like we’re actually doing something completely different.” And it’s our first show back! Because we released the EP like the year before, then we were playing a show and it’s like, Holy fuck, like crazy. Our first show back is in Toronto with no one that we really know. So it was really, really dope.

BB: Do you feel like there’s more freedom when you’re playing for strangers than if you have friends over?

McShad: In a way yes. There is that freedom of like, if I mess up somehow, I’m never gonna see these people again. Whereas, when we played to some of our co-workers, and right away, they come up to talk to us right after and if we botched anything, they’d be like “you screwed up, didn’t you?” Like, yeah, I know leave me alone. Whereas Toronto, no one knows our sound yet. They were kinda just like, “wow, yeah, great.” You don’t have to be like, “Oh, I actually, you know, my voice cracked or I missed the note.” There’s a freedom to when you don’t know the people there, I find.

Lemay: I feel it’s the opposite, actually, for me. In Toronto, I felt more pressure honestly, to just give, you know, the best performance sound wise, just to really give an idea of what we sound like and what we’re able to do. While last show [in Montreal] our co-workers were there, some closer friends that we hadn’t seen in a while showed up too. I just felt freer to just goof around. Like, I don’t know, it was less pressure. I feel it was more like just friends getting up and having fun.

BB: Was that the first time you’ve ever played your EP to a live audience?

Lemay: No, actually we had already played it before even releasing it pretty much. But it’s sort of the same concept, just moves to the newer songs that we haven’t released yet, I guess. That was pretty exciting, because that was the first time that we played them in Toronto.

McShad: This first EP was a complete accident. We were trying to make more the first time around, but then the pandemic hit, and we’re like, well, we have nothing so we don’t know what we’re going to do now. And then heading towards 2021, we actually started to plan out and said “Okay, fuck it, we have four songs already recorded and everything. Let’s just put those out and that’ll be it.” So people who saw us in Montreal knew the songs already kind of because they heard them live but they didn’t get a chance to really listen back to them until the EP dropped in February. But Toronto had no idea. No one in Toronto knew anything about us, and when we play live, we tend to throw like a cover or two sometimes, so people vibed to those a bit more but they still enjoyed our songs, which was pretty nice.

BB: Talk to me about of how a typical writing sessions between you three looks like.

Ware: Okay, so I would say like 90% of the time, he [Brandon] comes up with something random, and shoots it our way. He always has like a riff or an idea for a melody or whatever. We’ll often just kind of sit down and bang it out. We tend to work pretty quick. I find you know, once an idea is there, you’ll often have ideas that are complete almost, and then it’ll bring it in, we’ll jam it out. And then you know, Zach, and I throw in our two cents and change the song. If there’s something that we don’t like, then we’re like, “Nah, we can’t do that.” Then Brandon is open to switching it. It’s often a general idea from Brandon, that we’ve all kind of just molded together.

McShad: We all chime in together, though. Like for ideas too. So in all the songwriting process, we’re usually all present, even in studio for each of our parts. So like on drum days, for example, since I used to be a drummer, so many times, like, it’s easy for me to communicate with Matt and be like, “do this or do a triple part like this or a part like this.” Because it’s like, we’re speaking the same language kind of thing. But we all chime in, like Zach will throw ideas sometimes, saying “I’ll do this or you do that.” We’re all present and for every part of it, so everything is usually intentional. It’s not just like “oh, this is all Matt brought to it.” It’s like sometimes even a fill he has, as crazy as it sounds, us three we’ll be like “just go fucking crazy. Just do something stupid.” Or even with bass will be like “Zach, just go ham, like do some weird shit.” And he’ll do like a crazy fill that’s like there. But just because yeah, everyone deserves to shine in this band.

BB: How was it navigating from playing live to recording at a studio?

Ware: I thought it was awesome. Honestly, I really liked it. Because like, when you’re playing live, you always have to focus on having a practice every week, or, you know, remembering everything for the show, just staying up to date with all that. But if you’re just writing, it’s like, you ignore all that and you just take your time and you know, write stuff out. And that’s what COVID allowed us to do is just kind of take time, and come up with ideas. And just yeah, have a good time writing it all. It’s kind of stress-free.

Lemay: Well, I think the main challenge too, was just kind of forgetting about the live, forgetting about how it’ll sound live. Whenever someone would throw in an idea, there was always someone else who was like, “oh, but we won’t be able to do it live.” And that was, I think, a collective challenge to just kind of get over whatever is going to sound like live and just do it the best way we possibly can in studio and then you know, compensate live essentially.

McShad: You have freedoms that you’ll never have live just because you could do anything you want essentially. So again there’s less stress. So like singing, if I botch a note, we’ll just do it again until it sounds right and I’ll have all the time in the world to get it right. Live, I botch, you know, I gotta keep going until the next one. And that’s just what it is, which is fine. Like it’s all fun. We usually tend to have fun with our mistakes live.

BB: So which song would you say, from the EP that was the most fun to write and record, or one was more fun to write than record and vice versa?

McShad: For me, I’m always gonna have a sweet spot for a “Beautiful Day” because it was our first time doing it all together. It’s a very fun song. You could see it’s a very simple concept that repeats everything the entire time. It’s just a simple idea. And that’s what it is, and it was really dope cause it was the first time we were all in the same place, really working on something. But in terms of like on the EP overall what would be funnest? It would be maybe “Otherside.” Just because the drum parts and the bass parts were really really fun. I just remembered now that production, that messing around. It was just that whole day, like making that song was just, it was the stupidest shit but in the funniest way possible.

Ware: I remember, because our stuff is recorded at Avbury Studios and then we send it to Dave Traina, who works at as the studio called Freq Shop, and he mixes it. And I remember he received the tracks for “Otherside,” and just to show how much we screwed around and layered everything, there were like 150 tracks on it or something. And Dave was like, ‘What the hell is this? Like, this is ridiculous.” We didn’t really realize how much we stacked on top because we were just having fun in the studio. It’s like, Oh, what if we add this there? Boom, another track? Or what if we add that there? Boom. Another one, another one, and another one. And Dave was like, oh my god, this is unnecessary. But it was so fun.

Lemay: Definitely “Otherside” was the most fun. Just because all the other songs on that EP are a little more straightforward, let’s say in terms of structure and it was a lot more linear in the studio where we were going with them. While “Otherside,” yeah, we had the structure down, but it was already a little unconventional. You know, just two verses then a drop and then like that’s it. So yeah, we got in studio, and there wasn’t, I think as clear of an idea of how it would sound at the end. There are a few riffs and a few sections that we wrote in studio that we just like slapped on top of everything. Lots of guitar layers in there that we just never could have jammed just having only one guitar player there. So yeah, I think that was just the most fun because it was very hands on for everybody. And I think just listening to the whole thing at the end was very satisfying cause we had no idea what it would end up sounding like, and it ended up really, really nice.

Yester Daze is currently working on their second EP, and staying true to their meticulous work, no set timeline has been set as a release.

But if you weren’t able to catch them at Piranha bar, make sure to swing by Turbo Haüs tonight on 2040, Rue St.Denis. (And Follow them for any and all updates!)

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