No one song is the same, so buckle up for the ride
It’s a cold October night outside the 2000 Cité building on Notre Dame St; but the warmth emanating from the recording studio where Wave and Wire and I are sitting makes up for the fierce icy wind.
As I walk to the studio with the band’s drummer, Bruno Brechet, a cacophony of sounds follows us from every corner of the hallway before we reach Wave and Wire’s own practicing room. Known for being a home to many recording artists, CITE 2000 is a monthly rehearsal studio on Notre Dame St., in Montreal.
When in Wave and Wire’s room, I am greeted by the delicious aroma of a Subway sandwich, an array of Dr. Pepper cans, and the smiling faces of songwriter Lieshbet, who goes by LK, guitarist Kris Edvi, and bassist Samuel Paquet Daviau.
Edvi holds out a hand in greeting, and offers me a drink, chuckling as they say: “We got beer, water, but mostly Dr. Pepper. We’re trying to get sponsored by them. No luck yet!”
One member — Francis Boucher, has yet to arrive, so we converse about the band’s affinity to the fizzy soda for a bit longer, before they pick up their instruments and launch into performing “Rearranged” from their latest EP, All These Empty Nations.
Formed in 2017, Wave and Wire was not always the five-person band they now present themselves as. And they weren’t always “Wave and Wire.”
When Brechet began to play the video game “Rock Band” (developed by Harmonix, published by MTV Games and distributed by Electronic Arts in November 2007) with a friend of his, the interest in playing drums began to kick in.
“My girlfriend suggested drum lessons at this point because we were playing every evening,” Brechet says. “But I was what like 35 years old back then, I had a kid, and I kept thinking ‘nah I’m too old for that shit.’”
And then the family decided to gift him with drum lessons for the holidays.
“At that point, I just went along with it and realized that I actually really like it,” Brechet chuckles. “Then I got together with my friend, David, and we started jamming in the basement and we got to thinking, ‘Hey, it would be nice to have a band!’”
Brechet’s friend, David, was actually the band’s first guitarist. The two of them ventured to Kijiji and put out an advertisement for a bass player and a singer.
In the meantime, another artist was going through his own journey as a musician.
“I was a solo act at first,” Lieshbet (LK) says. “I started playing guitar at the age of 12, and write songs. My sister was making music as well and we started working together as a kind of duo/family band. After a few years of doing that, we became a full-fledged band, with Frank [Boucher] coming in as a bassist.”
When LK’s sister moved to Toronto, the singer did not want to quit music just yet, and he decided to work on perfecting the solo acoustic sound with his guitar. He went by his first name, Lieshbet and continued jamming with Boucher for a while.
“I was doing a lot of acoustic gigs in cafes and opening for bands,” LK continues. “At some point I was a guitarist and backup vocalist for December Rose. But it was hard to stay motivated just by myself.”
December Rose is a Montreal-based, award-winning singer and songwriter who made a name for herself with her self-proclaimed melancholic, reflective, and empowering songs.
Below is her latest single, that came out in 7 October.
Later that year — cira 2017, LK ventured around on Kijiji and stumbled upon an interesting ad.
“The ad said they were looking for someone to channel a kind of 90s Rock Radiohead band / Foofighters, Queen of the Stoneage type of vibe,” LK says, gesticulating with his hands for special effect. “And here we are.”
“I honestly was not expecting anything from [the ad],” Brechet says.”I didn’t expect a band where we would be producing albums and songs, and playing shows. And that’s pretty cool.”
Prior to LK joining the band as a singer/songwriter, Samuel Paquet Daviau had firstly answered the ad and came in as the band’s bassist.
And so with the new foursome comes the original name: Botar Basura.
“It’s actually a really random story for how we got the name,” Brechet says. “David was visiting Spain one time, and he saw a sign that said “Botar Basura” which translates to “To take out the garbage.” And he thought it sounded cool for a band name, so we went along with it.”
But in 2019, LK was not of the same opinion.
“It’s just that nobody remembered it, ever!” he said, chuckling. “So we went back and forth with changing the name and “Wave and Wire” is the one thing we all agreed on.”
Brechet jokes that managing a band is tougher and more complicated than a relationship.
For the next years, Wave and Wire went through a number of member changes.
For starters, Daviau’s untimely departure at the start following artistic differences with David led to him being replaced by bassist Amine until the end of 2018, which is when he returned.
During that time, Wave and Wire recorded their first self-titled album, Wave and Wire (2019) — a recording they jokingly dub as a “garage band recording.”
“We recorded for two days and it was an amazing experience,” Brechet says.
“But it’s a good thing the producer [Matt Grou] fixed it because it was kind of creepy,” LK laughs. “The songs are good but the recording is meh.”
Following the band’s EP launch, things started to get tense between the members again. Differences in opinions and artistic commitments were beginning to show between the LK-Daviau-Brechet trio, and guitarist David.
“We began to want to move forward with being a band and become more serious with it,” Daviau says. “But David wasn’t really putting this much effort into it. He wasn’t really doing the work, he wasn’t committing to it like we wanted to.”
“I think it’s because when him and I started that thing, we never thought it would get this far,” Brechet explains. “We didn’t expect it to get to the point where we would record EPs and play live shows. But now that we were, we wanted to keep moving forward, and David just … didn’t.”
And so with David and the band mutually parting ways on good terms at the end of 2019, came a new member that also went by the name Bruno. The latter went on to stay with the band until mid-2021 — but not before recording their second EP, If You Knew Me (2020).
“After Bruno and David moved away, we were actually down to stay just the three of us,” Brechet says. “We had a nice little unit going on.”
But as the band got more offers to play shows and began to move further into their musical careers, they came to realize that a trio could fair well with a few extra members.
Enter Francis Boucher and Kris Edvi.
Around November 2021, Wave and Wire were scheduled to play a show set for January 2022. LK, having known Boucher since his days as a solo artist, and Edvi being his friend, suggested the latter two help out with rehearsals for the show.
“We had little to no time to learn the songs,” Edvi said. “We had what like 2 months? But I was like OK I have nothing to do on Thursday nights!”
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit another harsh wave of cases, and lockdown came back in full force in January 2022, the show got cancelled. But Edvi and Boucher stayed and would join practices, quickly becoming part of the team.
“For a while we were calling [Edvi and Boucher] our unpaid interns,” LK jokes. “Which is funny cause we’re also unpaid. Now they’re full-fledged partners in this experience.”
“I think there just came a point where we started weighing in on decisions and we were here every single week. It wasn’t just a one off thing,” Edvi says. “We spent the past almost year now practicing every single week. And then the guys were like “well we might as well!” And it all worked out, cause I think we all get along really well.”
The band recently produced and released their third EP All these empty nations, including singles like “Blueprints”, “Way Too Far” and “Rearranged.”
This LP however, was recorded when they were still officially the Lieshbet-Brechet-Daviau trio.
“If you listen to each song, they’re all so different,” Edvi says. “A lot of them is whatever was influencing the writer at the time.”
A typical writing session involves Brecher drawing inspiration from a tune he really likes, modifying it to a certain beat he finds comfortable playing, and presenting it to LK.
“He’ll already have a lyric and words ready, it’s actually very impressive,” Brechet says. “In about two weeks after I present the melody, we have a song.”
“Everyone weighs in on the writing process to be honest,” LK says. “We don’t even play any covers anymore at this point during shows. It has to be our sound. If you listen to our songs, it has a wave and wire feeling. We’re finding the melody of what makes Wave and Wire.”
The Wave and Wire sound can only be described as a beautiful Rock cocktail, with a nostalgic feel reminiscent of the 90s-early 2000s sound.
Between moving your body to a groovy pop rock beat on one song, to contemplating your life choices on a softer rock ballad with poignant lyrics, Wave and Wire’s aim is to take you on a rocky road and make it worth its while.
Make sure to keep an eye out for new upcoming music from this newly-established fivesome, as they are currently recording a new song.
Stay connected!
Busybee's Playlist 
Leave a comment