Adventure Club, a Montreal-based electronic dance music duo, were recently in Ottawa to perform at Barrymore’s. The Charlatan spoke with one half, Leighton James, to discuss their musical evolution, their charity work, and their experiences in Ottawa.
The Charlatan (TC): First of all, welcome back to Ottawa!
Leighton James (LJ): Thank you.
TC: What’s your favourite thing to do when you’re back here in the city?
LJ: We’re getting in pretty early. We’re just going to go explore for a bit, maybe hit up Smoke’s Poutinerie, get some shopping done at the mall, and just kind of hang out and take in the sights.
TC: That sounds great. You guys started in punk music, how did you make the transition to [Electronic Dance Music (EDM)]?
LJ: It was a very gradual transition. It was our first musical endeavour that was a hardcore band, and years went by, we kind of went softer towards the punk side of things. Then, I think we got the first taste of electronic music in 2010 . . . We just started learning DAW, which is the software we use to make music. Then we said, we want to run with that and make something that was just a band that we liked.
TC: Let’s talk about your song “Wonder” for a minute, it’s different than a lot of other music in your genre that was being produced at the time. Where did the inspiration for that come from?
LJ: I think we wanted to bring back the old indie-alternative band, we kind of wanted to fool around with more instrumental.
TC: I hear it almost didn’t make it to that EP.
LJ: Yeah. It was one of the songs that was produced a little later on, during the writing process. I think with the cut-off date, we almost missed it, but luckily we were able to add it in pretty quickly.
TC: What’s it like, following up to such a major hit like that? Is it something that’s always in the back of your mind when you’re creating new music, or something that you try to move away from?
LJ: It’s something that we kind of try to move away from. There’s something about always trying out different styles. We don’t want to kind of pigeonhole ourselves in any way.
TC: “Red // Blue” was released in December. For our readers that haven’t listened to it yet, can you tell them a little bit about the album?
LJ: We kind of wanted to branch off in two different areas. One side of it is heavy, one side of it, I guess, is more emotional, more emotionally driven, and you can tell that when you’re listening to the album. It kind of mirrors our lives a bit more when you see us. A lot of our shows are super heavy, very high energy, explosive. The other half will be more in your feels, you’ll just sit there and take in what you’re saying, just be one with yourself. That’s what we wanted to get when we wrote the album.
TC: Where do you draw inspiration from for your music?
LJ: Honestly, everywhere. A couple of the songs . . . and some of it comes from our old, old band. Anything we can kind of get our hands on, I guess.
TC: If you could collab with any artist, who would it be?
LJ: Pretty sure I know Christian without a doubt would collab with Lana Del Ray, and I would love to work with Cat Power.
TC: Switching to touring here for a minute, do you have a favourite part about being on the road?
LJ: I think just being able to connect with fans every night. We’re reaching a relationship there, we’ve kind of neglected it for about a year or so, and getting them back, and playing our new music, being out there to connect with them, there’s something special about it.
TC: What about a favourite city to perform in? Why?
LJ: I mean, besides Ottawa? I personally love Denver. Anything in Colorado. They’re very open to a bunch of music.
TC: I have to ask, what’s the craziest story from your career so far?
LJ: This actually happened in Ottawa, a few years back. It was our first show playing at Ritual. We didn’t even know what to expect. For some reason, I ended up taking off my shoes. There was just a bunch of broken glass on the stage, and like one or two songs into our set, I just completely, completely cut my big toe open and it was just gushing blood throughout the whole set.
TC: That’s crazy. You guys still finished the set?
LJ: Yeah, we finished the set, and then headed straight to the hospital.
TC: From the start of your career, you guys have done a lot of charity work. Why take the time to do that?
LJ: It’s something that affects both of us. We have family members that have been affected by it, so when we were approached by Electric Family, it just seemed like the perfect fit. It really helped us on the industry side of things, and it just became, you could feel it giving back.
TC: What’s next for you?
LJ: We’re going to just focus on our tour right now, we’re really trying to push our album out there, and we hope everyone enjoys it.
This Q+A has been edited for clarity and length.
