Let me start off by saying that BRAIDS is an amazing group of people. In addition to being fantastic musicians, they’re, well, fun. They like each other. They like playing with each other. And the effect of unity in their music is obvious. They may be a young group, but the depth and message of their songs screams of life experiences beyond their years. When I caught their most recent New York show, I couldn’t help but notice how completely they won over the crowd. Not surprising given that their songs incorporate movement and effects that make each one unique and exciting.

I sat down with them after and, after a few distractions — milkshakes, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and discovering life’s secrets — figured out what makes them tick.

Lemonade – BRAIDS Lemonade – BRAIDS

Bee Side: So what’s the favorite place you’ve been since getting on the road?
Raphaelle: Oh we loved Boston!
Austin: Boston was so beautiful. We went to Cambridge.
Raphaelle: We went to Harvard. We went to MIT…right? (looks around for confirmation) We got to stay at my friend Sam’s place, and we all really needed a couple days off from the scrambling and recording the tape. So, we just hung out at the gorgeous house in Cambridge. It was so cool having our first show there. It was great to cross the border and get our feet wet. And we all had clam chowder.

Bee Side: So have you guys done anything New Yorky? Whatever New Yorky is.
Katie: We walked around a lot. I think my body water percentage went down to about 50% or something. Seriously, I was so delirious. We were walking down Broadway, trying to go to this clothing store, and I just dropped my camera and the lens shattered. I just stared at it for a good five minutes and was like…I need water.
Raphaelle: But we’re going to the MOMA tomorrow and people watching in Central Park. And we wanna see the Empire State Building. We just wanna be tourists.
Austin: Yeah, this is my first time in New York. Let me do the touristy things. Next time I’ll to all the regular things your supposed to do here.

Bee Side: So pre show rituals? Do you chant things, do push-ups?
Katie: We hug.
Austin: We always have a big huddle. Touch each other’s heads. Kinda remind each other of the things we hold important like being delicate, listening, and having fun.
Raphaelle: Katie and I, usually our heads get lost in the middle, but it’s a really good feeling. It always calms me down.

Bee Side: What’s the first album you ever recorded?
Raphaelle: The project that Katie and I had was called Robare and Vaselyn. We started it in grade 11. It was our attempt at Euro Dance Sex music. We have songs like, ‘I’m sweating up a storm, touch my body’ and ‘Put your key into my ignition’ followed by, ‘Turn the gear, number seven, lucky choice’. That kind of stuff.

Bee Side: You said you spent nine months recording your full length. Since this was obviously a lot longer than the EPs you’ve recorded in the past, how was the process different this time around? Did you feel more pressure to produce or did everything come naturally?
Austin: I definitely think that the pressure was not from needing enough material, or needing material to fill up the full length. We went into it saying, we have these songs that we want to record, and we knew it wasn’t going to be super long record because we play relatively short live sets and relatively short records. We like the keeping it short and sweet thing. We also relieved all that pressure by saying that we don’t really have a deadline. This just gave us 100% control, 100% freedom, and let us take as long as we need to.

Bee Side: When do we get to hear the new album?
Austin: Later in the fall probably.

Bee Side: You guys are all really young. Your songs have a lot of depth though. In particular, I noticed tonight that you guys have a very mature sound. Is that something you found with each other, or something you’ve all had individually?
Raphaelle: We’ve really been through everything together. Austin and I dated for three years. We met in grade 7. Katie and I had a gym class together in grade 10. We met Taylor in grade 10.
Austin: And that’s when we really started growing and maturing.
Raphaelle: So we’ve really grown up together, and I guess that depth is there because we’ve been together for so long and gone through everything.

Bee Side: That’s really incredible. I’ve seen a lot of bands that started out when they were young. I think when you do that it’s difficult to stay together because people end up changing so much.
Austin: It is really hard. Sometimes people change without us even realizing it and people start to get hurt and angsty. Then we have to start crying a bit and start talking about it, and just sort it out that way.
Raphaelle: It’s like you’re married to three people.
Austin: But it’s like one of those pre-mature marriages where you don’t really know the person well enough when you get into it, and you have to really talk about things.

Bee Side: So the picture you guys chose to represent the tour includes a teepee. I’m curious…did one of you design that?
Katie: My friend Connor is a comic book artist. He actually lived here for a year last year. We asked him to do our t-shirts and our tour poster. The t-shirts he did before, and they turned out awesome, and he finished the poster right before we left, and it was beautiful. I asked him, “what does it mean,” and he said “I…I don’t know.” I was like, how did you come up with all these ideas, and he said that it was a real challenge for him since he’s never done a tour poster. For him, when he puts the pen on the paper he just doodles, and it’s whatever comes out of that. If you look really closely there’s a bunch of hair at the bottom.

Bee Side: What do you think are some of the best bands to come out of Canada or Montreal more specifically? (These guys gave a lot of great ones, so I just included the list below with a few links)

1. Azeda Booth
2. tUnE-YarDs
3. The Luyas
4. The Silly Kissers
5. Sean Nicolas Savage

Bee Side: What do you guys listen to when you need to get hyped up about something?
Austin: I listen to Holy Fuck. It’s really powerful, super driving music.
Katie: Talking heads gets me hyped up. I play that quite a bit.
Raphaelle: I listen to Animal Collective a lot.
Austin: If I’ve been feeling down lately, I realize that it’s because I haven’t been listening to as much music. I’ve started listening to Meriweather Post Pavillion. It’s just got a lot of energy in it.
Taylor: I guess I don’t really do that sort of thing. Listen to music to get pumped.

Bee Side: So what’s the first album you ever bought?
Taylor: Spice Girls.
Katie: You bought Spice Girls!
Taylor: In first grade, I bought the cd because the girl I liked was really into them.
Austin: I don’t know if this is a little bit better or way worse, but…Aqua. I had the biggest crush on the singer from Aqua. I don’t know, she had the weird blue sparkly hair that was kind of weird. Now I look back and….I was a weird little kid.
Katie: Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On
Raphaelle: Jagged Little Pill (For the record, also my first CD. Mad props!)

For the last part of the interview, I decided to play a fast-moving word association game….

Bee Side: Cheese
Raphaelle: …I thought of something that was really weird…Pony
Bee Side: Fort
Taylor: Dam
Bee Side: Vodka
Katie: Water
Bee-Side: Britney Spears
Austin: Hot
Bee Side: Pole
Raphaelle: …..
Bee Side: Base
Taylor: Play it
Bee Side: Tool
Katie: Asshole
Bee Side: AWESOME!
Austin: SWEET!
Bee Side: Lame
Raphaelle: …unknown
Bee Side: Mercury
Taylor: Deadly
Bee Side: Arctic
Katie: Freezing
Bee Side: Sigouney Weaver
Austin: Who?
Bee Side: Boat
Raphaelle: Buttercup
Bee Side: Canada
Taylor: Red
Bee Side: Rodeo
Katie: Water
Bee Side: Bird
Austin: Sanctuary
Bee Side: T-Pain
Raphaelle: Placemat
Bee Side: Loonie
Taylor: Golden
Bee Side: Mistake
Katie: Broken Knees
Bee Side: Rowdy
Austin: Me
Bee Side: Justin Beiber
Raphaelle: Umm….Beeeever