Artist of the Day | MIESHA & THE SPANKS
ARTIST OF THE DAY
23.10.2020
MIESHA & THE SPANKS
LOCATION
Calgary, AB
GENRE
Garage-Rock
CURRENT MEMBERS
Miesha Louie
Sean Hamilton
With the current pandemic, the state of the music and touring industry has dramatically changed. Where were you when everything was brought to a halt?
We were in our first recording session with Leeroy Stagger when news in Canada started reporting on the pandemic, and only a few days later back in Calgary Leeroy texted me that SXSW had been cancelled. That's where it started for me with festival and tour cancellations, and just snowballed rescheduling until everything was either 2021 or a complete unknown.
How has that affected your plans for the coming months? Did you have a tour planned, upcoming album release?
The timing was so bad for everyone, but for us, we were basically coming out of our hiatus from my maternity leave with a recording/release schedule, international festival dates, touring, etc, and all of that fell apart. The performance stuff is all pushed to next year now, but we were able to finish recording late July. We've been releasing singles individually leading up to the March 2021 release of our EP, which was meant to be a fall release. I'm really thankful for radio play, so we're at least earning some money and sharing our music that way, but for a touring band, we need to reconfigure how we do everything.
What have you been doing to fill/make the most of your new-found free time at home?
Being at home 100% with my now 1 year old twins has been pretty special. My husband's paternity leave started in March, in anticipation for my absence, so it's been the whole family together for this really hilarious time when the boys grew from 6 to 12 months. I wouldn't say that it created any free time though, they are a handful. Sean has been camping, working, and refurbishing old drum kits using this crazy burn technique on the wood.
What was the first thing you did/place you went to now the country is starting to slowly re-open?
We were pretty excited to be back on the Ship & Anchor patio! We spent both my husbands and my birthday there. I was actually supposed to host the Ship jam on my birthday- it's a tradition I'm trying to create where I take over the jam when my birthday falls on a Saturday. The first time was five years ago, and I've now rescheduled for 2026. We've also done some backyardin' with buds. An old spanks tradition is to get Sean a muff dive (usually at the Ship) for his bday, which is 5 days after mine, and this year I had to just make one myself at his bday bbq.
Favourite Starlite Room Moment?
We always had so much fun at UP + Downtown Festival! I loved to come a night early just to take it in before we would perform, and seeing our buds Slates open the festival at Starlite I don't know how many years ago was so fun! That show was the hub to meet all of our other dirt city pals and get everything going. As I write this I'm now also remembering playing a Frosted Tipz reunion where both Roz and Amy did vocals and THAT was a spectacular show.
Do you have a message for everyone at home reading this?
Stay safe out there, and try to find the silver linings when/if you can. If you have time to get involved or offer support, the Mi'kmaq could use it. All eyes on Mi'k Ma'ki.
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