Getting to Know: Toronto Hardcore Grinders, Pretty Mouth
In today’s Getting to Know, we meet in-your-face Toronto hardcore trio, Pretty Mouth. If you are in an up and coming band that would like to partake in a Getting to Know feature, contact editor@riffyou.com to receive the questionnaire and instructions. Thanks!
Band Name: Pretty Mouth
Band Members: Lance Marwood (vocals), Andrew Cleveland (guitar), Kyle Maticic (drummer).
Years Active: 2
City of Origin: Toronto, ON.
Who are you and what do you do?
“I am Lance, I am the vocalist.”
In 100 words or less, tell us how your band has gotten to this point.
“Since we’re unable to tour anywhere for more than a couple days at a time, we’ve made sure that we keep our fans up to date all the time on everything that’s going on with the band. We have played across southern Ontario and into Quebec, as far as Sherbrooke, and shared sets with some pretty big acts thus far (Full of Hell, Enabler, Hivesmasher).”
What is your latest release and how would you best describe it to someone who hasn’t heard your band?
“Our latest LP, Fears, is a very fast and groovy album bookended by heaviness and sludge. It’s a pop album for grind and noise enthusiasts.”
When making an album, which aspect of the process do you put the most time into and why?
“Our song writing phase is super fast, mostly because Kyle and Andrew have excellent intuition and are both fantastic musicians. We’re also really good at banging out songs in a short window of time. We recorded our EP in a day and our LP in two. What we tend to stay on for a long duration is rehearsing – taking that initial product and just carving away at it until it’s pure sinewy goodness.”
What is the best part about your band and why?
“We’re fun to watch and we don’t take forever with songs. We’re quick and fast and sludgy at parts when it feels right.”
What makes your band unique from the rest?
“I tend to go for a pig-fuck vibe with my vocal range, and then explode into screaming to punctuate the feel of what’s playing behind me. I think that same ability to reference and have a broad variety of sounds and measures in a musical capacity is what makes our band sound different from other bands who are trying to conform to one particular genre. We kind of skate across all that, picking and choosing and playing whatever we like, while always remembering to have parts that are fun to listen to.”
How does your band survive the challenges of touring/gigging?
“Like I said, we don’t really get to tour at all, so it’s more of a question of how do we survive without touring. It’s hard, and we want 
to break free and race across the continent and to the world at large, but we’re kind of fucked if we do that, in our personal lives. If someone were to offer us the ability to do that without losing everything at the home front, we might be interested, but as of now, it’s a no go. We get by by telling ourselves that we will some day.”
Would you rather be critically-acclaimed; rich and famous; or an under-the-radar band with a dedicated fan base?
“I’d rather make a record that blows people’s hair back, so yeah, critical acclaim. But not for critics specifically. I’d prefer to make something that intelligent people can get behind, whether or not they work for a magazine or other media outlet. I think we’ve already taken our first step with our LP. We’ve finally gotten our sound down, and we’re going to make the best possible releases to showcase what we’ve got going on.”
If you’d have to compare your band to another one out there, living or dead, who would it be and why?
“Botch. They were technical, but had a lot of feeling, tons of change ups and riffs, and didn’t give a fuck. But then again, trying to compare ourselves to other bands is an insult to both parties.”
Which band/musician would you like to share many drinks with? What would you talk about?
“I want to hang out with the guys from Merchandise. I fucking adore that band. Hardcore kids that decided to get out of that and go into indie pop shoe-gaze. I think what draws me to them, apart from being brilliant musically, is that they represent something I want to take towards music. It’s about reaching maturity and expecting something more from yourself and from music at large. That band does that, and I would love to pick their brain about that.”
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