Horse Jumper of Love performed during Sled Island on Saturday, 12:30am at #1 Legion (Main Floor).
Interview conducted in collaboration with Reverie Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT:
Emma (CJSW)
Hello, this is Em from CJSW 90.9 FM radio. I am sitting down with two of the members of Horse Jumper of Love if you want to introduce yourselves.
Dimitri
I’m Dimitri. I play guitar and sing.
Jamie
Hey, I’m Jamie and I play drums.
Emma (CJSW)
Hello. Thank you so much for making the time to meet with me. First things first is, I’m curious, what are you excited about playing at Sled Island?
Jamie
We’ve never been to Calgary before. Sorry, I have trouble saying it. And to play with a bunch of I, mean I’ve never played with any of the artists on this show, and it’s nice to come out here and get super rained on and get dim sum. And it’s been a short experience, but it’s nice. It’s nice to be somewhere new, play music.
Dimitri
Yeah, I would add, yeah. It’s, we got in last night, so we haven’t gotten to, like, experience much of the city, but I like it so far, and it’s, yeah, it’s exciting to just be in, play in a city we haven’t played in before.
Emma (CJSW)
How long are you here until?
Dimitri
We got in last night, we were here all day today, and then we leave tomorrow morning.
Emma (CJSW)
I’m sad that you got here in a torrential storm. Yeah, this is not, this is not usual. I promise you. This is not, no, like, this is—there are areas of the city that are flooding, like cars floating, because this is, we are not equipped for this. I promise this is not Calgary. It’s actually considered the Blue Sky City. So just know, if you come back, maybe it won’t be as rainy next time. Yeah, but you’re embarking on a tour across the UK later this summer, right?
Dimitri
Yes.
Emma (CJSW)
Is there anything you’re looking forward to for that?
Dimitri
Yeah, we’re playing a bunch also playing a bunch of cities we haven’t been to before. I’m trying to, some friends of mine are trying to help us book a show in the Isle of Skye, which I’m really curious about, seems really beautiful. So, yeah, I think the drives are going to be nice. It’s a great time to be in the UK. I think August is, like, pretty good. But yeah, yeah, we’ve done it a couple times before. This will be like, the fourth time for me. I think we’re finally starting to get used to go to playing, like going out and flying and playing over there.
Jamie
Yeah, I mean the only reason why I ever go anywhere, pretty much is to play music. So it’s a very rich experience, you know. And every you know, the last time we were in the UK, I felt like there, there were a lot of people of different ages at the shows, like lots of people from the neighborhood would come by, and the drives were really easy. So it just felt, it felt a little different. It was cool, and everyone was really sweet.
Emma (CJSW)
Everything is super close. Everything’s super close. What do you usually do to prepare for a long tour like that weeks leading up to it, kind of thing?
Dimitri
Try to get into healthy habits beforehand. To be my strongest, because being on the road can just wear on your body and stuff, especially if you get into like, bad habits on the road. So I just try to get in a good mindset before and like, feel as mentally stable and physically strong as possible.
Jamie
Yeah, totally, just to be prepared. Like, we’ve been out there before, and it’s easy to have no discipline.
Emma (CJSW)
Totally.
Jamie
You know, but the more you want to do it, the more you want to, yeah, get into a good routine before we go out, even if it’s really simple, like not procrastinating everything before we leave, you know, before I leave, excuse me.
Emma (CJSW)
Sounds simple, it’s hard. Yeah, simple, but difficult, exactly. I mean, I guess that leads me right into my next question. So I read that throughout the production of Disaster Trick, your intentions shifted from like partying on tour, drinking in the studio, that kind of thing to more of a sustainable creative balance. I was curious as to what those internal conversations were like. Was it a collective mindset shift of being like we need to get these positive routines?
Dimitri
I don’t know. Well, it was slightly collective. I would say it was pretty collective. Like, I guess it was mostly like. I guess I’m the main songwriter. So it was kind of a, it was the biggest shift for me in in terms of my focus, just trying to just stay focused, and, like, coming to the realization that I’m not going to be young forever, and I really want to do this for a long time, so I just had to make a shift in my life. And it just kind of coincided with the recording of that album.
Emma (CJSW)
Cool.
Dimitri
You know? Yeah.
Emma (CJSW)
And how have you seen that shift affect you so far?
Dimitri
Very positively. Yeah, I feel a lot better than I have in the past.
Emma (CJSW)
That’s great.
Dimitri
I feel like, yeah, I feel like I have the mental capacity to go on a long tour and not feel like, totally awful by the end of it, you know, not like, for example, on the last tour we did, it was six weeks, it was six weeks long, and I felt like I could keep going at the end. You know?
Emma (CJSW)
That’s cool, that’s awesome. Like, you’re not totally drained because that’s a long time to be on the road and to be performing for.
Dimitri
Totally, it even like, it affects my vocals. My vocal cords didn’t feel totally just like shredded at the end the tour. I felt like I didn’t lose my voice once or anything, and that was a good feeling to come to the end of the tour and feel like I still had energy to keep going. Yeah.
Emma (CJSW)
Longevity, works for longevity. Totally cool. Is there anything you wanted to add about the conversation? That conversation?
Jamie
Oh, I think it’s a conversation that a lot of musicians have over time, because when you’re a young person and you’re in that kind of environment, you can. It’s easier, like you have a lot of energy and plasticity, or you think you do, and then you learn from your mistakes, and then you realize you know so yeah, but I agree, that’s what I have to say.
Emma (CJSW)
Yeah, yeah, totally. After 12 years? 12 years, 13 years, I think it’s 12, right?
Dimitri
Yeah.
Emma (CJSW)
As being in a band, I’m curious as to what do you think has remained unshakably you, and what parts of your band identity have you had to let go in order to keep going?
Dimitri
Oh, that’s a really good question.
Jamie
Let me think about this.
Emma (CJSW)
Yeah, take a second. It’s deep.
Dimitri
Yeah, it’s deep.
Jamie
I think what we have, I mean, I think the identity is really the music, like the music is, I mean, I think of it an extension of everybody’s identity. And the music’s gonna develop and whatever. But it’s almost like, it’s almost like a sauce too. Like it’s a flavor that it cooks over time and it’s us, and we get used to each other’s idiosyncrasies and things like that, and like, musically, how we express ourselves, it’s going to be an extension of the other things in our life, too. So, yeah.
Emma (CJSW)
Totally, well said.
Dimitri
Yeah, I feel like it’s in a constant state of adjusting with, like, with our real lives. It kind of, it runs parallel. Not that the music is not like real life, but it is like this kind of, it can be this kind of fantasy land a little bit, but that’s where we allow ourselves to, I guess, in a way, live out our our dreams of being rock stars or whatever you want to call it, but I don’t know what I’m even trying to say with that. Yeah, I’ve just tried. The core belief that I’ve always had with my songwriting, or like us playing together, is to just try to keep it as like, I know it’s cliche, but just as, like, honest as possible, just like really listening to yourself and listening to what you are intaking from life and just putting that into the music and just being in tune with that. That’s the core belief behind the music. I’ve tried to maintain, and I think that’s probably true for, like, most people who make art. Like you’re just trying to stay true to some idea that you have, or like, theory about living or something.
Emma (CJSW)
But I think, the idea of it being parallel to your own life, and the fact that that is so real and so passionate really shines through with your music. Because, yeah, I’ve heard fans have a lot of ideas about what your songs mean, and so I’m going to kind of jump forward in my questions here. But your music is deeply personal, and it can even feel private at times, but you’ve connected to this fan base that finds their own stories inside of your songs. So I’m curious, have you ever been surprised by what a fan is projecting onto your work, like, if it’s ever received in a way that maybe you didn’t intend it?
Dimitri
Yeah, totally. And I think that’s the whole point, for sure. I feel like, when I first started writing lyrics, specifically, I conceptually, I almost was like, what if I have all these, like, they’re not jokes, but almost like inside jokes, and what if I just have that with myself, and what if I just, like, put them down, kind of piece them together and throw it out into the world and see. What if people feel the same way I feel about these like, sort of, random combination of things, which is what all our lives are, is just random combinations of like, events and things and people, and then like. Yeah, and put that into the world and see what the world gives back and like, what or who relates to it, who hates it. Who like, and it’s a cool, yeah, it’s a cool journey to go on and see what kind of effect it has on other people. And, yeah, it’s always surprising no one ever has the same thing to say about it. And sometimes people will say things that help me learn more about myself, even like, someone can pick something out in a lyric and thinks like that, and say, like they think it means something to them, which I never, something that I never thought about. And it, yeah, it’s part of listening to the world, and being open and just using that as a way to keep, I guess, learning. Or, yeah, keep going.
Emma (CJSW)
*Emma gets flashbanged by a stage light* Sorry, that’s really bright. I was, I was looking right at it. Did you want to add anything?
Jamie
Well, I mean, Dimitri writes those lyrics, yeah, but I write the drums.
Emma (CJSW)
The genuine heartbeat.
Jamie
Hey thanks. No. I think also, you know, if people listen to a really literal song, even if it’s about something maybe that they haven’t done before they can project their own experience into it. A lot of music’s like that, and I think maybe Dimitri’s writing this is not always the case, but sometimes it feels like a maybe like a visual description of something that’s not literal. And I think people can, maybe people won’t exactly know what you mean, but I bet that there’s a lot of people where it’s evoking something very similar, because you know, the symbols that you’re referencing, they’re just a couple steps away from something that you could describe very literally anyways, yeah.
Emma (CJSW)
Yeah, totally. I mean, I guess in that same regard, and maybe you already touched on it, but in that same regard, in the way that people are maybe experiencing your music differently than you intended it or that you wrote it, is there a moment in which you felt like honestly seen by an audience or by fans?
Dimitri
Yeah, totally, I feel, I truly feel seen all the time when we play a show, and people show up and just are listening to it. That’s like, and yeah, and again, going back to like, I think that’s why people make art, is like, to try to like, you start when you’re young and you feel misunderstood, and then you grow with this thing you make, and you try to, and you become more senior, you’re able to become more of yourself. And like, yeah, I think that’s what it’s all about.
Emma (CJSW)
Yeah, I could totally agree. Yeah, I guess. On that note, I’m curious, what are each of your favorite songs that you’ve made? Oh, and why?
Jamie
Like of our own songs?
Emma (CJSW)
Your own songs. Like, maybe the favorite song that you’ve made for a reason, or like your favorite song to perform?
Dimitri
Yeah? Jamie, you answer first.
Jamie
Okay, there’s an older song called “Dirt” that I really love to perform, just because of the space and the rhythm, and it’s slow and, you know, sometimes we’ll play somewhere and it’s a little too spacious, and people are talking and they don’t feel it, but a lot of the time, or, you know, enough of the time, people do feel it.
Dimitri
When that song hits, I feel like it connects with an audience. It feels really powerful, like the room feels very together, or something when it does hit, and there’s some time, like, times when we play that song and it’s hard to capture like the room, because they’re maybe just not in the right like mood for like our kind of music or something, because it is like, our music does get really slow and really quiet sometimes, and I totally understand why someone who’s out at a show trying to have fun, like, would want to like, is not able to, like, always connect with it and but yeah, I would say, like, my favorite song of ours, it is probably, I really like this song of ours called “I Put a Crown on You,” which is off of our album Natural Part. And I like that one because it’s the only song of mine that ever came to me entirely in a dream. And I felt like I feel like this, it was some deep spiritual thing, and it was like I woke up, I remember having a dream where, like the song, because I have dreams about songs all the time, and I wake up and I can’t remember them, but for some reason that night, I woke up and I just immediately went to the guitar and, just turned on my, like, the voice memos on my phone, and just recorded the whole thing, just like that, withmaybe like, a couple things of like, trying to figure out the chords, but I had the concept and the lyrics, and it kind of just flowed out of me, which makes me feel like the song is really special.
Emma (CJSW)
That’s so so rad. Yeah, yeah. And did you change it much from that?
Dimitri
Not really. No. It pretty much stayed the same, even like, because a lot of times I’ll write songs on acoustic guitar and just do like, a voice memo on my phone, and then I’ll bring it to the band and but that one like stayed, remained, just acoustic with vocals. And, yeah.
Emma (CJSW)
Yeah. I guess on the note of songwriting, I read online that you that writing songs is like putting together pieces of your life. You said, you jot them down and you kind of piece them all together. Yeah, has there ever been a time in which you’ve had to leave something untouched for months or years until it kind of finally completes itself?
Dimitri
Yeah, all the time, all the time. The range of the time it takes to write a song truly varies. Yeah, like that song “I Put a Crown on You” like that happened almost instantly. That’s that’s a lot rarer than, rarer? More rare? Is rarer a word? Sorry. Okay, that’s a lot more rare than, like, there’s a song on that same album, Natural Part called “Chariots” that took me, like six or seven years to write, and it’s just because, like, you know, you have thoughts, and you write them down in your notebook or your phone or whatever, and then you forget about them. And then sometimes you keep going back to things, but it never really fits with something. And then sometime randomly, like, yeah, seven years later, you’ll have an idea, and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, what about that thing I was writing about all those years ago? Let me look back, like, through my notebooks, and like, find this.” And then, that to me, makes it feel like the song, yeah, like, took, actually, took seven years to write.
Emma (CJSW)
That’s so awesome.
Dimitri
Which is, you know, it’s not like I was thinking about it for seven years. And sometimes certain lyrics will find themselves squeezed into other songs, but then it doesn’t feel totally right. And I’ll steal lyrics from other songs I’ve been working on that I don’t feel are like good enough to release, and I’ll like, put them into songs that I do feel like are good enough to release. So it’s like, yeah, it really, it really depends. And sometimes when I’m feeling really uninspired or not creative, I’ll just go back through old stuff and see if it’ll spark anything new.
Emma (CJSW)
Yeah, because it meant something at some point.
Dimitri
Yeah totally, and it might mean something totally different, like years later too. So yeah, you just never know.
Emma (CJSW)
My next question is for you, Jamie, well I mean I guess for both of you, but I’ll ask you first, having been in a band for 12 years, how has your definition of success changed from back then to now?
Jamie
That is a, that’s a great question. I think, because so much of success, I think mentally and in art, sometimes it’s very obviously about money, but sometimes it’s not. Like a lot of definitions of success, because I think if your music can connect with a lot of people, and you can be comfortable with your life, and not be in fear of something that is just as fulfilling, it almost doesn’t matter how much money you get after that point. So I feel totally satisfied with what I’ve gotten to experience, because I never, you know, it’s more than I thought I would have at some point. Very grateful for that. But it doesn’t mean I want to stop, you know, it’s just, yeah, I think it’s really deep to go anywhere and relate to anybody as a normal person, and then to get to do it in a context where people feel comfortable in some way, or it’s special to them. I don’t mean to be too general, but yeah, I think, you know, I would go to the beach in another town, hang out with some people and have a good time. To do it in this context, it’s so much richer too. Yeah.
Emma (CJSW)
And I think, yeah, definitely coming from those like DIY roots as well. Coming back to what you said about it’s farther than you thought you’d ever go. But that also doesn’t mean you want to stop either, because you you want to do this for the rest of your life.
Jamie
Yeah. And just playing music itself, when there’s a lot of people there and everyone’s feeling it like all the money is to try to make that happen. That’s the whole point. You know, every time, no matter how big it is.
Dimitri
Yeah, yeah. I think your goals change the more, as more time goes on, like if I thought about success relative to what my goals were when I was, like, 20 years old, I would be totally successful right now. My goals when I was 20 was like, “Okay, what if the band can make enough money to sustain itself, and I really want to go play music, at least in Europe, for now.” And like, to make it basically, make it across, you know. Yeah, and then I was like, I want to have a booking agent, and like, play festivals. And those are my goals when I was 20, and now I feel like we’ve, like, exceeded those in terms of the band, you know, it can make enough money to sustain itself, but it also makes enough money where we can, like, use that to subsidize, like, some of our living expenses too. It’s like we’ve gotten past that, and now I’m like, okay, now our goals are like, what if music was our full time job, and we can just write albums and not do anything else and, like, write albums and tour and so, yeah. But also I’m a pretty insatiable person, so I’m never really satisfied, and I never feel like successful. It’s always just like, I always just have more goals, and more goals keeppopping up, you know?
Emma (CJSW)
I think that’s kind of life to some extent, totally. I don’t think that that ever stops. You never stop growing or wanting to grow. Yeah, at least a lot of people in my life are, yeah, cool. What advice would you have for I mean, I guess I’m gonna phrase this in a certain way, but this is gonna be like to any smaller band, but like to yourselves in 2013?
Dimitri
Just keep, keep doing it. Believe in yourself and just like any, well, anytime, like someone who’s younger and is starting a band comes up to me at a show, I’m always, I always try to say, like, “Just fucking do it, go on tour, play in some people’s basements in the town next to yours,” or, like, whatever. Just try to be nice, and make friends and yeah, I don’t know, that kind of stuff.
Jamie
Yeah, totally. I mean, when we do talk, if there’s a younger person who asks a question like that at a show, we always try to give them something like motivational, but also practical, you know, like, “Hey, you and your friend go play shows here. Do it as much. Just keep doing it. If you do anything long enough, you’re the only one who’s still doing it, you know.” But also I think, even if I could have talked to us back then, I think it’s always good to know, from just a personal perspective, there are a lot of people out there in entertainment whoare shy too, like it’s, you’ll meet a lot of people for the first time, who they seem very experienced, they seem older, they look cool, they whatever, just there’s a lot of, at least in my own past, there’s a lot of projecting that I did on other people just because I was scared and inexperienced, you know. And nobody was ever a problem, ever, you know, pretty much.
Emma (CJSW)
Super cool. Well that’s all I had for you guys. Thanks so much, I’m gonna stop the recording.