Image of (un)decided performing at Commonwealth on the Thursday night of 2025 Sled Island.
(un)decided performed during Sled Island on Thursday, 8pm at Commonwealth (Main Floor).
TRANSCRIPT:
Kaamil (CJSW)
So my name is Kaamil Kareemi, and I am a Podcast Coordinator, but also an interviewer at CJSW 90.9 FM, and I am joined by three members of (un)decided here at the Palomino Smokehouse. First of all, can you introduce yourselves and then tell me what role you have in the band, and we can maybe start on our far left.
Sean
Sure, yeah. My name’s Sean, I’m the guitarist in the band, and I also do a lot of the producing and mixing and kind of sound engineering side.
Jessie
Hey, my name is Jessie, and I’m the trumpet. I play trumpet for the band, and I also do social media for the band, and the logistic wise and doing the budget and stuff.
Oren
All right. My name is Oren. I am the bassist of the band, and I do a lot of the self-recording for our band from the practice rehearsal into the show, so we can get like, some stuff content for like social media, or for us to look back on what we done before for live shows.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Amazing. So first question is already connected to what you guys were talking about. So much of what you do is play instruments, but you also help out in other ways within the band. And I guess my question is, with so many bodies coming together to create this, this band, how did it happen? What’s the origin story of (un)decided?
Sean
Yeah, it’s pretty serendipitous how it all came together, I think. Because I think you were doing a photo shoot on 17th Avenue. So for some context, Oren knew Jessie’s older brother from before. We had hung out every now and then and then, you had told us about this place called Alcove, Alcove Center for the Arts. Shout out to Alcove, by the way. So we went there that following week for an open jam, and that’s where we met our rapper, Jon Oshone. And yeah, he said he wanted to form a band right away. It was his first time going to a jam as well. It just happened to be his first time as well. So then we started regularly, the three of us, I guess me, Jessie and Jon, started meeting up regularly making music. And then two of our friends that we knew from way back that were living in Vancouver moved to Calgary. That’s Julio on the drums and and our percussionist and vocalist, Tatiana, they also joined in when they moved back here to Calgary. And then we also met Pinky along the way, who knew Jon, or I guess, one of her former band members. And then, and then you joined as well, Oren, like formally, officially. And then Mo as well. Mo, our keyboardist, he kind of knew Pinky through some dance stuff. So it’s all over the place. It’s a big band, but somehow we all came together, I think at the right time. Everyone was kind of looking for music to fill a kind of a gap in their life. So it was, we’re really lucky that it happened the way it did, and when it, you know, when it all happened or came about.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Yeah, I’ll maybe move over to you. Fair enough, I guess, to kind of follow up on that, though, how do you feel meeting all these people and kind of getting into the groove of starting to put this band together? What were some steps that you had to take to become and feel part of this group?
Jessie
Yeah, sure. Because, like, I guess with Tatiana and Julio, our drummer and also percussionist/back vocalist, we were kind of like, not really a ‘band, band’ but we hang out, we make music and stuff together, but then, like, adding more people, I think the chemistry is like a little different beginning, but to be honest, like after getting to know them, we’re really good friends now we’re all like good friends together, and that’s really built our music together really strong too. So there is an adjustment period, but at this point, it’s not really adjustment. It’s just naturally have been like, mashed together. So we’re super lucky that we get along with everyone. So really grateful with that.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Yeah, and connected to that is, you know, that collaborative spirit that comes together in so many different minds and bodies coming together. And maybe I’ll start off over on the right with Oren, Oren?
Oren
Yeah.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Alright. Sorry, yeah. But I was curious about, you know, I think when it comes to so many instruments and so many musicians coming together, there’s so many inspirations that can come from that. And I was curious to hear about, maybe, and we don’t need to go into too many inspirations, but maybe one hip-hop inspiration for you, and then maybe one non-hip-hop inspiration in terms of your musical style?
Oren
For the non-hip-hop one, that’ll be easy. I think it’ll be the one band that we, all three of us, love, and they just performed last March 2, I think on Commonwealth. It’s called Busty and the Bass, and they’re from Montreal. They’re kind of like similar to us, or we kind of feel like we want to be like them, because they also have a lot of the band members, like horn, guitar, keys and whatnot. So we are kind of similar, but they’re more established. For the hip-hop one, it’s gonna be interesting. Got a lot of, actually, a tough one to hip-hop. I’m not really like, you know, just one of the artists, like a lot of them, but I guess if you could say, like, the most recent one must be like Kendrick Lamar beside the beef with the Drake everything else, I think I love, like the all like his song, even when Sean show me the “These Walls,” and we try to actually create, like, some kind of rendition for a band. It’s so, like, really tight to be able to make it like a live band. So probably Kendrick Lamar would be, like, one of my hip-hop inspiration.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Fair enough moving over same question, one hip-hop inspiration and one non-hip-hop?
Jessie
Funny enough for hip-hop, I don’t think I listen to a lot of hip-hop, but I guess I bring more influence to like, I really like Bossa Nova, like indie and stuff like that. And I listen to a lot of kind of like, what is it called? City jazz pop, like, from Japan, so that’s kind of like more my expertise and what I bring to the team. But hip-hop, I yeah, I probably like more to the rapper and all the vocalists they listen a lot to that, fair, fair.
Sean
I’d probably say, for hip-hop, it might be a bit of a cop out answer, because this band straddles, you know, rap, hip-hop, but also jazz, a lot of different genres, I think. But if I had to pick one, I’d say Butcher Brown off the top of my head. It was really surreal to see that they just released a song with with Yaya Bey, who was headlining our show for Sled. So that was that was really cool to see. For non-hip-hop, there’s probably, probably too many to name, if I had to pick one, probably one that’s super inspirational for the instrumentalists in the band is Yussef Dayes, his band, just how technical, technically proficient they are. And I think it’s the one band that I really gravitate towards, what the drummer is doing, which I don’t generally tend to do, you know, as a guitarist, I’m usually analyzing what the guitarist is doing, right? So, no, they’re really cool. And, yeah, he’s obviously a crazy, crazy musician.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Yeah, awesome. I love to hear those inspirations and kind of how they come together to make the sound that you guys are creating, because there’s so many different parts that’ll come together to create that. And I guess my question connected to that, and whoever wants to answer it can answer it, but was it difficult to take that step from a band who’s kind of just jamming to a band who’s creating music with the same kind of intentionality, or kind of collective intentionality? Was it difficult to take that step, or did it feel like something that just felt like it was an easy transition to going from a jam band to performing, producing band?
Jessie
To me, it sounds very natural. It’s just like we start jamming. But I’m very lucky that I feel like the Pinky for the vocalist, and also Jon, amazing rapper and vocalist, whatever we’re kind of like jamming in, and they just put it in all their lyrics and stuff, and they become a song. So in one day, sometimes we create, like, 4/3/5, songs, but and then we just have to kind of like, kind of like, clean it up a little bit and stuff like that for performance. But it’s pretty, not it—it comes very naturally to make music for us, which is amazing how the chemistry we bonded.
Kaamil (CJSW)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And on that performing note, you guys, as you mentioned, opened up for Yaya Bey. Bawah was right after you guys, and I believe Zenon led your guys’ show off. How do you feel being at Commonwealth, performing at Sled Island?
Oren
It’s probably like a big milestone for us, because we used to be, we are attending a lot of event at Commonwealth, just like an attendee, or like people that just want to see a show, but to be the on the side of performing, and then see a lot of people come to see us and be supportive is probably like a lot of us. It’s our dream come true. Maybe when people that are in a high school back then, like, I want to be performing live, which is kind of like really huge for us, like a social media boost, and our moral boost, because we made it here, and then we’re gonna go even further, and then to see like our fellow like Zenon, Bawah, and then to see the headliner, Yaya Bey performing. I think we, like, keep getting, like, impressed, impressed and impressed, like, all of them are so like, a rich and talented that you don’t feel like, ‘Oh, they’re better than us.’ I feel like they’re more inspiring to us, like, ‘Oh, wow. They can actually do such thing. It sounds really good.’ So it’s not about like, a we gotta be better than them. It’s more like, wow, they can actually produce such a music we would like to do the same too, from our side and be playing together too. That’s how I feel.
Sean
Yeah, I was, I think I was ecstatic to see who we we would be performing with, and like Oren said, like to be able to study what they’re doing and kind of grab inspiration from them, because they’re all fantastic artists in their own right. And just, I think the crowd too, just seeing how engaged the crowd was. And I think that’s something that you get with Sled. I guess, with Sled, you get a lot of quote en quote music heads, you know, that are very enthusiastic about about bands that they never even heard of, right? So I think that was a that was a fantastic opportunity for us as we’re, you know, we’ve only been together fully as a group less than a year. So to be able to, kind of, you know, continue to nurture and cultivate our music and Sled being one of those tools that allows us to do that, you know, in front of a bigger crowd, that’s it’s fantastic.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Do you wanna add anything? Just talk about how you felt about the experience performing there, yeah?
Jessie
Sled is just amazing. Even, like the coordinator and stuff like that, they treat us really, really well. To me, it’s just I’m very surprised that, as an artist, like, ‘Wow, we got food. We get, like, coffee and stuff.’ So I’m just kind of like, we came to the stage very happy and excited, and then feel like sometimes before that we have kind of like little stress and stuff. But I think the way Sled treats the artists is just for me, I was very impressed, and it makes the whole event when we’re performing in a very good mood. So I’ve, yeah, I was just for, I guess for the music side. Yeah, we’re just really excited seeing, like other people’s and stuff with performing with Zenon, Bawah and Yaya Bey. They’re very inspirational because they’ve been doing music for a long time. It was very impressive how, especially Bawah, I think they only rehearsed an hour before it’s like, ‘Wow, you can be that tight just in an hour. We have to rehearse for weeks.’ And it’s just amazing to see that chemistry, and very inspirational for us, for sure.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Yeah, it was incredible. On that note, he said that they were together for an hour and a half, and that was a Calgary band that he put together. So yeah, together like last minute, and they sounded so tight. And to me, it showcased the professional, the professionality of Calgary musicians, you know. And I think you guys being right before that really ended before it’s just like a really cool showcase of, Calgary musicians are awesome. So I love that note on the Bawah tip, because, like, yeah, I don’t think people realize that was a Calgary band behind him, helping him out.
Jessie
Yeah, yeah. Johnny Chavez, Thomas Tombone, and from Gabriela.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Yeah, they’re very, very amazing. Literally sitting there, like, Who’s this on drums? And they moved to the right, and I was like, oh, it’s Gabi of course. She’s playing high heels too. It’s, like, insane. Literally did it in heels. Yeah. Okay, so on the topic of connections, is there anybody that you felt like you were able to connect with, you know, even just like with the people you’re performing with, what was that like? Because something I’ve heard from a lot of artists is something you actually touched on about, like, the lack of ego that a lot of the artists will have. It’s not like, ‘I’m better than you. I’m the one who’s headlining over you.’ I think from what I’ve heard, a lot of the artists who are performing are very collaborative in terms of the way they connect. And say, ‘Hey, maybe we could work together in the future.’ So I was curious if there’s any kind of connections you guys made during this festival, and kind of that aspect of the festival that you were able to experience.
Jessie
Yeah, that’s really interesting. Because, like, ego is very human nature. We all have ego, but every time we have a band and stuff like that, we always remind ourselves, don’t have an ego. Let’s just be chill. We’re all here. We’re all like, trying to build this, like, music. And of course, we’re kind of like, oh yeah. We’re kind of like, we’re really good. But it’s like, okay, just remind ourselves in terms of collaboration, yeah? Like, I guess, because we’re eight people, we know everyone knows like someone else already. So for me, I guess Johnny Chavez as a trumpeter, and then Trombone, they’re really amazing, Tom Tombone, amazing horn sections. Also we kind of like talked with Hip Hip Thursdays. We’re really close with them, and we’re looking forward if we have any time to, like, collaborate and stuff like that. Yeah, do you have anyone to add?
Oren
So for the ego part, I guess, before I joined the band, or, like, focus solely on the music. I do, like, a lot of photo, photography and videography gig, and back then, I met a lot of musicians, too, and so I already know them before I become a member of the band. They’re all very humble. They’re very chill. And I guess that kind of builds up connection, because we always meet with each other. I also participated in, like the jam session at Alcove and the big jam at the one big jam, and then both of those jam is actually a very good way to humble everybody’s ego. It’s because, yeah, you can play for yourself, but you have to play for others. Because when you like join those gems, you all have to, like, work together to create something that’s, you know, people can’t hear it without them saying, like, this is too loud, or, like, I can’t really, like, listen to this. So knowing that everyone is trying their best to, like, collaborate on the spot with no clear Coronavirus in the beginning, but in the year, it sounds really good. Sometimes they actually don’t want to stop. But we gotta stop because, you know, we need to get some rotation that, I think that’s really humble your ego also kind of elevate your mysticality, because you basically create something together out of nothing, and making sure, like everyone have their part shine. So you don’t really try to like outshine each other. You just like everyone like, wow, he can play that. Okay? Drummer, oh my god. Drummer, can actually do that. It sounds so good. I want to contribute too. So it’s more like a collective contribution there. And then it feels like, because we all play together now, they can actually see us that performing at the Commonwealth as a band. They’re like, wow, we just jumped with them. And they’re like, on the stage now, and they created something beautiful. Like, I think it’s an amazing experience to know that people that you jam with or you chat with have been going all the way further now and pursuing the music or like, event concept, whatever it is. I think it’s just like, You’re proud. You’re not like, ego. Like, oh, I know them. It’s more like, well, I’m so proud that she can actually push forward now probably gonna make them like, oh, I want to try to do that too. So I think it’s more like inspiration, and then the ego just out of the window for me,
Kaamil (CJSW)
Yeah. Well said, Very well said, yeah, you want to add anything to that, or fair enough, yeah, I think that was a really good reason. So next steps for (un)decided. What’s next after Sled Island for the band? What do you guys got planned? What’s prepping?
Sean
Well, definitely releasing a couple of songs. Because, you know, we’ve been together for a year. We’ve been doing a lot of shows. But the the one question that we get constantly asked is, you know, are you guys on Spotify? Or where can we find you? You know, we don’t have an easy answer for that yet, but, but happy to say that we’re working on it, and then hopefully that kind of, you know, snowballs into, you know, working on an on a broader project, like an EP, or maybe even, you know, further down the road, a studio album. And just like I said earlier, just hoping to, you know, cultivate our sound and our music through, you know, just doing more shows, more festivals in terms of Sled, definitely want to do that again, if they’ll have us next year. We want to. It was just such a great time, I think, for the band and and and, like Jessie alluded to, just how, how well they treat all the artists, I think, I think there, there is a respect there and and no ego, like we talked about. So yeah, it’s, it’s an exciting time for us. I think, you know, we’re just getting started, but we’re kind of, you know, getting that ball rolling, like I said.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Is there anything else you want CJSW’s readers or listeners to know about (un)decided before I close out this interview and thank you guys? It feels like they’re undecided on an answer. I feel like I had to do it at some point. I’m so sorry.
Sean
Yeah, that would be in character for us.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Alright. Well, thank you guys so much for coming here, taking time out of your Sunday to come and chat with me here at the Palomino and I really appreciate it. I’m going to be keeping an eye and ear on you guys definitely going forward, and I hope CJSW listeners do too.
Sean
Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
Kaamil (CJSW)
Our pleasure, our pleasure. Thank you guys. Bye.