LiveMusicTO chats with Brooke Nicholls, who has exploded onto the scene with a televised, international performance at York University's 3,500 seat stadium, a national tour with one of Canada's most successful recording groups, "Blue Rodeo", and a shared stage with "Q" from Grammy winning recording artists "112". You can catch Brooke's next live performance at The Opera House on August 7th, as part of an industry showcase.

lmTO: What do you love most about music?
I love the feeling I get while I'm singing, emotions always seem to get the best of me, and when I’m singing I feel like I've drifted off into a different world. Nothing in the world gives me the same feeling as singing does.

lmTO: How long have you been performing?
Been doing solo gigs for the past 5 years. Hiring bands when necessary etc etc. In the last 6 months or so I've been playing with a solid band and it feels so great!

lmTO: What have been some of your biggest accomplishments so far?
I released my single last summer "If Wishing Was Forever" ft. Jhevon Paris and Some Major stations in Canada picked it up right away! I felt so blessed, in so many ways. Then the following March I was asked to put on my own concert. It was A LOT of work and preparation but in the end everything went just as I had dreamt... It ended up being the best night of my life. I opened up for Serena Ryder last Sunday. That was pretty neat. She was such a treat!

lmTO: What is your favourite song to perform live and why?
"If Wishing Was Forever”. Its fun listening to the fans sing along with you. It’s pretty surreal. OR (and) "Breaking My Heart". I wrote a song for my brother a few years back. I always tell the story before I sing the song... normally I can hear people sniffling in the crowd... I usually almost cry every time I sing it. It’s powerful and means a lot to me. I feel as if people can really relate to the lyrics, it’s definitely a heart grabber!

lmTO: How would you describe your fans?
Amazing. They are so special to me. I've found myself growing really close to some of them. They bring me so much joy!

lmTO: What are you most looking forward to in 2010?
I am putting out a new album, with just me and keys. It will really portray who I am as a person. This will be started in the next 2 months, So I look forward to beginning this project!

lmTO: What is your favourite venue to play in Toronto?
Pantages Martini Bar. I would go in on Saturday nights play the grand piano and sing my heart out. It always sounded and felt so great!

lmTO: Where is your favourite spot to grab a drink and hangout as an artist?
There's a really cool Japanese Restaurant on the lake I like to go to. I often bring a book and just write. While of course enjoying something delicious!

lmTO: What has been the craziest fan moment to date?
Nothing super crazy yet, but really sweet. There is a group of girls that come to my shows that always make me presents... they incorporate my favourite colour, with my favourite candy with something I love (like music) or shopping. It’s seriously the cutest most flattering thing ever.

lmTO: For people seeing Brooke Nicholls play for the first time on August 7th, what can they expect?
Expect a good time! I have such a talented band backing me, which makes it easy for me to sing my heart out. We do a Cover of "California Girls"; it always gets people up moving! So, don't forget your dancing shoes!

Ten questions with Crush Luther's frontman, who (if you as us) should also be a standup comedian. Enjoy! Oh, and be sure to check them out as they will be playing the Rivoli this Saturday, June 24th, see MySpace for details.

lmTO: Where did the name Crush Luther come from?
Despite having plans to devise an entertaining answer to this question for the band's entire career, we never got around to it. Especially since YouTube showed up. We've been too busy watching crotch kick videos to figure anything out. The real story is, Giggi, our old guitar player, said to me, "what do you think of Crush Luther for a name?" and I said, "ok, Giggi." We were at Tim Horton's in London. I think I had soup.

lmTO: How long have you been together as a band?
About 6 years. Our first demo was released in 2005, I think. PJ, Matt and I have been in bands together since high school though.

lmTO: What have been some of your biggest accomplishments so far?
Any of the work we've done with WarChild or Skate4Cancer is something we're really proud of. Personally, opening for Fishbone was a big deal for me. They blew my mind when I was just discovering music and we got to play with them in Montreal! A tiny little black kid got on stage during their set to dance and then jumped of and kicked me in the chest. It takes a special kind of person to think it's ok to jump kick another person's chest. I recovered and we high fived.

lmTO: What is your favourite song to perform live, and why?
I like the lyrical stuff because that's what I'm most proud of. I can get into it if it's something I feel is strong lyrically. People always sing along with The Cools the loudest though and that's a lot of fun to see. Most of them sing, "When I was sixteen, I started this band, ne ne ne guitar, ne ne ne ne ne." It's cute.

lmTO: How would you describe your fans?
Truly, we have a modest fan base but the people who really dig us think we're the best band ever and that's a lot cooler then having a million fair weather fans. Our fans are stand up people. I think we have very few murderers and very few bad drivers. We probably have a lot of hoarders and bed-wetters though. More deep rooted issue people.

lmTO: What are you most looking forward to in 2010?
We are excited for our up coming living room shows! We've been playing people's private parties and it's been the best. It's a seated acoustic vibe and it plays more like a conversation then a show. The release of our third single off of our latest record, some people have no good to give, will be released sometime this summer as well.

lmTO: What is your favourite venue to play in Toronto?
We seem to always be at the horseshoe. The sound is good and crowds are always great. One time I was on my way to the basement green room before our set and a pretty rough looking lady came out of the bathroom and blew what PJ assured me was crack smoke in my face. I was traumatized for a week. At least she got to smoke crack.

lmTO: Where is your favourite spot in the city to grab a drink and hangout as a band?
We like the Mardarin buffet but now that Matt has a beard we can go to Sneaky Dees.

lmTO: What has been the craziest fan moment to date?
A fan of ours mailed me a letter with her bloody thumb print in it and asked me to add my bloody thumb print to hers to make us one or something. I did it and nothing even happened.

lmTO: For people seeing Crush Luther for the first time, what can they expect?
Parental friendly jams with no screaming or headbands. Also, if we start our set when the MGM lion roars at the beginning of Wizard of Oz the words match up.

LiveMusicTO chats with Brandon of Hometown Beatdown, who will be featured on the upcoming Tall Guy Short Guy CD Release event at the Velvet Underground July 28th, 2010 here.

lmTO: Where did the name Hometown Beatdown come from?
The day I came up with the name, I was probably wearing a comeback kid shirt. It was around the same time that hardcore was all our favourite genre, and we all loved going to shows for the setting and the sound. My vision back then was to be apart of that same setting, just make different sounds. To make soft music for my friends who enjoyed hard music, like I did. As a 16 year old, I thought that it was a good idea to make my soft bands name a hard sounding name, haha.

lmTO: How long have you been making music?
I did my own acoustic thing throughout high school, but Hometown Beatdown is my first actual band. I'm one of those guys that was put into piano lessons and preferred it over going to soccer practice, but dropped both things for skateboarding in elementary school. When I couldn't land a kickflip as much as I could land girls with wearing tight pants and being in a band, I did that in high school. Forgive me, I was young.

lmTO: What have been some of your biggest accomplishments so far?
Not sure. There's been more than a few specific moments that I've been super stoked on. Everything for me has seemed pretty fast-tracked from where I stand in all of this, and with that sort of pace it's hard to stop and place check points down on accomplishments that you can stop and be stoked on. I'd hope that the biggest accomplishments are still to come, because this party is just getting started. 

lmTO: What is your favourite song to perform live, and why?
The song "Let's Not And Say We Didn't". Because it's our best sounding song, haha.

lmTO: How would you describe your fans?
Not as fans. I remember being in grade 9 hearing Pharrell Williams (from N.E.R.D.) say in an interview that only Elvis should call people that like his music "fans" because of how fanatic they were - I agree, it's a fitting term only in that case. Pharrell and I don't think we'll ever have people like our music to that extreme, so until then - stoked on kids that come out to see us play and dig our stuff. And in the meantime, I'll call them new friends. I'd describe them as usually american apparel wearing girls that are cool and usually want to talk to Steve Cook, the bass player. One solid consistent thing I've found is that they all have the same taste in finding him attractive.

lmTO: What are you most looking forward to in 2010?
August 9th, August 10th, August 11th, August 12th and everyday after. Stoked on releasing our debut EP on 08.09.10 that has been on hold for just about a year. Can't wait for people to get in on this Hometown madness.

lmTO: What is your favourite venue to play in Toronto?
The first Toronto show I ever played was at 'The Reverb' on my first tour, with Abandon All Ships. The sound guy told my manager at the time "this is the gayest sounding band i've heard play here". Hilarious. The Reverb is not my favourite venue, I'm stoked that guy doesn't have a job anymore. Sketchy looking fellow too, for those of you that remember him.

lmTO:  Where is your favourite spot in the city to grab a drink and hangout?
 I just turned 19, and I lost my brothers ID during the time and age that it was cool to pretend you were a city kid and go to clubs and bars under age. So, I'm not all too familiar with places to go grab drinks in Toronto. But I like drinking soda with my meal at Mama's Pizza on Richmond or Chipotle at Yonge and Dundas. (My answer probably should have been "at Sneaky D's with some nacho's and a hand full of my closest tattoo'd friends", but that's probably the answer you were expecting.)

lmTO: What has been the craziest fan moment to date?
We played this show in Evansville Indiana, where we played in front of 400+ kids in support of The Downtown Fiction and Chase Coy. Being from Canada, we didn't really think that any of the kids were familiar with Hometown outside of myspace. But to our surprise; some were familiar. It was our first show of the tour, so we were pretty stoked that we were off to a good start. After talking to kids with accents after the show, we ended up saying no to The Downtown Fiction boys on splitting a cheap hotel room for the night, and followed a bunch of cool dudes (who's girlfriends liked our band) to an abandoned house and ended up sleeping there. I hate to be the guy in a band that says "I'm not even going to get into full detail about what happened that night", but - I'm not even going to get into full detail about what happened that night.

lmTO: For people seeing Hometown Beatdown for the first time on July 28th, what can they expect?
Guitars, Bass, Drums and a Microphone. We're a full band now. Don't worry, I haven't chosen any bad looking guys that don't fit in with the rest of us.

LiveMusicTO chats with In Lights, who will be featured on the upcoming Tall Guy Short Guy CD Release event at the Velvet Underground July 28th, 2010 here.

lmTO: Where did the name In Lights come from?
The friend who brought all of the band members together, introduced us to each other, she suggested it (coming from a friend's "myspace name"). It seemed only fitting.

lmTO: How long have you been together as a band?
With the current line-up only a couple of months. But the band as a whole almost 4 years I think.

lmTO: What have been some of your biggest accomplishments so far?
Winning warped tour battle of the bands last year was pretty fun. Having over 1000 downloads of our river court ep in the first week alone is also a big accomplishment for us.

lmTO: What is your favourite song to perform live, and why?
I'm assuming it would change for each of us. Personally I love playing the guitar parts of 'consider the following' but I love singing the whoa's in 'the debut'.

lmTO: How would you describe your fans?
The fans are amazing. We have a few that are very dedicated. A certain 2 from BC made us a music video for 'ending with you and me' and it was very sweet.

lmTO: What are you most looking forward to in 2010?
Recording again! The studio is always a lot of fun. And shows of course, however many there may be.

lmTO: What is your favourite venue to play in Toronto?
MOD club for sure. Great sound. Good vibe.

lmTO: Where is your favourite spot in the city to grab a drink and hangout as a band?
Myself, nick and shane would say burito boys for sure. We work valet at this company called gatsby and we'll go there after every shift and spend our tip money. Its a tradition for sure.

lmTO: What has been the craziest fan moment to date?
There have been girls who made signs, those girls who made that music video but for me its whenever we play ajax and every single kid knows every single word its crazy and inspiring.

lmTO: For people seeing In Lights for the first time on July 28th, what can they expect?
Just and all around good time. We try and keep the crowd involved and singing. Plus dylan likes to tell some stories that are always hilarious. Come talk to us after!

Our photographers Jordan and Emilie braved the weather and managed to take some epic photos of bands at the 2010 Vans Warped Tour. Check it out:

Get your tickets ASAP for the July 28th show HERE!

Photos from LiveMusicTo's June showcase featuring: Paper Fortunes, To Tell, Trainlight, Pigott Brothers & Hello Beautiful.
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by Karen Bowness