Slash Need, HYFY and Slickeur play sold-out Yellowknife show

Funny Farm Music brought an experimental and darker sound to Yellowknife bar The Underground earlier this month.

The organizers hope a sold-out show featuring local punk band HYFY, drag performer Slickeur and Toronto-based industrial performance outfit Slash Need might usher in a new wave of experimental music in Yellowknife.

Taylor Shephard, who works on programming for Funny Farms Music and is one of the founders of the Still Dark Festival, wanted to try something different.

“Genre-wise, I don’t think we really have too much stuff locally that fits the industrial goth, electronic vibe that Slash Need brought,” Shephard said, adding the performance style was different as well. “It was very up in your face.”

“They’re just such a multi-faceted group that I think having something like that – where people are able to engage with it more freely, not stuck in a seat but actually in the crowd, with them weaving through – it’s not something we’re necessarily used to up here,” Shephard said.

“It was really amazing to see the community show up on a Thursday night, of all things, for this kind of music.”

He thinks there’s room for similar events and others in the community who would enjoy more goth and industrial music.

Dusty Lee, Alex Low and Stella from Slash Need sat down with Cabin Radio last week to talk more about their music and the performance. Below, read a transcript of the interview.

This interview was recorded on Friday, September 5. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Miriam Bosiljevac: How did you end up coming to Yellowknife?

Dusty Lee: First of all, we were brought to Yellowknife by Taylor from Funny Farms Productions. We’re playing Edmonton in a couple days, for Purple City Fest. And he had gotten a list of names from the Purple City organizers, I believe, of people that might be interested in coming up to Yellowknife, and he picked us up from that list, and the ball just got rolling from there.

And you’ve never been to Yellowknife or to the Northwest Territories before?

Dusty Lee: No, I’ve never been to the territories before. I think that Stella has maybe been to the territories before, but me and Alex haven’t and, as a band, we’ve never been up here. So it’s been such a treat.

It’s such a privilege to get to come all the way up here and get to see the land and see the community and be introduced to what’s happening up here. It’s been really awesome.

It was such a fun show last night – and it was sold out.

Dusty Lee: I think it was a blast. Shows in smaller towns are always way better than the shows in bigger cities. People just let loose a little more. It was really fun. The Underground is a great venue, too. We all felt so supported by Layne [Rybchinski, co-owner] and everyone there. It was fun! HYFY threw it down.

Stella: So great! It was just a fantastic night.

Dusty Lee: Slickeur did a great performance.

Stella: Yeah, incredible drag. And they all treated us so great.

I wanted to dive a little bit into your music. How did you get into creating music?

Dusty Lee: It wasn’t until I was in my early 20s that I really got introduced and brought into a community of artists and musicians who are very DIY and very encouraging. And I feel like around that time, I started feeling like I am allowed to try things out.

Alex Low: I grew up in Toronto doing music, doing DIY stuff, band stuff. Then I was living in a DIY space called Double Double land and Dusty had a studio there, and we met and became friends.

Dusty Lee: We were doing a lot of jams back at Double Double where people would bring gear and we’d set up mics and drums and everything. Double Double was like an art studio, but also DIY venue and performance space.

Alex Low: When we started, we were not like, “Let’s make this type of music. Let’s write this.” Let’s instead just start making stuff and see what happens. I was DJing and producing music. Doing music was always a necessity, not a goal.

Dusty Lee: I was working on art installations and doing sound installations and listening to a lot of dance music, but also no wave music, and when we started playing, I think this convergence of those two worlds came together.

I feel like those two ideas have molded into something else, with the installation performance side and something that feels a little like punk. I don’t like to stick too hard inside of any scene or genre.

Stella: Because you’re talking about how much it changed over time from that first set. I remember, I was at that first set. The first Slash Need set I saw, I did not like it at all. By the second set, they’re my favourite band. By the third set, Dusty and I had booked a show together. And then by the next show, I’m dancing in the band.

From what I understand, Dusty and Alex are the core group and then there’s a number of dancers?

Dusty Lee: Our core dancers in the group are Stella and our friend Camille. But we do have a larger pool of dancers. We’ve had probably upwards of 20 dancers at this point.

I often like to work with the same people and we collaborate with a lot of our previous dancers, who are incredible artists in their own rights.

We recently made a video with our past dancers. Katerina Zoumboulakis and Lea Rose Sebastianis directed – alongside me – the Double Dare video. We try to always continue a collaboration.

What are some of the musical influences for the band?

Dusty Lee: Geneva Jacuzzi’s ability to blend installation art, performance art and super fun dancing music. Peaches in the beginning, no wave and new wave music. Also things like the pacing of lyrics and things that are angular and weird.

But now I feel like we have become a lot more influenced by our peers, like our friends The Mall from St Louis. And Canadian super freaks Skinny Puppy or Ministry. When we brought the dancers in, the dancers are part of the band, like Prodigy, and then Prodigy started becoming an influence, too.

Were the dancers part of it from the beginning or only after the first few shows?

Dusty Lee: I saw videos of an old Vaseline performance, which was this queer night that used to happen in Toronto back in the early 2000s that was organized by Will Monroe, dancing on stage in a mummy costume. I had this realization that sometimes, it’s really hard to break a crowd and get people to loosen up a bit. People just need to feel like they’re allowed to move, like they’re allowed to let themselves feel free to freak out and move and have a good time and feel sexy or whatever.

I think bringing dancers in was an opportunity to show people what they can also be doing during the set.

Dusty Lee: No one ever says you have to stay on the stage.

How did you develop your visual appearance?

Dusty Lee: When we first started playing music, I had debilitating stage fright. I think for our first show, I was supposed to play guitar, and I just didn’t. I got too scared. I couldn’t do it at the same time. I just ended up playing it with a nail file and it took a while to really feel confident.

What helped me was wearing pantyhose over my face so I couldn’t see anyone. I found it very liberating to get to feel like I can see the shape of a person but I don’t really know who they are. I felt like I could start expressing myself more in a live show through that.

I eventually thought: “This is limiting for my movement and it’s also sort-of dangerous.” So I decided to try to paint the mask onto my face.

I used to wear a breastplate and create this character, this hyper-femme idea of what it means to be the female lead singer of a band. I think it’s interesting to me to embody this. Like, if I’m going to be sexualized, I might as well take ownership of it but also terrify people right back.

Stella: As a disclaimer, if we’re talking about the mask: when you started wearing it, you didn’t have eye holes in it. For the first several years of us having dancers in the band, we didn’t have eye holes.

Anybody listening to this, do not try this at home. Do not wear pantyhose on your head without eye holes in there. It’s very, very dangerous. Everything I do is safe and smart now, after putting myself and several others in danger by not being able to see on stage.

What’s next for the band?

Dusty Lee: We’re putting out our album October 21 and we’re gonna do a little jaunt around Ontario and Quebec after that, then we’re doing a Europe tour in February.

What’s something you wish people knew about your music who are new to you?

Dusty Lee: We do everything ourselves. We’re an independent band. We’re not signed to any label.

The past couple of years, since Covid, we made a promise to ourselves that we wanted to focus on falling in love with performing music again, and that’s something we’ve done for the past number of years.

I feel like sharing a room with people and sharing a moment with people is one of the most rewarding sides of making music and getting to perform, and it’s such a privilege, and I feel like doing that first has really influenced our sound and what we’re trying to do with this album too.