Mobile set to rock Fanshawe during Frosh
They have only been a few short weeks removed from their US tour and American release of their album, Tomorrow Starts Today, and Mobile are already back in the studio recording their second album.
The Montréal-bred, Toronto-based band is finally hitting its stride south of the border, but that doesn't mean that it went unnoticed back home. With a ‘Best New Band' Juno, a Gold Album (50,000 sold), several video games tracks and a MuchMusic record under their belt, you can hardly claim that they've been flying under the radar.
The band, consisting of five friends, have been together for more than a decade and have known one another since childhood. But according to Mat Joly, Mobile's vocalist, that's what sets them apart from other bands and it's what's keeping them together.
“When you're in a band a lot of people don't see that it's difficult sometimes,” Joly explained. “You have to go through a lot of tough things; because it isn't just the music, it's a business, and it's difficult to go through what we've been through this year, and it helps when you're friends are really close by.”
The tough times Joly refers too was the bands transition to their new American record label early this year, due to a lack of commitment from their original label.
“There's a big problem in America right now with big labels, they're kind of signing rock bands and they don't work them so they keep dropping rock bands,” Joly explained. “Our first album was supposed to be released overseas, it just never happened because our (former) record company just didn't do their job over there. But we were lucky enough to have our Canadian label on our side, and they've been doing a great job.”
But getting the band off the ground wasn't a job for the faint of heart in the first place. The group practiced for years before making their sound public and making a foray into the rock industry. Years of practicing, rehearsing and rewriting their own songs could do nothing but make the group stronger and more prepared for that big step.
“I think we kind of took-off when we moved from Montréal to Toronto, and we all lived together in a two-bedroom apartment for a while,” Joly said regarding the bands' begginings. “It seemed in Montréal that nothing was really happening for us, so we thought of moving to New York City first but it was too complicated, especially after 9/11. We knew that Toronto was the biggest city in Canada and we knew that all the record executive and record companies were in Toronto so it was kind of an easy choice for us to do it.
“And that's what we did. Coming to Toronto was a good thing for us because it was a change, Montréal is a cool town but it seemed like we had a lot of closed doors in front of us and Toronto was just the opposite.”
And after a while the recognition started piling up. The groups ‘Out of my Head' set a MuchMusic record for the longest time spent on the Countdown by a single video. Mobile has also won a 2007 Juno for the ‘Best New Band of the Year.'
“It was pretty cool to be rewarded for your music because we worked really hard to achieve our goals,” Joly said regarding the Juno. “But the thing we were most proud of is the fact that we got a Gold Record in Canada because when you sell over 50,000 records it comes from the people buying records and it means a bit more than winning a Juno where the industry is deciding who is supposed to be the best new band.”
But it's not all business because the guys do get to have some down time, and when you're on the road that means that you get to experience new places. And sometimes those experiences can be good, bad or just downright amusing.
“Last week touring; we were in Ohio, in a town called Alliance, and the state of Ohio, it's fun but can also be boring at times,” Joly laughed. “So we were looking for a place to go get a beer and asked the clerk at the hotel if she could call us a taxi, and she told us there were no taxi cabs in Alliance, so that just gives you a picture of what the town looked like. There was not much to do.
“So we went to have a drink in a bar which was in a mall or something like that, and it was pretty depressing because there was three of us in the bar with the bartender; so we didn't have much to talk about. She was impressed that we were from Canada. but she was like ‘what language are you guys talking?' and we told we were from Montréal. She didn't know where Montreal was, so we were like ‘ok, we're far away from home!'”
But when it comes to their music, Joly has no regrets for having chosen the path they did and has only one piece of advice for budding musicians: “Keep your dream alive, because you're going to be told many times in your career that you don't sing well enough, you're not good looking enough, you don't have good songs. But when you strike back and show them that you're able to, that's a very sweet revenge, and that's good.”
The Montréal-bred, Toronto-based band is finally hitting its stride south of the border, but that doesn't mean that it went unnoticed back home. With a ‘Best New Band' Juno, a Gold Album (50,000 sold), several video games tracks and a MuchMusic record under their belt, you can hardly claim that they've been flying under the radar.
The band, consisting of five friends, have been together for more than a decade and have known one another since childhood. But according to Mat Joly, Mobile's vocalist, that's what sets them apart from other bands and it's what's keeping them together.
“When you're in a band a lot of people don't see that it's difficult sometimes,” Joly explained. “You have to go through a lot of tough things; because it isn't just the music, it's a business, and it's difficult to go through what we've been through this year, and it helps when you're friends are really close by.”
The tough times Joly refers too was the bands transition to their new American record label early this year, due to a lack of commitment from their original label.
“There's a big problem in America right now with big labels, they're kind of signing rock bands and they don't work them so they keep dropping rock bands,” Joly explained. “Our first album was supposed to be released overseas, it just never happened because our (former) record company just didn't do their job over there. But we were lucky enough to have our Canadian label on our side, and they've been doing a great job.”
But getting the band off the ground wasn't a job for the faint of heart in the first place. The group practiced for years before making their sound public and making a foray into the rock industry. Years of practicing, rehearsing and rewriting their own songs could do nothing but make the group stronger and more prepared for that big step.
“I think we kind of took-off when we moved from Montréal to Toronto, and we all lived together in a two-bedroom apartment for a while,” Joly said regarding the bands' begginings. “It seemed in Montréal that nothing was really happening for us, so we thought of moving to New York City first but it was too complicated, especially after 9/11. We knew that Toronto was the biggest city in Canada and we knew that all the record executive and record companies were in Toronto so it was kind of an easy choice for us to do it.
“And that's what we did. Coming to Toronto was a good thing for us because it was a change, Montréal is a cool town but it seemed like we had a lot of closed doors in front of us and Toronto was just the opposite.”
And after a while the recognition started piling up. The groups ‘Out of my Head' set a MuchMusic record for the longest time spent on the Countdown by a single video. Mobile has also won a 2007 Juno for the ‘Best New Band of the Year.'
“It was pretty cool to be rewarded for your music because we worked really hard to achieve our goals,” Joly said regarding the Juno. “But the thing we were most proud of is the fact that we got a Gold Record in Canada because when you sell over 50,000 records it comes from the people buying records and it means a bit more than winning a Juno where the industry is deciding who is supposed to be the best new band.”
But it's not all business because the guys do get to have some down time, and when you're on the road that means that you get to experience new places. And sometimes those experiences can be good, bad or just downright amusing.
“Last week touring; we were in Ohio, in a town called Alliance, and the state of Ohio, it's fun but can also be boring at times,” Joly laughed. “So we were looking for a place to go get a beer and asked the clerk at the hotel if she could call us a taxi, and she told us there were no taxi cabs in Alliance, so that just gives you a picture of what the town looked like. There was not much to do.
“So we went to have a drink in a bar which was in a mall or something like that, and it was pretty depressing because there was three of us in the bar with the bartender; so we didn't have much to talk about. She was impressed that we were from Canada. but she was like ‘what language are you guys talking?' and we told we were from Montréal. She didn't know where Montreal was, so we were like ‘ok, we're far away from home!'”
But when it comes to their music, Joly has no regrets for having chosen the path they did and has only one piece of advice for budding musicians: “Keep your dream alive, because you're going to be told many times in your career that you don't sing well enough, you're not good looking enough, you don't have good songs. But when you strike back and show them that you're able to, that's a very sweet revenge, and that's good.”
