After reuniting to great fanfare and acclaim from fans both old and new in 2013, 1990s Canadian alt-rock sensations Moist have been a regular on the summer festival circuit ever since, producing an album of all-new original material, Glory Under Dangerous Skies, in 2014.
The record fit in nicely with the band’s three previous studio albums, all critical and commercial hits, starting with their debut Silver in 1994, followed by Creature in 1996 and Mercedes 5 and Dime in 1999, before Moist took what was supposed to be an extended hiatus, and ended up being a 13-year break.
With 2019 being the 25th anniversary of the band’s debut record, Moist has already begun to hit the road, playing shows across the country in anticipation of a re-release of Silver by Universal Music in November, followed by more shows where the album will be played in its entirety.
Moist has an interesting back story, in that all four original members, vocalist David Usher, guitarist Mark Makoway, keyboardist Kevin Young and bassist Jeff Pearce had deep connections to Kingston, Ontario and Queen’s university, but didn’t actually form Moist until 1992, after each had relocated to Vancouver.
“I had lived in Kingston a lot of my life, Mark is from Toronto, but he was going to Queen’s, Jeff had grown up on nearby Amherst Island and he was also going to Queen’s. I was briefly in the music program at Queen’s but then just shifted to a general arts for a year. David was already there too, although he and I had met during high school: David was going to KCVI and I was going to Loyalist Collegiate. So, we all met in that era. I played in bands at Queen’s and Mark and Jeff played in a band together too,” said co-founder Young of the origination of the band and it’s deep connections to Kingston. Incidentally, Usher was at the same high school at the same time as members of The Tragically Hip, and Hugh Dillon of The Headstones.
“David went out with another buddy of ours to go to school at Simon Fraser [University]. I went out about a year later with the intention of forming a band with friends from Kingston, so David and myself that other fella from Kingston ended up working together for a little while. David and I had been writing music together and working together for some time already. And the four of us, just sort of naturally being Kingston ex-pats and that sort of thing decided to try to do something together. It wasn’t the greatest initial jam in the world, but there was something there, so we kept up with it.
“I think we all had different reasons for choosing Vancouver, but it’s about as far west as you can go for a major city in Canada, that is not on an island. And it was just fortuitous that we all made that decision to go out there at the same time. But music was definitely something we all had on our minds, top of mind really. Vancouver, and B.C. in general has always had a really, really strong indie scene, and a really strong punk and hardcore scene. So that indie ethic that was a big part of the 1990s early on was definitely attracting attention to the area.”
Silver was a bold and confident step forward for a band that had only been together for a little less than a year, and which didn’t have a record deal. The album and first video for the song Push were both self-financed on a shoestring. But the commitment to the music and the quality of the songs meant that the quartet was able to catch the proverbial lightning in a bottle, translating all their hunger, passion and raw talent into one of the most memorable and successful debuts in Canadian rock history when it came out in 1994.
“We recorded a lot of Silver at a place called Eighth Avenue Sound in Vancouver with a producer named Kevin Hamilton, who was also our live sound guy for a while. Eighth Avenue didn’t do a whole lot of rock and roll, it did a lot more recording for corporate applications. So, they would let us go in at night when the studio wasn’t in use and record, which gave us a break on how much it would all cost,” Young explained.
“We definitely knew that we had to record something to get out there to sell at shows and to show everyone that we really were serious, that we were going to do this come hell or high water. We ended up recording a nine-song cassette and did that with our first drummer Jamie Kaufmann, who went to another band. We then got Paul Wilcox, which was great because, in many ways, he was the perfect drummer for us in terms of personality and power. [He left the band just before they went on hiatus in 2000 but did not return in 2013. Francis Fillion has been behind the kit since 2013.]
“When it came time to release a full independent record, we went back to Eighth Avenue and recorded more with Paul and basically did it as an indie album on our own. Soon after EMI came on board, but they only did fairly minimal tweaks to what we had recorded. Terry Brown, who is well known for working with a lot of bands, particularly Rush, which thrilled us, remixed a number of songs on the record, including some of the singles. When we signed with the label, they pretty much said, ‘yeah, this is your record.’ There wasn’t a lot of navel gazing, ‘well do we need to go back and record more tracks.’ At the time Push was already all over MuchMusic independently so we were extremely lucky, but also reasonably well prepared.”
Besides Push, there were four other singles released from Silver, including the title track, which made the top 10 in Canada, Believe Me, which made it to #11, and later Machine Punch Through and Freaky Be Beautiful. This helped propel the album to #12 on the Canadian charts, but also helped it eventually go four times platinum in Canada (400,000 units sold).
“It was often the case at the time that we’d write a song and we’d think. ‘this is great, this is fantastic, I love this song.’ But you’ve just written it and we we’ve all sat in a room and thrashed it out and argued about who is playing what, when and how, and when that’s all done, we’re thrilled with it. And there were some songs that we didn’t get as excited about and they obviously didn’t go that far,” Young said.
“Then there were songs we felt really excited about just because they were fresh, and we’re still proud of them. They’re good songs and they got released. When we had songs like Push and Believe Me and Silver, the singles from the first record, we really knew that there was something about them, whether or not other people were really going to like them was irrelevant, to us there was something about them that really excited us when we listened to them in the studio, but even before that when we played them live. The real-time feedback we got from the crowd when we played those songs before they were recorded was like, ‘a ha, I think we may have something here boys.’”
Original bassist Jeff Pearce has returned to the fold after initially leaving the band in 2014 during their comeback. Young said he was welcomed back with open arms.
“Jeff is back and it’s a great thing. The fella that took over for Jeff when he decided to leave the band, Louis Lalancette, is great and we have loved working with him. Actually, Jeff was with us for the first run of shows when we got back together. We started working on a new record, that would become Glory Under Dangerous Skies, and Jeff had a bunch of other stuff going on, particularly a young family, and didn’t feel it was something he could do full on at that point in time. When we started talking about the 25th anniversary of Silver and going out and potentially doing something special for it, as bands do when you go out and play the full album, we started talking about approaching Jeff again,” he explained.
“And Jeff was totally up for it and totally in to it. Jeff, as a songwriter, as a personality and as a player had a whole lot to do with the success of our early work and having him back is just wonderful. He has an amazing voice: he does a lot of the background vocals and when he is doing backups, he has a singing voice that, honestly, I think it takes two of us to recreate when he’s not onstage. We feel whole and complete again, it’s very fuzzy.”
Besides having the four core original members of Moist back in the fold, the 25th anniversary of Silver also provoked a flood of memories and good vibes amongst Young and his bandmates.
“When we first got back together in 2013, and every time we sort of dust off the gear and head out on tour, or head into rehearsal, that stuff comes up. We lived in each other’s pockets for years as a band and experienced a lot together. We have been lucky that we have also maintained really strong friendships and working relationships together over the years,” he said.
“So, there is a lot of ‘remember when’ going on. Some of it’s positive and some of it not so much, although it’s funny, you know at the time things seemed like a shit show, but now we remember them fondly. Like driving up Mount Rushmore in the middle of winter, determined that we were going to see it, even though it was two o’clock in the morning and snowing.”
Ever since their reunion in 2013, and the release of Glory Under Dangerous Skies, Moist has reconvened for shows each year, primarily on the summer circuit, but sometimes at other points of the year. With songs still played regularly on classic rock, active rock and mix formats, the band is still relevant, as evidenced by the throngs of fans of all ages who come to see the shows.
“We couldn’t be happier with the fact that the songs have continued to get played over the years. It’s a really satisfying thing to know that certain songs still resonate with people. For some it’s going to be nostalgia, for some people it’s going to be their first time hearing the songs. It makes us proud that people are responding, and it also makes us feel very grateful. We are very grateful that folks have continued to play us and that people have continued to listen to us and come to the shows,” Young said, adding that he and the other lads in the band are heartened that there is a younger cadre of fans buying the music and coming to the shows, not just adherents from ‘back in the day.’
“I know when I was younger, we would look back to performers and music with nostalgia: ‘oh, that must have been a great time.’ And they wish maybe they could have seen that band back then. For me it’s gratifying to be able to continue to play to people and have them enjoy the songs. And some of my early shows were seeing bands that I loved as a kid that were a little long in the tooth, I learned something from that too. As a buddy of mine I toured with one time said to me, we woke up on a tour bus one day and he said, ‘you know, we’re just blessed to be able to do this every day.’ And, again, that sounds kind of fuzzy but it’s true, we’re very lucky.”
Moist is playing a free show back on familiar ground in Kingston on Aug. 2, as part of the free Rockin’ The Square program in Springer Market Square. The band then heads to Victoriaville, Quebec for Rock La Cause on Aug. 9, before some shows out in western Canada in late Aug, before returning to Ontario for a show alongside Big Sugar at Caesar’s Windsor on Sept. 5. Another run of dates, focusing more on the 25th anniversary of Silver, where the album will be played in its entirety, happen in November.
As for new music from Moist, Young said never say never.
“There is always a chance of new Moist music – I would say a better than average chance. As I have said before, typically when you put the band together in a room long enough, and that’s not too long, inevitably people will start to write. Someone will have an idea and wants to explore it. I mean, with us you’ve got a bunch of really hyper creative guys who want to make more music. That’s basically what happened with Glory Under Dangerous Skies. So, yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s an absolute lock, but I would say it’s almost a sure thing that there will be new Moist music within the next year or so,” he said.
For more information on the band, any new music and tour dates, visit https://moistonline.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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