Hexes & Ohs Sound Totally Gay

Montrealers Hexes & Ohs are about to release Bedroom Madness, their second album. The duo (and couple) Edmund Lam and Heidi Donnelly are so cute together we had to take them to a park in midtown Toronto to get them to tell us all about it.

ChartAttack: How much time did you spend working on Bedroom Madness?
Edmund Lam: We started writing it maybe two years ago. After we did the last album, we did it so quickly that we just didn't want to think about songwriting for a long time. Like a year after that we started writing and then we started recording with a guy in Montreal at a venue called the Main Hall. It was temporarily shut down by the city because they didn't have the proper permits and they had neighbours complaining — not so much from the venue, but from people hanging outside. So they shut it down and we had the space empty for us to use. We recorded all the live instruments there — that was last summer — and then the engineer had to go on tour with !!! [Chk Chk Chk]. He's a travelling sound guy. So we left it unfinished. We finished some of it in our own studio and then we met Byron Wong, who lives in Toronto and we kind of finished it here. He produced and mixed the album. So we finished recording in August.

What did you want to do differently compared to Goodbye Friend, Welcome Lover?
EL: The last album was very not live sounding. We did everything in our house and kind of in my parents' house. We wanted a bigger room sound, for the guitars to sound like rawer electric guitars. The drums sound bigger. I wanted to do less layering and just make the things that we put down count. Like the vocals are bolder; just more raw and more up front. The songs are a lot poppier, too. [The last album's] songs are still kind of left over from our post-rock phase. Like, most of the songs were five or six minutes. On this album most of the songs are under four minutes. They're just more to the point and sharper, bolder hooks.
Heidi Donnelly: And more fun, too. The last album was a bit post-rocky, but dryer. We wanted to make [our new songs] more fun and fun to play live.

You're a couple and a band at the same time. How do you survive spending so much time together?
EL: We've been together for a long time.
HD: We're kind of just the same person.
EL: We work well as a team. We got lost in New York City. We had to get from Queens to the East Village in, like, an hour in rush hour, and we made it. So stuff like that. If it was just five guys who you weren't incredibly close with, it could turn pretty sour.

I don't normally ask this, but how old are you?
HD: I'm 26.
EL: I was going to ask you how old we look. I'm 29.
HD: He's going to be 30 soon!

The reason why I ask is that your songs sound so young, so peppy and cute.
HD: Well, I still get carded wherever I go.
EL: I don't know where that comes from. I think we just look young and we have tiny voices, so it just kind of comes off as young.

Is your song "H-H-Highschool" autobiographical?
EL: Yes and no.

I read that you were high school sweethearts. Is that true?
EL: Yeah. Heidi was grade 8 and I was grade 10. It was kind of a big deal then.
HD: People weren't happy.

Heidi probably looked awesome, though, going out with a grade 10 boy.
HD: It was like, "Oh, wow. How'd you score that?"
EL: I made her fake IDs and stuff with my Photoshop skills. I was starting to get into design and my friend worked at a video store. He had a laminating machine.

I have to ask, how did you "score that?"
HD: Well, actually, Ed was best friends with my brother at the time, so I was the younger sister hanging out with my older brother.
EL: It was mostly music that brought us together.
HD: Well, yes and no, but my brother also asked me to be in the band at the time.

Was that Jolly Bean?
HD: Yeah. Wow, you did your research.
EL: We sound [more] like that band now than the band before [Hexes & Ohs], because we were kind of Beatle-esque, 60s, peppy pop. Then we really wanted to not do that anymore and we did post-rock, really dark [music].

What was the name of the post-rock band that came between Jolly Bean and Hexes & Ohs?
EL: A Vertical Mosaic.

I was reading about that and I was wondering what happened to take you from the trio that AVM was to the duo that is Hexes & Ohs.
HD: Well, Jolly Bean was a foursome, and we've been cutting down.

The guy in A Vertical Mosaic was also in Jolly Bean, is that right?
EL: Yeah.

So you just shed a couple members.
HD: We kind of shed my brother from the first band.
EL: It was out of necessity. The first band broke up because Heidi's brother was not really into it.

Another thing that I read that's kind of interesting was on the comments section of The Hour's website. There was a review of Goodbye Friend, Welcome Lover with some user comments beneath it and somebody described a show in which all the girls present were dancing near the stage while the guys stood uncomfortably at the back. That person wondered if there was something inherently gay about your music that made those guys so uncomfortable.
EL: I think I remember that show.
HD: Yeah, I totally remember that! What show was that?
EL: I think it was Ladyfest or something. It was in Ottawa.
HD: Really? I was going to say North By Northeast.
EL: There's a bunch of situations where that's happened. I think that's very true.
HD: But actually, we get a lot of people from the gay company.
EL: There's a lot of lesbians who like us.
HD: Company?
EL: Gayco.
HD: The community.
EL: I'm kind of effeminate, I guess, and gay-friendly. It's very young sounding, it's kind of peppy. It's not very macho. Some guys, even if they liked us they wouldn't brag about it.
HD: You have to be pretty metrosexual, I guess. We have high, squeaky voices and that's what we like. Listening to The Super Friendz and stuff like that, we kind of try to sound like them.
EL: [The Super Friendz and The Flashing Lights singer,] Matt Murphy is my hero. People say, "I like Super Friendz' guitar work, but his voice, man, I can't take it." I love his voice. I don't take it personally if people don't like my voice.

What would you say to all the macho dudes out there who aren't sure if it's OK to like Hexes & Ohs, even if deep down they want to?
EL: Stop caring about what your friends think and just do what you want to do. Be like me and get made fun of in high school and like what you like. You'll feel better at the end of the day.
HD: It builds character.
EL: And the gay community will embrace you.
HD: You might find a girl that way, because it builds character and someone will be like, "Ooh, he's hot."

Is there anything else you want to talk about?
EL: Maybe the tour. We're going across Canada in September. It's our first time going to Vancouver and back. Heidi's never been to Vancouver. I was when I was a kid.
HD: Never made it past Windsor.

What town have you been in to date that has the best dancers?
HD: Halifax, maybe?
EL: They weren't really dancing. I think Toronto. At The Drake there's some clubby type people who get down from upstairs and [think], "Hey it's dance music. I can dance to this."
HD: There's some macho guys that dug us.
EL: Yeah, this buff dude in a white suit was like, "Hey man, I really liked that."
HD: "Can I buy you a drink?"
EL: Yeah, he bought me a drink. I'm not used to being bought drinks, so he was like, "What are you drinking?" I said, "I'm probably going to have a beer, what are you having?" Then he bought me a drink and I just hoped he didn't expect something.

Maybe he was gay if he liked you so much.
EL: But the really tough guys don't seem to pick up on our gayness — only the kind of tough ones.
HD: The ones maybe questioning their sexuality.