Bang Lime Are Making The Most Of Their Time

Half-Canadian indie darlings Metric may be on a between-album break, but the band's four members certainly aren't spending their summer vacationing.

With James Shaw taking a run at producing and Emily Haines releasing her second disc with The Soft Skeleton, bassist Josh Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key found themselves with some spare time on their hands.The pair, who've been making music together since their university days, recently decided that it was time they put out a disc of their own. So they created Bang Lime — a rough, new wave duo who aim to reproduce the glory days of rock 'n' roll.

"I think, in the past, people had an opportunity to record music because they were extremely talented," Winstead explains over the phone, as the duo take a break from a sound-check in Quebec City. "People would approach you and say, 'Hey, you're amazing, let's put you on stage.' We were both really going for that — the instrumental hero.

"We went for a sound that was a little grittier. We recorded on two-inch tape to try and get a [certain] sound and to limit ourselves because there were only two of us. We didn't want to have anything on the album that we couldn't perform live."

While the songs on Bang Lime's Best Friends In Love debut are brash and determined, Winstead makes it clear that his musical affiliation with Scott-Key is all about having fun. The album title is a nod to the close relationship that the two share and a gag that was started by Winstead's girlfriend.

"It was like her teasing us," he explains. "It was definitely a joke about how long me and Joules have hung out together."

The Bang Lime moniker came about on a lark. A few years back, Winstead, while working on experimental music in Europe, pulled random words out of a hat in an attempt to string together poetic lyrics for his songs. Scott-Key thought the Bang Lime combination was funny and kept it alive over the years by calling the pair's jam sessions banging lime.

The name's humorous origins are indicative of the atmosphere the pair have always aimed for.

"I'm just trying to make sure that everybody involved in Bang Lime has a good time doing it," says Winstead. "I want them to feel it's something that they're excited to do.

"I don't want anybody feeling like, 'I have to go to work on this right now?' It's supposed to be fun."

Though Winstead, the main songwriter of the duo, likes to keep things cheerful, he discovered after the fact that the lyrics on Best Friends In Love turned out to be quite the opposite.

"The things that I tend to write about are the same," he explains. "It's usually about love in my life, or I tend to have really strong political issues, about war and racism and things like that.

"I was just listening to it recently and I thought, 'Man, there are so many heavy tones in the lyrics.' Joules and I are such silly people — we're always goofing around. It's really funny to be so silly and then have some of the lyrics so serious. I didn't mean it to happen that way."

In an effort to keep life in Bang Lime appealing to all involved, Winstead and Scott-Key have decided to keep their band a two-piece for now. Though Winstead has a lot of friends who he'd consider including, he's not sure any of them would be a good fit for the band's short yearly existence and demanding timelines.

"We were actually trying to do bands before Bang Lime, but there was so little time," he recalls. "Every time I would come home, I was so frustrated that everybody wasn't as serious.

"They had a little more time on their hands so they thought we could just take our time. I knew we really had to hurry because my time is so limited with Metric.

"I think it's always going to be small tours for Bang Lime. I thought it would be best to really visualize it as a side-project and keep it fun, so the work of it stays short and sweet. I don't think we'll have a chance to do a three-month tour with Bang Lime unless there's time off from Metric."

Bang Lime will make the most of their time with a mini-tour this August. Here's where you can catch them:

Aug. 17 Vancouver, BC @ The Plaza
Aug. 24 Toronto, ON @ Lee's Palace
Aug. 25 London, ON @ Call The Office
Aug. 26 Hamilton, ON @ Casbah