Montreal’s Dead Velvet is a fresh new band that blends a bouncy, contagious, genre-crossing sound with a heartfelt poetic retelling of personal experiences, the first taste of which being the video single “The Dogs”. The single is about tainted relationships and is a great precursor to the music they’re going to be releasing in the future. The band is an interesting, well-thought-out mix of multiple genres, blurring the lines between old-school nu-metal, hardcore, and modern metal.
When the music for the track was being written, guitarist Eric (Stretch) Villeneuve was going for a trap vibe and hoping to infuse it with the get-on-your-feet energy that is present in hip hop. The structure pulls you in and spits you back out through its grooves and bumps and when the hook comes in it knocks you on your ass. The band explains the track:
“’The Dogs‘ is the first song that we decided to share with the world and we chose this one because we find it well represents the general sound and musical aesthetic that we’re going for. It’s a blistering tale of lost love and trying to push past all the pain in a relationship to make it work when, really, it would probably make more sense to just leave. It’s about empty promises and broken dreams, and I think that’s something that many people have been through and a message that almost all of us can connect with on some level.”
Going forward, Dead Velvet plans to release a series of singles to show listeners what they’re capable of. They say they are writing songs that will get people on their feet and give them a reason to move.
“Right now we have about seven that are complete and we have about ten that we’re still working on and like forty ideas in Cubase just waiting to be worked on,” says Jesse. “We have three that are already recorded, including The Dogs, and we’re actually going to shoot our second music video on March 5th for our second song called I Am The Chainsaw. And then after that, we’re going to go back in the studio and record another three songs and yeah, just kind of keep on going with that momentum of like batches of three.”
We caught up with Jesse & Stretch from the group to talk about who they’d wanna tour with, their favourite Montreal venues and what 2022 has in store for the band.
Watch the interview with Dead Velvet below:
