Down the Lees released their concert film This Is What It Feels Like earlier this month, and guitarist and vocalist Laura Lee Schultz is pretty clear about what she wanted people to walk away with. “Almost like watching a movie and a live performance at the same time,” she says. “We wanted it to be fully immersive.”
The film documents a February 2025 performance at the Mary Irwin Theatre in Kelowna, British Columbia, filmed by Irisphere Entertainment, recorded by Fraser Burke and mixed by Jesse Gander, who also produced the band’s 2024 album Dirt. It exists as both a live album and a film, and if you ask Schultz which one to start with, she does not hesitate. “The film, for sure. It may be an elevated version of DTL, but the feeling is exactly right.”
The whole project was funded by Creative BC, which Schultz says changed everything about how they approached the night. “We wanted to take the opportunity to really showcase what this band is about now. It has gone through so many transformations, band members, countries, and musical direction. It gave us the freedom to think outside the box and be really creative and intentional with planning it all out.” The catch was the timing. “We didn’t find out we received the funding until three months before the show, so we had to act fast. I find I do my best work under pressure and deadlines, and I think that added to the tension of the show. It wasn’t just a show.”
Down the Lees is now Schultz on guitar and vocals, Andy Ashley on drums and Chris Carlson on bass, all based in the Okanagan Valley. Getting there was not a straight line. Schultz spent years in Ghent, Belgium, where the band first became a live act. “When I lived in Ghent, Jonathan and Kwinny helped me turn Down the Lees into a live band. Until then, it only existed as a recorded project. Belgium really pushed me toward live performance, and it finally felt like a real band.” Moving back to Canada, and eventually to the Okanagan, brought a different kind of focus. “Practically, things became more focused. We rehearse every week, I lead the direction of the songs, and there’s a lot of trust between us. Creatively, being in the Okanagan has influenced the writing more than I expected. It’s a quieter, more conservative place, and that sense of isolation and friction has definitely fuelled me.”
The first single from the film is Midi Doric, written during the 2020 pandemic. The opening lyric leaves nothing abstract: “Haven’t stepped outside in at least four days, in the same underwear just as long.” Schultz writes like that on purpose. “It can be harder, but also cathartic. I use my lyric writing as a tool to deal with the complexities, frustrations, and injustices in the world. I don’t shy away from difficult topics such as homophobia, racism, climate disasters, or school shootings. It gives me a chance to say what I want to say, get it out, and hopefully allow someone else to relate and release their own frustrations through the music.”
Playing it live is something else entirely. “Every time I sing or play it, I am instantly back in Belgium, sitting in my apartment, watching the news in horror and awe,” she says. “I also think about my friend Wannes, who I wrote one of the lines after. He died alone in his apartment before the pandemic. ‘Falling downstairs, alone, isolated.’ So it is an emotional song for me.” The track was built around a bass line from Carlson. “It’s a very special piece for all of us.”
The visuals in the film were made by the band, not handed to a director, and Schultz is specific about why. “We wanted to add to the narrative of the songs by enhancing the mood of the performance. Some of the footage we filmed ourselves, and some we pulled from royalty-free public access footage to weave into the videos. We had to be methodical about what footage we used for each song, as we had built lighting cues with the theatre and the film director.” It is something she had been thinking about for a while. “I’ve always felt that our performances can be theatrical if we pick the right set list and create accompanying videos to feed the narrative of what I am trying to convey lyrically.”
Gander has been part of the picture for a long time, longer than most people probably realise. “Jesse understands tension, dynamics, and knows how to mix a room,” Schultz says. “He is also very familiar with DTL’s sound because I have personally known Jesse for decades. He recorded one of my earlier bands 20 years ago, so he knows what I am trying to go for with my music. I trust him.” She mentions that he also mixes all of Brutus‘s records. “He is really good at preserving the rawness and energy of live recordings.”
Before any of that, there was Chicago. In 2019, Schultz took the band into Steve Albini‘s studio to record Bury the Sun, and the circumstances were chaotic in ways that probably should not have worked. “We hadn’t been playing many shows before we went. We had actually replaced our drummer just a couple of months before we left, so we were flying on new vibes, trying to capture everything.” She describes the experience as “amazing, surreal, a highlight of my career,” and Albini’s approach as both liberating and quietly demanding. “Steve was always very meticulous with mic placements, knew his room, and left all the production decisions to the band. His job was to capture the band exactly as it was, how we wanted to sound. He never said he was a producer. In a way, it was intimidating, but it also really made me step up my game to perform well and know how to articulate what I wanted.” There were surreal moments too. “It was also mind-boggling when he’d tell us stories about recording with PJ Harvey, Shannon Wright, and Zeppelin. One time, Dave Grohl texted while we were in session, and I kind of had to pinch myself.”
Down the Lees has played alongside Brutus, Pile and KEN mode, which covers a pretty wide stretch of heavy music. Schultz is unbothered by the question of where the band fits relative to any of them. “I like to think that I let people try to figure out where we land in comparison. That said, we do have a hard time in the industry because people don’t know what category to put us in. Sometimes we are the loudest band in the room, and sometimes we are light in comparison.”
She seems fine with that. The film is out now, and it makes its own argument.
This Is What It Feels Like is out now. Watch below:
