When it comes to raw, unapologetic talent and sheer musical force, Down the Lees’ new EP, Dirt, is already making waves in the indie rock scene. Featuring standout tracks like “Douse”—winner of ‘Best Song’ at the 2024 Okanagan Screen Awards—and the powerful single “Downplay,” the EP is a testament to the band’s artistic evolution.
Recorded and mixed by Jesse Gander at Raincity Recorders, whose impressive portfolio includes work with 3 Inches of Blood and Japandroids and mastered by Blake Bickel at Dynamic Sound Service, Dirt is a gritty and polished auditory experience.
At the helm is Laura Lee Schultz, whose commanding vocals and poignant lyrics cut through the noise, delivering life’s harsh truths with a blend of grace and raw power. Emerging from Vancouver’s vibrant music scene, Laura has been the driving force behind Down the Lees for many years now, crafting songs that resonate deeply with their audience.
Montreal Rocks caught up with Laura to delve into the making of Dirt, her fascinating journey as a musician, and what music she’s been excited about recently.
“Dirt” is released today. What’s a release day like?
It’s kind of anticlimactic because I do so much work to get to that spot of like, “Yay, we finally released it.” Then it’s just wait around and see what happens. But we are celebrating with the show tonight, so we have friends coming. So yeah, it’s exciting to finally get it out there.
Yeah, especially because it’s been a long time coming. This record has been like years in the works, I guess you could say.
Yeah, four years. I’d say almost four years. The last one was September 2019. Yeah, right before everything fell apart.
Yeah. Well, we should talk about that because, obviously, the world has changed, but your world has changed especially. For people who don’t know about the history of your band, can you run us through it a little bit and what happened during the pandemic?
So this started off as a solo project for me. It’s been around for almost 20 years now. I’ve just been writing, recording, and releasing albums under Down the Lees and just doing it myself. Then I moved to Belgium in 2015 with my girlfriend. And I started to realize how amazing the rock scene out in Belgium is because we lived in Ghent and it’s like the capital of noise rock out there. So, it inspired me to get some new band members to start playing live. So I found some new band members, and we ended up writing an album. And then we flew to Chicago and recorded it with Steve Albini. And then we released it and then the pandemic happened.
So, we moved back to Canada to take care of our family. So we moved to the Okanagan Valley in Canada. And I was trying to get my footing and figure out what I was going to do as an artist. I thought I was going to throw in the towel and just not do it anymore. But then I decided, well, you know what? Music actually is keeping me alive. So I kept on writing and I found two new guys in the Okanagan Valley to play music with. And we wrote this music and recorded it with Jesse Gander in Vancouver. And now it’s being released.
When’s the last time you listened to it?
Oh, probably in my car when I got the CDs to make sure the CD was OK. We’re just releasing it on CD. We didn’t release it on vinyl, and we didn’t want to just do digital. And it was a cheap way to do it to have some kind of tangible thing in our hands.
In the lyrics, you talk about being a different girl when you were on the other side of the world. Do you feel different from that chapter of your life?
Yes.
In what way?
I’ve had to go through a lot of battle scars just because I felt like finally my career was going somewhere after trudging away at it since the mid-90s. I actually had a Riot Grrrl band in the 90s. And so I’ve been trudging away for such a long time and finally had some headway and was doing some really great things. And then it just got pulled away from me. Having that hurdle to get over and also being happy… I was happy with my life in Belgium and then transplant myself over here and figure out what I’m going to do and take care of family. And I kind of go, Oh, what if we move back to Belgium? But that was a totally different Laura. And I miss that person, but I can’t just step back into those shoes. So, yes, I’m different in bad ways, but also in great ways. I’ve made some significant strides in the last year that I feel pretty proud of.
Let’s talk about some of the positive stuff. You say you’ve changed in great ways. How do you feel like you’ve improved as a person?
For me, I have improved as a musician because the guys that I found to play with are amazing. The drummer, Andy Ashley, used to be in hardcore bands in the early 2000s, and he plays in a metal band, and he’s just very proficient and very technical. And he challenges me. The bass player, Chris Carlson, used to tour with Tegan and Sara around the world for years. And so he has his chops. So I felt like, oh, I need to step up. I need to step up. And so they made me want to be a better musician. And I think that is what makes this record shine is that the chemistry we have really showcases the feel that we have, which is something that musicians have when they play together, you can’t really describe it. You can’t put it down into words, but it’s just a feel. And I feel like we have that. So that’s how I’ve improved as a musician. Also, during the lockdowns and by myself, I would just play music all the time. There was nothing else I could do. So I just played music.
As a person, did the pandemic change how you want to live moving forward?
I mean, let’s be honest: I’m feeling more pessimistic about the world. It’s hard for me to feel positive in terms of where we’re going in society, especially with climate change and the climate disaster that’s heading our way, especially because we live in a region where the wildfires are rampant. So I feel like I want to give back a little bit more, which is why we decided to donate portions of our merchandise to the BC Wildfire Recovery Fund to try to help our environment and also doing fundraisers for DIY event centres. So it hasn’t really changed me as a person so much like that because I’ve always wanted to do that. And I’ve always kind of prided myself on DIY ethics and to help out my community. So I’ve done that a little bit more.
But I’m also quite aware of the mental struggle that I have. And I feel like I’m a little bit more resilient because of the music I write because I find it to be therapeutic for me and to always fall back on that. If I have a really tough time, just go, music will help you. Music will help you. Just write. Just write. Just do it. So I do it. So I’m kind of leaning into that a little bit more. So personally, I think that is that I’ve increased my resilience.
You say music helps you. And obviously, it helps the listener as well, being able to relate to some of the stuff that you go through. But how has it made you feel when you’re singing these songs on stage night after night, reliving the stuff that you’ve been through?
It’s different than if I’m playing it in my studio here by myself and I’m really reliving the lyrics. If I’m playing it live, I’m really diving into the music and the feeling of the music and the responsiveness of the crowd and feeding off the energy off the crowd. So it depends on where I am that day. If I’m in a bad state or if I’m in a really good state. If I’m in a bad state, I have anxiety when I’m singing some of the songs. Some of them I choose not to play because I just don’t want to sing them. But for the most part, I just feed off the crowd and the energy that we get from the crowd.
This record is 28 minutes long. Technically, it’s an EP.
I know people say it’s a long EP. It’s a short album.
Was there any thought about adding a few more songs, or maybe waiting until you had an album to put out?
Well, initially it was just going to be an EP, a five-song EP, because we went to Vancouver and recorded those songs with Jesse Gander. The last two songs, “Dead and Over” and “Since La Vie En Rose,” I did myself. And those were the ones I did before I met Andy and Chris. So I felt like I wanted to throw those on that album just because it was part of the journey to get where we are now. And I didn’t want those two songs to be left in the ether somewhere. They were released before as singles, but I felt like they needed to have another new life. So that’s why we added them on. So we’re like, oh, yeah, it’s kind of in between an EP and an album. But we’re going to work on a full length. That’s our next thing.
You already started on that?
Yeah, we started throwing around some ideas, but I think that’s going to be our summer, working on some new material.
So at this point in the journey of the next record, what do you want it to be?
I want it to be the path to playing some shows and touring in Europe. That’s the path that I want it to be. I want to, of course, explore my vulnerability as an artist and touch on topics that society is having difficult times with. It really resonates with me, so I’ll continue doing that. But I want to do that and then I want it to be the path to playing some shows and touring in Europe. That’s the path that I want it to be.
I feel like my vulnerability as an artist and touching on topics that society is having difficult times with really resonates with me, so I’ll continue doing that. But I want to explore. So I’ll continue doing that. But I want to do that and then also expand our fan base a little bit more and get back to Europe because I was playing around in France and the Netherlands and all that stuff. And we were asked to go on tour with Sisters of Mercy in Italy. And I kind of want to pick that up again. We just needed to ramp it up a little bit more. So that’s the idea for us for next year: trying to get out to Europe and touring more over there.
When I listen to this album, there seems to be influences from all over the place. I can’t quite pin it down. So can you tell me a little bit about your journey as a listener? What albums inspired you growing up?
Oh, yeah, it’s just all over the place. I mean, P.J. Harvey, I’d say, is probably my number one because she inspired me to actually start recording. I didn’t think I was able to. But as soon as I heard the four-track demos that she did where she just recorded them herself and they’re just four tracks, I was like, “Oh my God, I can do that.” So I had a cassette tape recorder in my dinky little bachelor pad. And I would just record these four-track demos myself. So she really inspired me. Then I started listening to more noise rock stuff like Unwound from Portland, which is a noise rock band. And of course, Nirvana when I was a teen. I first heard them in a bar and I was like, “What the heck is this?” But I also love trip hop stuff like Massive Attack and Portishead, and the ethereal kind of stuff, which is why in “Douse,” I do some really high-pitched falsetto singing and then go into a growl. I love the dichotomy and the discord that happens. I like putting those two together, which is why I feel like noise rock and trip hop and pop songs and putting them together is such a weird confluence of genres and influences. It’s very interesting to me.
What about new music? Do you pay attention to what’s around at the moment?
Oh, yeah, I do because I also have a record label called Off White House Records. It’s an artist collective record label. I started it as the pandemic was starting. My friend from Belgium recorded an album in her house and said, “I need help releasing it.” And I said, “OK, I’ll put it on my label,” which I basically was just releasing my bands on for years. But then I decided to open it as a collective. When I did that, bands started reaching out to me. I have a really awesome band called Bronson Arm, which is a two-piece noise rock band. //LESS is a three-piece from France, two bassists and a drummer. Haze, which is Mirabelle van de Put. She did the artwork for Dirt. Blake from Bronson Arm mastered Dirt. We bring on bands and that’s how I get to learn about new stuff. But I also am really interested in streaming because they feed the algorithm with things they know I will like. I’ve been gravitating towards a lot more post-metal, post-rock stuff like Brutus because we played with them in Vancouver. I’ve been really loving Idles, Mannequin Pussy, and stuff like that. So I do like new stuff.
Have you heard of the band English Teacher?
No.
They’re a British band. They just put an album out recently and they’re going to be opening for Idles when they come to Canada.
So, yeah, you should check them out.
OK, cool. I will for sure.
I realize you have a show tonight, so I won’t keep you too long. And a few other shows, and then you say you’re going to be thinking about the album. Anything else planned for the summer?
Yeah, we’re going to actually do a music video for Dirt. We have a whole idea for that because the music video for Douse won Best Song at the Okanagan Screen Awards. We won awards. And so we’re like, “Oh, let’s do it again.” We’re working with the same director and we have a great idea for it. So, yeah, I think it’s new music and a music video and maybe releasing a single here or there this year.
We’ve got lots of stuff on the go. So we’re very excited.
Excellent. Well, I hope you make it out this side of Canada at some point as well.
Yeah. We do want to come out to Montreal and Toronto and do a little tour out there. We’ll see what the grants look like. We’re applying for all the grants.
Watch the full interview below:
“Dirt” is out now!
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