At Sled Island in Calgary last year, it seemed over half the bands had made the trek over the Rockies from Vancouver. Of those bands, Rococode proved something of a festival darling: tightly wound pop-rock that struck the perfect balance between aggressive and twee. And, oh, the precision. Laura Smith, Andrew Braun, Shaun Huberts and Johnny Andrews made Rococode sound like an act with six albums under their belts. In reality, they didnt even have one yet until now. Braun sat down with WE to discuss the long journey of Rococodes fantastic debut, Guns, Sex and Glory (Feb. 7).
When I saw you play at Sled Island, I had no idea you hadnt put out your first album.
Its been done for a year, so weve just been sittin it on the shelf for the last little while, just trying to make sure all the pieces were in place. Finally were almost there.
Why has it taken a year to get it out there?
We finished it and then decided we didnt want to just put out another album and have it get lost in the sea of indie bands. We got a publicist, an agent, a small label were going with through Winnipeg just so we dont have to do everything by ourselves.
It seems like a tremendous amount of work.
Definitely. A lot of sitting in front of the computer, unfortunately, and a lot of time waiting and wondering should we just put this thing out there and throw it up online and see what happens? Are we making the right decision by waiting and taking our time and making sure everything is proper, so to speak. And I feel like we did make the right decision. There are some people waiting for it or ready to listen to it now, as opposed to putting out an album and only having 50 of our friends interested and growing from there. Now at least there is a small number of people waiting for it. (Laughs)
Why did you decide to dedicate time and resources to the Rocoblog and the animated shorts?
Its a really great way to express your personality and your ideas in a bunch of different ways. The animated videos were kind of a nice break our music is pretty serious, and most of the photos we have up are us looking serious, and were not those people necessarily. Its not all doom and gloom. It was nice to put something out there that was a continuation of our artistic expression and also humourous and weird. (Laughs) Personally, I thought those things were really funny, but maybe there were too many inside jokes. But, yeah, those were a crazy amount of work.
Rococode play the CBC Toque Sessions and Cafe Deux Soleils on Feb. 17. Full details at Rococode.com
