Next Friday, Montreal’s own The Mission District will play Main Hall with fellow rockers Kiss Me Deadly, and show their hometown how much they enjoy playing live.
“We’re all about just playing live and interacting with people afterward. Obviously, we’re honoured that anybody would come see us play live at all, so it’s definitely cool to talk to people who come to our shows and buy our CDs,” the band’s vocalist, David Rancourt, explained.
While all the members of the group, including guitarists Travis Barfoot and Rob Rousseau, bassist Antoine Rochette and drummer Pat Naud, have been in previous bands since their early high school days, this is the first time all of them have tried to undertake a serious musical endeavour with firmly set goals and commitments. “This is the first band that we’re actually into. In terms of what we want to do, in terms of song writing, putting out a record [and] touring, I think everyone’s finally on the same wavelength. This is a project that we finally all kind of united on. I mean this is obviously all about fun too, but I think at the same time, we want to make it more than just a sideline,” Rancourt said.
And while it’s only been a little over a year that The Mission District have gotten together, they’ve already released a three-song EP and are planning on doing a full-length album that Rancourt said will “probably materialize, we’re hoping, within this next year.” He described their plan as being “really just to do an album and to tour and to get our music out there as soon as possible.”
Having learned a lot about interpersonal relationships and communication from their preceding musical groups, Rancourt compares being in a band to “being in a family or a relationship, except you’re in a relationship with four other people.” Not only does he feel more knowledgeable about how to talk and approach people in general, but he feels that The Mission District has given him and his bandmates an emotional outlet to deal “with a lot of stuff in terms of who we are as people and how we see the world. I guess our band is sort of like our own reflections on how we interact as people,” he explained.
A rock band that doesn’t “claim to be changing the world in terms of musical landscape,” The Mission District get their musical ideas and influences from whatever inspires them. Rancourt related, “Whether it’s relationships, questions about identity, political, whatever, it all makes its way one way or another into our music.”
Rancourt is proud to be a Canadian artist at this point in time, and especially from Montreal. “[But] at the same time, I think good music can happen anywhere. There’s a lot of talk about whether there’s a Montreal scene or a Toronto scene, [but] I just don’t see it as the way the media’s been portraying [Montreal] like ‘the next big thing.’ I mean, there’s been good music coming out of here for a long time and I think that people are just sort of figuring that out now,” Rancourt reasoned.
Right now the band is concentrating on building their Montreal fan base, but they eventually plan to tour the rest of Canada and the States. For Rancourt, it is those bands with the talent and drive to pursue their dreams to make music who will “find a way to get their music out there,” and that’s certainly what The Mission District hope to do too.
The Mission District play Main Hall, Friday, March 24 with Kiss Me Deadly. Tickets cost $8.
