The beauty of certain bands stems from their ability to eschew what many would consider to be the trappings of their chosen genre (insofar as a band like Beams actually chooses a genre). Sure, Beams have banjos, acoustic guitars and mandolins, but the addition of the musical saw and lap steel — coupled with lead vocalist, banjo player and principal songwriter Anna Mérnieks’ often playful delivery — will cause you to throw away any notion you had of calling them a “folk” band.
Beams shares many of its members with the Hamilton Trading Co. (who we profiled a few weeks back), which is likely the reason this relatively new band looks so comfortable on stage as they take jaunty, banjo-led rhythms and underlay them with the haunting melodies provided by the saw; it makes for quite a unique experience. We caught up with Mérnieks to talk about banjos and how useless it is to try and define yourself.
Can you talk about how the band started?
I was given a banjo for Christmas when I was about 18 to use in my other band, The Paper Makers, but we couldn’t really work it in so I just wrote some songs on it myself. Then I started dating this guy who lived with a bass player, and one day I was just playing one of my songs on banjo and I walked downstairs and said ‘Joe, do you want to start a band? Let’s jam this song and see how it goes.’ Then it became Joe-Anna — Joe and me — and that was all good. That went on for like a year or so until he had to quit a lot of his original projects and just focus on making money and doing gigs and more paying stuff. So I was band-less, so I just put out a call to everybody that I would like to jam with and asked them to come over and jam, expecting two or three of them to come over and then they all came over. So we just figured out a way to make it all work. That was in the winter.
And the Paper Makers are no more, right?
No, not that I know of. You never know.
So what’s coming up for the band?
We’re working on a full-length album that hopefully will be coming out in the late fall, but there’s no specific release date on it. We’re just starting to play around a bit more, we’ve got a show on Friday at the Magpie and we’ve got a show on the 25th at Not My Dog. And we’re working on applying to different festivals.
You’re in the Hamilton Trading Co. too. Is it hard to balance the two bands?
Not too much. We actually work together pretty well. Irene, Mike, Heather, Keith and I are all in the Trading Co. as well, so it’s really easy to play shows with the Hamilton Trading Co. Also, the Trading Company doesn’t require too much rehearsal because we all know the songs quite well. It doesn’t conflict too much and just gives us an excuse to hang out more.
Where does the inspiration for your songs come from?
Having a new instrument in my hands is always inspiring. It gives me different ways to say things that I’ve already said.
I felt — and forgive me if this is a bit off base — but I felt a sort-of Regina Spektor vibe with your voice.
Interesting. I don’t get a lot of comparisons. But she’s good. She’s a little bit more theatrical though, wouldn’t you say?
Yeah, it was just something about the cadence of your voice that reminded me of it.
Well that’s good. She’s good, so I hope that’s okay. I’m also influenced by living in the city, but growing up with strong roots in nature and dealing with that; ideas around family and stuff. My family is pretty strong but there have been a lot of things that have happened that kind of tested things, so I’ve always learned to look beyond my blood family for my true family and a lot of my songs are about that. About being independent but finding strength in others.
Do you write all the songs for the band? Yeah. Not that I’m opposed to other people writing. I just have a lot of songs.
So how does the writing process go? It’s always a mishmash getting people going at different times. So when they weren’t songs that I had with Joe it was more that I’d teach them to the rhythm section first, then add in the top layers of songs so that it all made sense and then the drummer and the guitar, then lap steel and saw, then other vocals can pop in.
If you had to define yourself as a genre, what do you think it would be?
That’s the worst question ever (laughs). Hmm… let me see. I’ve heard one person say it’s like folk but freshest folk. I guess I would say it’s folk. It’s in the folk genre. Singer-songwriter, honest storytelling-type things. I don’t play party songs or songs about, like, murdering people. So it’s in the folk tradition, but I guess I’m influenced by a lot of different things from Modest Mouse to The Roots. I like to write songs about what I like. So what would that genre be? Likeable music?
Recommended track: White Belly
Video: The Sun Wraps Around
Beams are:
Anna Mernieks — vocals, banjo
Heather Mazhar — vocals
Irene Chu — guitar, vocals
Dave Himilton — mandolin
Martin Crawford — lap steel
Keith Hamilton — saw, vocals
Craig Moffat — bass
Mike Duffield — drums
Ty Trumbull is a Toronto writer. He works as an editor at 680News and can be seen playing banjo with his band, The Sure Things, every Monday at the The Dakota Tavern.
