Corduroy Tears It Up at The Drake Hotel

Here in Toronto the city was alive with celebrity buzz during the Toronto International Film Festival. Amongst all the craze I was was lucky enough to catch up with the up-and-coming band Corduroy at The Drake Hotel. They were there to play a private TIFF launch party and to release their first Demoroy.

From Left to Right: Trevor Blumas, Matt Boudreau, Kev White, Darren Tarbat

The interview felt more like hanging out with a group of chill dudes who chatted about the concept behind their Demoroy series, their influences, their collaborative sound, and their guilty pleasures.

More of this exclusive interview below!

Image Credit: Oliver Pauk

What the hell is a Demoroy? This is exactly what I asked myself as I walked to The Drake Hotel to interview the band.  When I finally understood it to be a demo that they gave a catchy name to it all began to make sense. In fact, the concept behind the Demoroy is brilliant! The band has decided to release a series of said demo(roys) or 3 song EPs that will be offered for FREE (or pay what you can) at their shows. It’s a great publicity stunt and I wish I thought of it first.

The interview kicked off with me asking how the band got together and where their collaborative sound emerged from. The formation of Corduroy began with Trevor who had been making ‘bedroom recordings’ in L.A. while he pursued a career in acting. Trevor decided to put his music online and from there gained some exposure. It was Darren who all the way up in Toronto dug his sound and thought ‘hey, we should start a band’. The rest is history.

“I had a lot of free time when I was living in L.A. and started writing songs and putting them on the internet. And then these guys totally dug it!”

From there they connected and talked about starting an indie band. Trevor realized that L.A. wasn’t the place for such a band to begin and recognized Toronto as a great city with a great indie music scene. Trevor wanted to do more then just record songs in his bedroom and decided to move back to Canada to kick start what has now become Corduroy.

Image Credit: Oliver Pauk

Although the band has lost a member and most recently gained a member ( bassist Matt Boudreau) their collaborative sound has always remained constant.Trevor explains:

“That’s actually the one thing that has stayed consistent from the beginning of the band. Through all the stylistic changes we’ve made and new approaches, we’ve always been a band that does a lot of group stuff.”

Matt described a past festival they played when he looked out and saw a variety of different people singing along. This you could say has been one of the major driving forces behind their new Demoroy project. It’s an attempt to get more people out to their shows and engage them with the band.

As a band they all agree that vocal harmony is the most beautiful thing in music, which is clearly reflected in their tunes. When asked about their influences Darren immediately said The Beatles, mainly because they perfected collaborative harmony. Their shows are engaging and get the crowd involved. It’s hard to resist when everyone around you is belting out Corduroy lyrics.

The interview ended with my colleague Sabrina Baldini asking if anyone had a guilty pleasure they were willing to share. The result: everyone singing in unison ‘Say You Will Be There‘ by The Spice Girls! It was definitely an interview to remember.

This is their first Corduroy Demoroy Vol. 1 for FREE download: http://drop.io/demoroy_vol1

You’re Welcome.

If you want to keep tabs on when the next Corduroy Demoroy Vol. 2 show is just check their Myspace on the reg.