We had the chance to speak with up and coming band “Valley” from everything to new music, Visuals , to Fleetwood Mac and so much more! Check out our conversation below!
Can you introduce yourselves for our readers!
hey hey! This is Rob & Alex from Valley. Valley is a band from Toronto Ontario and super stoked that you’re reading this interview!!! Welcome!!
How did “Valley” come about?
So Valley is the outcome of two projects we had in high school. Alex and myself were always messing around with recording and production while Karah and Mike had a project doing like Youtube covers and stuff. One day a mutual friend of ours double booked us at a studio and the rest is history as they say! Total Fleetwood Mac moment.
Credit: Becca Hamel
You guys have been making music together for awhile, how do you think you have evolved as musicians since your first single?
We’ve definitely developed more of an understanding on thought process when it comes to creative decisions in the studio and beyond. I think when we were first started out, we knew we had something extremely special and there were things that we naturally all gravitated to, but as we learn and grow about what this band means to us and where we would like to take our career, its been amazing to see how much we’ve developed our sense of constantly pushing forward. Both creatively and as business, we’ve just been learning so much, which has been super rewarding in a way? If that makes sense?
Tell us more about “Maybe”!! What was the reasoning behind wanting to split your full length into 2 eps??
I think we really wanted to just try something new and test the release strategy. We were big fans of the wave releases that John Mayer was doing last year. We found it kept us really invested in the era he created for that record. ‘Maybe’ is also quite conceptual and dense in length, so we thought releasing it in Sides may just give listeners a little more time to digest it all. And at the end of the day, it all still becomes one album on Spotify eventually, which will flow like the full record piece it was intended to be.
Cover art for “Maybe” Side A
What did it feel like to hit your first one million streams??
Absolutely nuts! The whole streaming thing is still crazy to wrap our heads around. You sit in a basement and record all this music, and then you put it up online and expect nothing. So were just so thankful for it. When Swim hit one million, it was crazy to see where people were listening around the world and just automatically feeling more connected to them. We’ve learnt so much about our fans through streaming and have been able to go play those places. It’s completely changed our lives. So thank you!! We honestly still can’t believe it.
Is it important for you guys to have visuals/ aesthetics accompany your music?
That’s been something we have always strived to do from day one. We have always heavily looked up to heavily visual bands and artists like Tame Impala, The 1975 and Bon Iver to name a few. We are all very visual learners and have always attached colour and moving picture to our music. Even when were in the studio, were always talking about visuals and what classic movie scenes are playing out in our heads when writing a song.
As a band with a killer female drummer, do you think it’s important for women to be more involved in every aspect of the music industry?
100%. We work with some incredible women on our team both on the label and studio/live side of things and we have learned so much from them.It’s incredibly important and I think we’ve realized that a lot more as of late. We’ll get positive comments at shows about how inspiring and cool it is to have Karah as our drummer and of course, we couldn’t agree more. I think it might have originally been a bit of an afterthought because it’s all we’ve known, four best friends in a band playing music together. But we realize now it’s more of a responsibility to showcase the coolest member of our band so we can potentially inspire women to get more involved in the music industry!
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Your most streamed song on Spotify is “Swim”. When you released that song in 2016 did you ever expect it to blow up?
Not at all! At that point I don’t think we had any idea of what we were doing. We were still in school and had this collection of songs that we wanted to release into the world. There was no way in planning for it getting received the way it did. I think no matter how long we continue to release music, were always going to be surprised by that stuff. Were just so damn thankful that people out there are connecting with it and giving us an outlet to do this.
What was it like to get to open up for Lennon Stella on her “Love, me” tour??
Alex – Opening for Lennon on this tour was an absolute dream for us obviously! It was an opportunity of a lifetime that we don’t take for granted. This tour opened up so many doors for us and really kind of showed us that anything is possible. Not to mention, Lennon is such an inspiration to us. We learned so much from her and the crew every night.
Courtesy of @thisisvalley on instagram
What’s your dream collaboration, either as a band or individuals?!
Alex & Rob – I think a huge dream for a lot of us/ me specifically would be Chris Martin and Coldplay. They just have this incredible ability to constantly write meaningful songs and stay relevant. We really look up to them! Fleetwood Mac would be cool too? Bon Iver? Also our fellow Toronto friends in Babygirl!! Still waiting on our collab lol
Out of all the places you’ve played at, what city or venue has been your favorite??
Alex – That’s a tough question, we had a lot of favourites honestly! There were shows that were special for different reasons. Toronto night 2 was great because it was a hometown show and we’d kind of shaken off the nerves from the previous night. Then there’s Seattle which we somehow managed to make it to after dealing with a smashed window / van break in. That one stands out for me personally, we really came together as a team in a tough moment and made that show great!
What’s next for valley?
Alex – We’ve got lots of music left to release which is really exciting! There’s so much to listen to now and it feels like the story of “Maybe” is being fully realized. On top of that we’ve got plans to do a bunch of writing this summer with a big fall tour in the works. We can’t wait to bring Maybe to even more people in even more cities!
Check out Valley’s BRAND NEW single “Park bench” here!
Make sure to check out Valley on social media!
Website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook & Spotify
