This place is a factory

Indicator Indicator’s music machine runs on family

Joey Senft
Joey Senft

When someone says family band, the mind immediately jumps to something of the Partridge persuasion, the Carpenters, or Dr. Fünke’s 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band Solution. It’s no gimmick, but rather a way of life with local musician Sandy Taronno.

When I sit down to speak with Taronno, 31, over dinner, we’re joined by his brother Jamie, 27, wife Gillian Oswald, 29, and Sandy & Gill’s eight-month-old son, just a few days before his band heads out for three weeks on its first American tour. From its inception, the project has involved everyone at the table. Gillian provides the visual (logo, album art), while Jamie is a part-time band member who runs Sandy’s “vanity label”, Julius Records.

“Musically I’d be fine with collaborating with anyone,” Sandy says. “But when it comes down to it, I want it to be in house”

There have been many ups and downs in this family’s musical story. For about a decade, Sandy and his cousin, drummer David Pankratz, played in Quinzy. After recording a 2006 LP with constant collaborator Brian James on guitar, the band shifted to a four piece, adding Jamie, as well as David’s brother, Jason. This line-up released five EPs and held a lot of Christmas concerts called Quinzmas, playing the last of them at the Burton Cummings Theatre in December of 2012. Before we get to the story of Indicator, it’s important to note that Quinzy’s book still has a few dog eared pages left to be read.

“It’s not like we sat down and said well, that’s it,” Jamie says.

“We’re still calling it a hiatus because we won’t break up,” Sandy adds. “We didn’t have any plans, we’re not gonna do anything for the next little while. I’m not letting the band break up because we’re the best and these are my best friends.”

Over the years, the brothers Taronno have dabbled in a side project with longtime friend, musician JP Hoe. The group, named Julius after Jamie’s middle name, would get together every April to write/record but has yet to release anything. (“It’s exquisite, but it’s not quite ready for human consumption just yet,” Sandy notes.)

“I think that there’s something to be said for the experience we had with Quinzy,” Jamie says. “Whether or not we’re starting an actual record label and whether or not anyone even knows what a record label does anymore, because it’s nothing - it’s not anything - we might as well lend some credibility to some acts that we enjoy and to help Sandy release his album.”

“I think I pretty much called up Jamie and told him that he was gonna be the head of a vanity label that’s releasing my first EP,” Sandy deadpans. “I do like the idea of collectives, I do wanna keep working with my brother and I like the name Julius.”

Though the only other band on the roster is the eight-piece Mariachi Ghost (“Conceptually, I do nothing to help them, but they’re very marketable,” Jamie says) it is important for artists to have a buffer between them and the venue, especially when booking tours.

“We live in a society where the hustlers get so much that I think people become very immune to people promoting their own goods,” Sandy says. “With Indicator, even though I like the idea of a collective and I bring people in to record and Jamie helped arrange songs and Matthew (Harder, guitar) and Kevin (Kornelsen, drummer) were on this last recording, it is very much a sole proprietorship. It’s not a solo project because I don’t want to put my own, stupid name on it, but it’s mine.”

Indicator Indicator’s self-titled debut EP came out last year, hosting six home recorded tracks of pop perfection that were touched up by John Paul Peters (Royal Canoe) at Private Ear Recordings. The disc was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award for Best Pop Record, right up against Sandy’s BFF JP Hoe. The group, currently fleshed out by Harder (of House of Doc) and Kornelsen (who Sandy played with in Hot Live Guys), will release its most recent recording - a three song EP called “Swarm/Love is Not Enough” (“Coward” is considered a bonus track).

Though Sandy produced the sessions, the musician hints that it was a little hard to let his friends into his home studio, but essential.

“I’d produce ‘em, tell ‘em what I thought, but there was some room for improvisation,” he says. “Jamie did some beautiful whirly on ‘Love is Not Enough’ and helped with the arrangements on ‘Swarm’. Even though it’s all synth drums, I did have Kevin come down and play a synthetic drum kit, just to get that human touch. I didn’t want it totally quantized. You can hear it - I think it’s got a little bit more soul. Matthew’s singing back-ups and playing guitar. It’s a little more fleshed out than the EP. Things can get weird if it’s just you in a room for months at a time. Ask Phil Collins.”

The outcome is more pop pop perfection, but it wasn’t all immediate. Even though home recording is often quick and dirty, the gestation period of a good song can sometimes take close to a year.

“I do a lot of cannibalism in my writing,” Sandy says. “’Swarm’ is a tune that I had the chorus around for a while on a song called ‘All That It Takes Is One’, which was a relationship song I didn’t really care for. Some songs come in five minutes, this was one of those songs that took chipping away at over the course of ten months.”

Visually, Indicator Indicator is represented by the work of Sandy’s wife, Gill. A musician in her own right (she spent much of the 2000s playing guitar with The Quiffs), there wasn’t ever really a conversation that she would take the reins of the project’s aesthetic component.

“I was kind of looking for something to do, to be honest,” she says. “I was pregnant at the time and not working. It was a good little project to do, and I’m glad I got to do it because I’m proud of the work.”

A graduate of the University of Winnipeg’s interior design program, Gillian took an all or nothing approach to her involvement in the look of the EPs.

“She ended up being an executive producer to it all,” Sandy says. “Visually, I’m not allowed to do anything unless she says it’s okay. That’s a fact.”

Things can get weird if it’s just you in a room for months at a time. Ask Phil Collins.

Sandy Taronno, Indicator Indicator

“You gave your two cents,” she adds. “At first you were like ‘does it have to be pink and blue?’ Of course it does! It has to be bright. If you want me to do it, that’s what I think.”

Having been together for 12 years, the couple has collaborated, played shows and produced a charming young offspring, but for many people, a family means settling down and giving up on the dream. 

“Marriage literally changes nothing,” Sandy says. “Kids do change things.”

“I would say that I’m a little less excited about this whole adventure than I used to be,” Gillian adds. “Because now I’m like, you’re gonna be away for how long? Are you serious? Come on. You want to be away? You’re gonna leave me alone with this little awesome guy?”

“My reaction to that same event is that I want to do right by him,” Sandy offers. “I want him to be proud of who his dad was. It’s made me work harder than I’ve ever thought possible. There’s that tension there. Suddenly I’m away from the baby that is catalyzing this in the first place. I don’t think it’s a new story.”

Gillian agrees. “It’s pushed you a lot harder than ever before and made me pull back from it more than I would have thought.”

Even though they have different ideas, just like every great couple, the give and take balances things out. Even though Taronno has a little Wayne Coyne in him (there are three excellent, self-made music videos for songs from the first EP that are worthy of a YouTube search) he is a realist.

“We’re gone for three weeks this time, I don’t anticipate being gone this long again,” he says of the US tour. “Unfortunately I’m not 21 anymore. We didn’t do that kind of touring when we had the time.”

The tour, which culminates with a hometown EP release gig with Salinas and Attica Riots on November 10 a the Park Theatre, is being filmed for a potential video release.

“I’m not gonna release it as a DVD or anything like that,” Sandy says. “I want some really solid live footage to draw on. It was gonna be just a single video that we just shot on stage, but then the timing worked out that we needed to have a big show to release the EP. Jorge Requena from Mariachi Ghost is leading the filming on it. It’ll also be nice because we’ll have just come off tour, so the set should be as tight as it will have been, ever.”

Published in Volume 68, Number 10 of The Uniter (November 6, 2013)

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