Picastro's one of those bands that you don't hear too much about, except for how good other people say they are. Over the years, they've quietly had lineup changes, released two records (most recently Metal Cares on Polyvinyl) and played shows all over the place. The band combines the talents of Evan Clarke (drums), Zak Hanna (guitar), Alex McLeod (strings) and Liz Hysen (guitar + vocals). Shaunna Bednarek met up with frontwoman Liz in honour of Picastro's first Wavelength in years.

YOU GUYS WERE JUST IN EUROPE. WHAT ARE THE SHOWS IN EUROPE LIKE?
People are, for the most part, more enthusiastic. They buy more records. I think there's a certain novelty in a band being from North America, too. At the same time, it sorta feels like in North America it's a little bit harder, but for a very good reason. There's bands that tour in Europe that you've never heard of here but they can play, like, 40 shows in Germany. It's weird. It's a good thing to do.

YOU'VE HAD ALL SORTS OF LINEUP CHANGES, TOO. WHO HAS REMAINED CONSISTENT?
(Evan) the drummer; he's been in the band the longest. Zak's been in the band for a pretty long time too, almost as long as Evan, so they've been pretty constant. String players, it's pretty hard. It's harder when you're a classical musician. I think it's expected, most bands have changes. Our new string player (Alex) is a friend of Owen (Pallett)'s and he's going to school in Germany in September. Every time someone new comes in, there's usually a buffer period. It takes about a year to settle in and you know if it's going to work out or not.

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE PLAYING WAVELENGTH AGAIN AFTER ALL THIS TIME?
It's different. When I started going, it was a certain crowd of people that used to go, and it seems like over the years there's a new generation and crowd of people, which is cool. It's just interesting if you've been around a while to see that change happen, and there's probably people that haven't heard of us. There's definitely stratas of generations of bands in Toronto and I remember some from, like, 10 years ago, and I don't know how many people remember them.

HOW DID YOU END UP SWITCHING TO POLYVINYL?
The one guy that worked there on a part-time basis contacted me and he liked the last record we did, and I started sending him new stuff over the years. It sort of just came up by accident that they were looking for new bands and then they just asked for a record. We were going to do a split 7" at first, and they asked for more stuff and I sent them more and they ended up liking the whole record. I didn't consciously seek them out, it was really nice how it happened; they were fans.

WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING WITH PICASTRO?
We have a song that's out right now on The Wire, a British magazine. They're pretty tame as far a music magazines go. They're actually sensible. They put out a comp about twice a year and our song is on it this month. I'm a big fan of that magazine, so that's nice. We're playing some scattered shows in the US over the summer. We're playing CMJ in September. And then we'll just keep playing shows in North America and again in Europe because the record's going to be coming out there in September. I've pretty much decided that Picastro should never put out records in the summer because it doesn't make much sense.

By Shaunna Bednarek