Purveyors of: Loud punk/noise rock
File Next To: Drive Like Jehu, Nation of Ulysses
Playing: night four of Wavelength FOURTEEN, Sunday February 16 @ The Garrison (1197 Dundas St. W.)

Toronto’s Greys haven’t taken much time off since forming just over three years ago. Since then, they have released two EPs and have a full length on the way. They’ve also toured throughout Canada and the United States, and co-curated and performed on a Nirvana cover album. Andy Dewar connected with guitarist/vocalist Shehzaad Jiwani to find out what their hopes and plans are for 2014.

In the fall you helped curate Milkin’ It, a cover album of Nirvana’s In Utero along with The Wooden Sky, for Hand Drawn Dracula. What was it like working on that record?

The comp was a lot of fun to do. We were all pretty thrilled and a little bit surprised at how easily it all came together. Getting ONE band to do something is often kind of a task, let alone sixteen. It was an idea that came about when I was living with Simon and Andrew from Wooden Sky, and we just kept saying how great it would be if it happened, so we just decided to ask around and see who would be interested. James from Hand Drawn was on board immediately, so we came up with a wish list of bands, and we got just about everybody we could have wanted to be a part of it. I think Teenanger was the only band I had to keep harassing about it, and only because I like harassing Jon in general. It's a testament to the work ethic Toronto bands have, to get covers together in less than two months, AND have them all totally rule in their own way. I am so glad that it actually exists, both as a tribute to one of the greatest records of all time, and, more importantly, as a pretty telling document of how vibrant Toronto's music scene is right now. It was a total labour of love on everyone's part, and I'm still pretty touched that all the bands were so ready and willing to contribute. There's not a single bad track on there, in my opinion. Except ours, obviously.

Your last EP Drift has been out for almost a year now. When can we expect a follow-up?

It's done! We recorded it in November with Josh from Beliefs at his studio, and our friend Mike Rocha, both of whom have worked on all our other stuff in some capacity. It should be out in the spring some time, we hope.

Speaking of the new record, you mentioned elsewhere that it would not be heavier than Drift. Is it safe to say then that you’ve now found your comfortable place, and that you’re now just dancing between the sounds on Drift and your earlier stuff?

I don't know if it's necessarily like Drift or our older stuff, it's kind of its own thing. It's a logical progression, I think. It's still loud and abrasive, but there's more to it. There's a lot more dissonance but also a lot more melody. It's the sound we've always been working towards. We recorded three EPs in less than two years, and it's been more than a year since we recorded the last one, so naturally there's going to be a bit of a shift. We had time to flesh out the songs and I think that shows. It's catchy but it's still like, totally "punk" or whatever.

With two shows announced already in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, as well as the Wavelength Festival, are we going to see a lot more of Greys touring around North America in 2014?

Yeah. Ideally we'll just be gone forever once the record comes out, to the delight of our friends and loved ones. We have a hard time sitting still, so if we aren't recording, we kind of need to be on the road, or else we'd probably just cease to exist. Which would also delight our friends and loved ones.

Is there one place that you haven’t played that you’d love to play?

We all really want to go overseas soon, and ideally, that'll happen before the end of the year. We all want to play in Japan, specifically. But I mean, it's cool that we get to go anywhere, ever. I'm still happy to be playing in St. Catharines. Just kidding. No one is happy to be playing in St. Catharines.

Greys plays night four of Wavelength
FOURTEEN, Sunday February 16 @ The Garrison (1197 Dundas St. W.).