Two Bad Bricks Are Your Newest Indie Darlings

Today I am speaking with Kim Lachance of the duo Two Bad Bricks (composed of Kim Lachance and Scott Russell). First and foremost, I need to say how obsessed I am with your single, DIVINE. Divine is stripped down folk-pop perfection. Your vocals are somehow soft yet raw, and the acoustic guitar blends perfectly with the simple rhythmic drumming. I'm hooked. How would you describe your latest EP to our readers?

Thanks, I'm happy to hear that! Divine seems to be a favourite for a lot of people, it was our first release on the album as well and it seems to have made the biggest splash so far. I would describe the album to be acoustic-alternative, groove rock. It's a raw sounding album because both Scott and I dislike overproducing music, we want to keep a human element to everything we do. The main percussion track of Divine is me just hitting my guitar body and tapping my four fingers over the fretboard. In fact, I would say the whole album is pretty raw; 7 out of 8 tracks were recorded DIY style in our own apartments, in untreated rooms.

Now, you're both from Montreal, right? But you recorded your half of the album while you were in Australia? What is the story there?

Scott is a native Montrealer, and I'm originally from northern Ontario [but] moved [to Montreal] 10 years ago. I took a semi-sabbatical year from September 2022 to the end of July 2023 to travel to Australia and focus on my hobbies and have a year of fun. One of my goals was to write an album and get back on stage and play shows, and so I made that a big focus of my time there. I would write songs, send over the tracks to Scott, which he would then finish back in Montreal. It was like having a long-distance creative relationship haha. But it really worked, we were really productive and I started pushing out singles as soon as I could.

Haus of Fog is against putting people into boxes, however… I have never met a boring Australian. Whether it's cliff jumping from precarious locations or putting out incredibly creative, borderline surrealist films, Australians have a fearlessness about them that I admire. Likewise, every artist that I have ever met from Quebec is always so unique and unapologetic in their creativity. I guess my question is: why are artists from Quebec so cool? Is it the language? The geographical location? The cigarettes?

I think Quebecois artists are cool too, and I think one of the reasons is simply that it's in the culture to do things their way. I definitely think the language has something to do with it, as French speakers in a mainly anglophone country, or as English speakers in a francophone province, there's a feeling of being different in both cases which holds a lot of creative power. It fuels a desire to express yourself. I also think that Montreal is so unique because it is a melting pot of multiple cultures and walks of life, we can have so many different types of conversations in this city which makes it a rich source of inspiration.

How did your time in Australia influence your style?

Oh man, I think Australia has helped shape me as a person big time. I first spent a year there in 2011- 2012 and felt free to be myself, I met people from all over the world and opened up to a whole bunch of new experiences after growing up in a secluded town. Returning there last year had the same effect on me, I just felt a little lighter. Australians are very social, love to drink beer, love the beach and love to swear, like me haha! I just feel like the culture allowed me to be myself and was unbothered by what people thought of me or the music I was making. It was liberating, and it reflected on my music. I encourage anyone who's going through a funk in their life to just take off for a year somewhere and see what happens.

Your vocals in “I'm Nobody” have a slightly haunting vibe, and remind me of the Mamas and the Papas. Was Two Bad Bricks (intentionally, or otherwise) influenced by any other bands from the 60s or 70s?

Interesting you think that, I never would have made the connection! I love hearing people's take on the vibe of our songs. My biggest influences are actually grunge, alt rock and stoner rock bands: Alice In Chains, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Radiohead, Pixies, Neutral Milk Hotel, Paramore.

Scott is influenced by trip hop, ninja tune, a bit of everything. Bands like Nine Inch Nails, Portishead, Massive Attack, Radiohead as well. He also studied traditional turkish drumming in Turkey about 15 years ago, so his influences are really spread out. I'd say we're mainly influenced by the sound of the 90s.

Do you think you are more influenced by the physical place or the era that you live in?

I think probably the era. Most of my songwriting has nothing to do with my own experiences, it's mainly about a feeling I get from a conversion, a story, a series, empathy I feel towards someone's current life situation. I've written songs about the state of our culture today, with most of us glued to our phones all day and slowly getting more and more okay with technology taking over our lives (which generally makes me uncomfortable).

As a musician, which social media platforms have been the most useful to reaching your audience?

Hands down YouTube has been my favorite platform. I started posting covers on my channel in 2021 and have slowly gained a small but engaged fanbase there that I've found really difficult to replicate on any other platform. The thing with YouTube is that it takes more effort to create a full video, but the type of person that will sit down and consume your content for more than 3 or 4 minutes is the kind of fan you want. I've made all sorts of videos ranging from general think pieces, song covers, album reviews, gear reviews. It's a good way to get people through the door and listen to my music if they like whatever else I'm doing.

What are your thoughts on people that create “content” to appease the YouTube algorithm, rather than creating for the sake of creating?

I've tried it and it did not work. I feel like if I do something to try to catch onto a trend, it's usually a giant flop because my heart's not in it. The one place I have seen success in this were album reviews. I did a lot of them when a bunch of great albums came out last year. In just a few months, Paramore, PVRIS, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released albums! I was excited for all of these and genuinely wanted to do a live reaction/review. This is where I saw some of the biggest growth on my channel because I was piggy backing off of something current or “trending,” but I was truly having fun. I gained a lot of new listeners for Two Bad Bricks during this time, the album reviews were like a gateway for people to listen to my own music.

You’re probably too young, but… do you remember Nexopia? (Small town Canadian teens writing sad poetry on Nexopia, following indie bands on MySpace, and dreaming about Warped Tour was such a ~*~vibe~*~…

I missed the boat for Nexopia, but I checked it out on the Way Back Machine, it looks like a pre-reddit for artsy teenagers haha! (Editors note: That is exactly what it was, and it was as cringey as you are imagining.)

Are there any musicians that you would like to give a shout out to?

Yes! My friends Keaper in Melbourne just released an album. The lead vocalist Ameya is featured on our single Home (coming out on Spotify on April 3rd) and she took part in directing and editing our music video for Divine. They're always doing cool stuff.

Where can people support you online?

I'd mainly like to direct people to our Instagram account @twobadbricks, our latest music videol and Spotify.