On January 10, high-energy local synth-pop act roboteyes put out their newest release True Love In Modern Stereo at the Gordon Best Theatre with Toronto band The Nursery.
“It was great to see a lot of dancing at the show, it was nice to see a lot of people on the floor, givin’ it dancing,” says vocalist Kate LeDeuce.
That’s been the story since 2011 when Roboteyes emerged and started getting audiences out onto the floor, with an array of catchy, dance-driven songs.
LeDeuce and Ryan Ford (guitars) started writing in the spring of 2011, says LeDeuce. “We wrote the first EP and my brother Matt put all the keyboards on it. We just asked him to be in the band and that was that.” Adds Ford, “We were originally just a guitar and vocals song-writing project, we were just writing for no reason.
The band has been playing frequently around Peterborough and Toronto.
Having already graced the stages of The Hootenany On Hunter, the band is hoping that the strength of their new record will get them on to more festivals.
“The first EP is little narrow in focus, where this new record feels a little broader,” says LeDeuce.
The band is also looking to start touring more in the spring.
As Ford explains, “We wanted to immerse ourselves in the local scene before we started branching out.”
Describing the new EP, LeDeuce says “The first EP was really more sad and heartbroken but with happy tones. This record is more confident. It has more of my personality in it, in that it’s a little cocky because I’m a little cocky sometimes, even to a fault.”
The band was able to make the record thanks to some funding in part from the organization FACTOR (The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent On Recordings- a privately funded organization that helps artists find funding for recordings), which allowed them to ‘upgrade’ their production, and paid for a down payment on the studio.
This freed up their own money to get a producer and sound engineer, giving them the tools to get their sound right.
“The sound is just so much better than the first one,” says Ford, “we really stretched whatever money we could get in making this.”
Wasting neither a minute nor a dime, the whole EP was recorded in three days.
When around Peterborough, they tend to play at the Garnet and the Red Dog. Says LeDeuce, “Usually when we’re playing at home we put on our shows ourselves, but the Red Dog has been really cool about putting us on some shows with really cool, bigger bands like July Talk and The Beaches. We’ve really taken those opportunities to get to know a lot of really cool musicians.”
While the band has a busy year ahead, planning what LeDeuce calls “hopefully a crap-ton of touring”, you may have to wait until April to see them around Peterborough again.
Says Ford, “We’re rebuilding our set and reworking a lot of our softer stuff from our old EP; making it punchier to make the old stuff and the new stuff more cohesive on stage.”
Adds LeDeuce, “We’re taking the time to promote the new album, get it out to the right places and promote the tour,” continuing, “We’re going to other cities and promoting the band, what we’re doing and hopefully releasing some more supplemental stuff later this year, and of course working our dayjobs so that we can pay off the cost of the last record.”
The band’s work is starting to pay off beyond the local scene as well, with the Junos Twitter account tweeting out the band’s track Call My Name.
“We’ve had a really good response so far,” says Le Deuce, “and I think we’re building a local and regional following, which is a really difficult thing to do. It’s one thing to have friends, it’s another thing to be able to get them to come out and pay to see your show.”