New name, new sound for The Juliets
The Juliets are a band that’s marching to a new beat. The Toronto-via-St. Catharines indie rock trio is coming off a busy month, one which saw them change their name (they had been known as Cardinals) and release a new four-song EP, “In the Morning.” The band’s lead singer and guitarist Levi Wallace said the name change was partly to separate themselves from similarly named bands and brands, but also to herald a new beginning for the group.
“You get to a certain point where it’s just time to move on. We had grown so much since we were Cardinals, and it was a long journey, we toured the country and it was just time to kind of forget the past and move on with the future,” he said.
Recorded in two studios over a few months this winter, “In The Morning” was released earlier this week and includes leadoff single and video “Here For You (In The Morning),” an upbeat ’80s rocker with a gigantic singalong chorus that’s a long way from the earnest alt-folk of their previous release, the 2012 EP “Farther Than Love.” Wallace confirmed the name change was also a reflection of the band’s evolving sound.
“We sound like a completely different band. From the vocals, I’m taking a different approach to singing the songs, and also we’re inspired by different things. We’re different people than we were when we started Cardinals,” he said.
The band’s songwriting and sound was also affected by the decision of the trio (bassist Myles Rogers and drummer Nathaniel Rustenburg round out the lineup) to move to Toronto from their native St. Catharines, Wallace said.
“Everything you do influences what you create,” he said. “We write based off of experiences and all these new tunes that we wrote were all based off of these new experiences. We’ve changed a lot since we moved to the big city and just the people we’ve encountered and kind of learning to be out on our own has really changed us and we’ve learned a lot, so it’s definitely affected the music as well.”
The band has built a sizeable fan base since forming Cardinals three years ago, and Wallace said fan reaction to the name change has been “really positive” so far. The three actually began playing together six years ago — Wallace and Rogers have been friends “since birth” and the two met up and began playing with Rustenburg in a jazz band in high school, Wallace said.
“We learned so much through that,” he said. “We learned how to play with each other really well and got (into) that kind of mould as well during that time.”
Beyond their current series of Ontario shows, the band has tentative plans to tour the country this summer behind their in- dependently released EP. With the band fast making a name for itself in the music industry, however, it may well be its last indie release for a while.
“I’m hoping there’s big things in the future and I feel it, too,” said Wallace. “It feels like there’s going to be for sure.”