NEW FACES IN CALGARY MUSIC
More names to watch in 2016
It seems rather ridiculous to be talking confidence with Kaely Cormack in reference to her local punk quartet, The Shiverettes.
If you’ve seen the band play live anytime over the past year, you’d agree it’s something they ooze, something you’d assume was just a natural element of the equation that makes them one of the city’s finest fresh, young acts.
But actually, according to the guitarist, it’s more a work in progress than a point of departure.
“Because we haven’t been around that long, it seems like every single show we play brings our confidence up a little bit. Which is great; we don’t have the opposite — we play a show and we just want to give up,” she says. “So everything we do builds us up.” For the last half of 2015, there was an incredible amount of everything via some high- profile and well- deserved opportunities for the foursome, which also features singer Hayley Muir, bassist Cecilia Schlemm and drummer Steve Richter.
Among them were spots on the bills of such things as the ( apparently successful) Rock Against Harper concert, followed soon after by a jam- packed cassette release party at the Palomino and, to start the year off, a spot on the One Yellow Rabbit Calgary Songs Project.
In the latter, they shared the stage and more than held their own with more established scene vets such as Napalmpom, Tom Phillips and Forbidden Dimension.
“Our immediate reaction was, ‘ Oh, cool, we get to play at the Legion — we’ve never played there! What a big stage,’ ” Cormack says.
“And then we started looking at the other bands that were on the bill with us, and it was surreal. It was like, ‘ Why are we included with these bands? This is insane.’ ”
This year, look for the band to hit the studio and release a full- length some time in the coming months, something that shows how far they’ve come and how far they can go.“We’ve done the DIY, punk, basement sounds thing, and it’s cool and we like that,” Cormack says. “But we’re growing as a band, we’re maturing as a band, so to get into a real studio and do a real, full album would be great this year.”
She continues. “I’m excited to see where it’s going to go and I know that we’re all really feeling the push right now, so we want to make this year really good. …
“We feel like we do have people paying attention to us now, so let’s live up to the expectations.”