ŽUTO

To start, I would love a brief history of the band.

UNA: I guess my take on the history of the band — or how it started — was kind of organic with no expectations. It was like this thing where it started out with me writing songs with our former guitarist, which eventually turned into, “We need a bassist or drummer” to kind of expand on these ideas so we asked Austin [drummer] and Jeffrey [bassist] respectively if they wanted to play. And so… that is where we started writing. We were jamming in our jam space in Ham- ilton and we sort of just started writing music. Again, with no real expectation on where it would go and ended up playing our first show in March 2020 just before the pandemic hit. And when that hit, things just went kind of dormant. There was really nothing we could do. We had friends saying, “Žuto will never play a show again!” and things like that. So it sort of felt like it lost traction.

But then, right around 2021, I threw a Halloween house show and decided it would be cool to resurrect Žuto and try to release this EP of songs we had written. From there, we asked Ben [guitarist] if he would play the show with us and he just fit really well and joined the band permanently. Since then, it’s just… been history.

Were you all friends before this? Were you all just jamming and vibing? Or did this group come to be in another fashion?

AUSTIN: I think so, yeah. We were friends. And when Una initially asked me to join the band, it was one of those things where it was like, “What do you want it to sound like?” and there was a lot of overlap in the bands…we both liked and the music we wanted to kind of make together. Which is a part of why, I think, it works so well. But before that, yeah, we were just buds hanging out.

UNA: I think having been in musical projects in the past, where it was fun but it didn’t lead to a lot of shows, sort of felt like this… instant click of chemistry with the bunch of us and that was a really cool feeling. It was something I had never really felt before. It sort of felt effortless, which was really cool.

How did you find your sound?

UNA: It’s really weird to think about because I don’t think we had any sort of idea for the sound in mind. It’s what Austin said: we had these overlapping influences. I remember wanting to write something that just didn’t feel derivative and tired, but at the same time that’s what everybody wants. So, I can’t say I’m unique in that desire… but I do remember each one of us having a really different song writing process and the way that those processes melded together kind of felt like we were in a room solving a rubix cube together. A thing I’ll say a lot at practice is, “Austin, make the drums weirder.” And I know that I write riffs in a really weird, dumb and chaotic way that challenges him to write drums in a nutty way. And then that makes Jeffrey write the basslines and so on and so forth.

Does the creative process start with a specific person every time or is it different? Are you creating it harmoniously and then saying, “Okay, I want that to be weirder!”? How does that process usually work?

UNA: It’s different every time. I would say, from my perspective, sometimes it’s one person writing a riff… For example, on our latest single “Sluice,” I wrote this chord progression that I sent to the group chat and then Ben took it and was like, “this is so… I don’t know how to write a riff around this but I’m going to stretch my brain around it and do my best.” So he did and it ended up making this really weird-sounding lead part. Then we brought that to the bigger practice where Austin wrote the drums and then we added this weird bridge at the end that came out of jamming together.

But then for other songs… we’ll just go into practice and be there for three-hours playing fuck all. Then at 90-minutes something cool happens and we just feed off of that and each other’s excitement. Someone will be like, “Put it in time” and then that’ll make it more exciting.

AUSTIN: I definitely think the best, most fun songs we have are the ones where we’ve kind of built on stuff.

Usually Una or Ben will come in and — I still don’t really know how Una counts music, which is nice because it challenges you creatively to say “How are we all going to play this together?” It’s kind of a slow process, I think for the most part.

What is ‘slow’? How are you measuring that?

AUSTIN: I don’t know. It’s not really any set time, but a lot of it is just based on no rush... We can play and jam it out for a whole practice and then say, “Maybe next time I’m going to come with something additional.” Sometimes we just need to sit on it for a little bit, so it’ll take a couple times until it feels right.

How do each of you define creativity?

UNA: I don’t know if this is just some type of weird word association, but the first thing that comes to my mind is impulse… It’s the corniest shit in the world, but I feel like I just have an impulse and drive that feels like a bodily function sometimes. To be like, I need to make something! or I need to climb to the top of my Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and like, hit the self-actualization thing so I can feel good. I think so much of creativity, for me, is just giving in to that impulse and letting it guide me. And sometimes I make stupid stuff, and sometimes I make cool stuff, but almost every single time it’s led to making new friends and taken me further into the tunnels of cool scenes. So I think at the end of the day it really just comes down to… letting the spark in the brain have some more oxygen.

AUSTIN: Ditto. Creativity and inspiration are pretty tied for me. Creating stuff or listening to stuff and then trying to — I don’t know — not inspire people but, thinking that something new could be created because of something you made or being inspired to make something because you’ve listened to something cool.

Outside of your music, how do you try to stay creative? Do you work in any other mediums?

UNA: I’m an animator by trade and so I feel like that’s a really big, creatively fulfilling thing. The 9-to-5 aspect isn’t it, but… aside from that the creative potential is huge. I also like to publish zines. I’m working on a film right now so I feel like I really get a lot of my creative juices flowing out of that. And honestly, I feel like it informs the music too. Like, the main hobbies inform the side hobbies and vice-versa.

AUSTIN: I’m in school right now for film. That works the muscle a little bit differently. It’s nice to be kind of stuck in a thing for so long and then come to band rehearsal and switch over. Then you approach things differently and that’s where the cool stuff comes out.

What drives your creativity?

UNA: I think, for me, it’s the idea. I actually got this because one time I was lamenting in my car while driving Austin home, saying, “I hate making music right now” or this or that. He just reminded me that the point of it is for it to be fun. And of course, that comes with the disclaimer that not everybody has that privilege. Some people are doing creative stuff for their career and it can’t always be fun. But that has always stuck with me. If it’s not feeling fun, it’s fine to take a step back and not feel guilty about that. Loosen yourself from the timelines that you have given yourself. I also find that when I do that, creativity always automatically flows a little more freely. I’m no stranger to burn out so I’m aware of that — kind of how gym bros always talk about that rest period — it’s just as important as the working out period. I feel like that’s genuinely true for art as well. It’s the not-doing that also informs the doing.

Are there any specific influences that inspire your art?

UNA: I’m a really big fan of a lot of silly ‘90s bands. I really like Pavement. I really like this band called Polvo. We’re big fans, I think at least a few of us are, of this band called Spirit of the Beehive who’s like a more contemporary, kind of noisy psychedelic band. I think they were a really big influence in terms of feeling like I want to make something that sounds like this. There have been a lot of bands that have been really huge for that. The Toronto band, Slurry — sometimes I get embarrassed to admit how much I like a local band because it kind of feels like I’m stalking them or something — but I really did love them. It kind of woke me up to how cool local music could be. It didn’t just have to be, I’m going to this show to see this band. It was, I know these people and I’m kind of friends with these people. They inspire me and they’re not just some random band. I can talk to them about their process.

AUSTIN: Yeah, like Black Baron and… Love Serum and The Drips are a couple Hamilton bands that were definitely big influences, I think, for all of us. For me for sure. Also, proggy stuff. But I think it’s nice to try and challenge yourself to listen to music you normally wouldn’t, especially when you’re trying to be creative. It’s like listening to the drums in a prog song from the ‘70s: like, what are they doing and why did they make those decisions? It just helps you think in a different way.

UNA: We’re really big Ween fans.

AUSTIN: Love the Ween.

UNA: Love the Ween!

Any final words on creativity and the passion behind being a creative?

AUSTIN: It’s different for everyone. There’s no one right way to do something when you’re trying to do something creative. Everyone’s process is different and you just have to embrace whatever feels good. For us, it’s definitely a low-pressure kind of thing where we thrive but it could be different for others so — whatever works.

UNA: I would agree with that and also that it’s not a thing that doesn’t take hard work. It definitely takes a lot of effort — especially playing shows. It’s a lot of logistics and physical labour and, you know, practicing. But I will say, sometimes when you stop trying to make it work in this way you’re imagining it to, it’ll come to you sooner. I know that for a long time I felt like I didn’t know how to interact with music. Music was the first thing I loved but I found my way in visual arts sooner than I did in music. I never even really thought I’d be in a band. But I think it’s when I just gave up the dream and I was like, “ah, whatever! We’ll see what happens!” that it just… it happened. It felt easier to be creative once it felt like I got surprised by the circumstances of life and that’s been kind of fun. So, sometimes just dropping the resistance, I think, and letting things happen organically. And making friends.

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SEEING THINGS DIFFERENTLY AND DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY. ”