‘We wanted to satisfy our desire for serious shoegazey guitar racket’ — Heat Ray aren’t satisfied unless your ears are bleeding

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The Summerlad with Gunther & Heat Ray
Broken City
Thursday, January 8 - Thursday, January 8

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“I’ve always been about creating beautiful noise,” Heat Ray guitarist Aaron Smelski says. “Eventually, it gets to a point where noise turns into ambience. I love how that kind of music can be utterly beautiful and yet, at the same time, brutal like a punch to the gut.”

Bringing the experience he’s gained from a decade with local favourites Hot Little Rocket, Smelski hopes to revive the noisy sub-genre of shoegaze with his new band, Heat Ray. Named for its proponents’ tendency to stare at their footwear rather than the audience when performing, this U.K.-spawned genre captivates audiences with a dreamy, effects-saturated wall of sound presented in a reserved and introspective manner. Smelski, though, is focusing less on reservation, and more on the noise.

“Heat Ray’s style is sonically in-your-face music,” he says. “The intensity is sort of like a numbing bliss. I think a lot of people consider shoegaze to be all low volume stuff with lots of effects thrown in. I’ve always thought there was something missing in that equation: volume. That’s where we cross over into emo territory, instead of trying to convey emotion lyrically, we just turn everything up and let the volume transpire.”

April of 2007 found Smelski seeking a vocalist with strong enough chops to match Heat Ray’s overpowering electronic fortitude. Along with fellow guitarist and vocalist Matt Pahl, drummer Jon Pynn and bassist Joel Tobman, the seasoned guitarist decided that singer Sheila Mann was the right woman for the job. Fashioning each song’s lyrical underpinnings with her own unique artistic flare, Mann’s dulcet tones and feminine wiles are a vital part of Heat Ray’s dashingly deafening ensemble.

“It’s a lot louder,” says Mann of their larger-than-your-average-garage-band sound. “It’s about guitars first and foremost. Aaron and I have been friends since high school. We were in a band called Lotus Galaxy together and wanted to satisfy our desire for some serious shoegazey guitar racket — and by racket, I mean ear-splitting wall-of-guitars noise. I love having my voice sort of float on a sea of fuzz and distortion. Like a warm blanket of roaring guitar — and I can just sing to my heart’s content. We’ve set out to be the antitheses of a lot of what’s currently popular, and to hopefully inspire a revival of interest in fuzz pedals.”

Once they had tested the waters with a promising three-track demo EP, Heat Ray made a huge splash at last year’s Sled Island Music Festival, charming audiences with their onstage version of a controlled nuclear reaction.

“Sled was great,” Smelski says. “They did a good job of matching local talent with out of town bands. We performed at the Legion downtown with the Spiral Stairs. We’d only played a handful of shows at the time and it was the first time I felt that everything gelled for us. We’re still getting to know one another musically; it’s about knowing when and where to rein back on the instruments to let Sheila’s vocals come through. She’s always been good at being able to take it louder. We always had people complain about volume when we played, but when we turn down they’re disappointed, like ‘What happened?’ That’s our sound — we’re a loud band.”

Continuing to hone their lush pop-rock creations, the intrepid ensemble is poised to enter the studio early in 2009 to record their debut, thanks to the relationships they have forged with other members of Calgary’s musical community. Be sure to pack your earplugs when they warm up the stage at The Summerlad’s “City of Noise” video release show at Broken City on Thursday, January 8.

“We’re going to do some recording with Arran Fisher (of The Summerlad) in the new yearn and so I’m excited about that,” Mann says. “When we really get our shit together, I’m convinced the result will be something really great. We’re on our way.”