Enter Shelby & Katie

Shelby : Now I am missing a bunch of drum sticks.

OvaryAction: the drum sticks went with some girl that jumped on stage after you guys got off.
Katie: and she took my sweater.
Ashley: Are you serious?
Shelby : well, the drum sticks are fine, as long as I have some extra.
Katie: Yeah, but the sweater is not mine
OvaryAction: Well, you probably will meet them where you're going anyway
Jenny: Are you going too Shelby?
Shelby : Fuck yeah! I am like completely tired, but I'm gonna go....
Jenny: Can you please make sure Patrick is still giving us a ride home?
Shelby : Well, Patrick is now packing all the stuff
Deborah: What? I like to pack my own stuff!
Ashley: Don't complain Deborah!
Jenny: No, but you don't understand... I am going to go and help him.

Deborah and Jenny leave to pack up their gears. We are left with Ashley who's still wondering whether she will go to a commercial gay bar on a Monday night or not. We talk a little bit about how you feel sooooo welcome in most dyke bars you step into, when the whole crowd look you up and down... but let's get back to the interview.

Ashley: I was so out of it... It was fun to play, as playing is, but I was constantly zoning out and I was always going "Oh my god, what am I gonna do next?". I never have this paranoia when I play, unless I am really tired. It was fun, though.
OvaryAction: The Organ got some recognition pretty fast, did you ever freak out about this?
Ashley: Well, it's strange because you never really see it happening, further away from where you live, you never know what to expect. Then when you come here, people actually come to your show, you start getting offered really good shows, it's pretty flattering. Like we're playing in France, with The Cure and the Raveonettes.... We got pretty excited about that, we never thought we'd go to France to play with bands like that.

OvaryAction: Did you have the S-K, and riot grrrls type of influence as well?
Ashley: Not like the other girls. I really like those bands, but I never want to play poppy kind of punk music or whatever. But yeah, we really like them. We're actually playing with Sleater-kinney next month, so it's pretty exciting. That's something that Shelby & Katie really wanted to do for a long time. they were pretty influence by the whole riot grrrl movement.

OvaryAction: Did you experience this as a kind of revolution in your life? I mean, you start playing in a band and then all in a sudden, you have to go and tour Europe.
Ashley: Oh, yeah, it's a huge life style change. You don't know whether to hold your job at home or just quit.

OvaryAction: What do you do at home, then?
Ashley: I am just a waitress at a bar, but you're constantly wondering what to do, how you're going to pay your rent, if you're going to be on tour next month... and then it gets a little bit easier, but you're still taking a lot of risks, but that's what you have to do when you're doing any sort of art. You just have to take risks and pursue it as far as you can, or else, what's the point? We don't want to be a hobby band. We don't wanna be one of these bands that play local shows and that's it.

OvaryAction: So you actually had precise ideas about this when you started the band?
Ashley: I don't know. it all in a sudden worked and we were writing really good songs and we recorded this e.p. with this independent label called the Global Symphonic and right after that we got some interest that was a little bit bigger and we signed to a couple of other labels and then with all this kind of contracts and stuff, you get to do supports, you're expected to do this and that. We were ready to push all this even a little further, so it was good for us that it happened really quickly, though we were pretty inexperienced, and new musicians. It's been good.

OvaryAction: Do you feel like you were pushed by a supportive community?
Ashley: Yeah, Vancouver is great. We have great people around us. We're on Mint rec in Vancouver and 604 records, and they are great. The music scene in Vancouver is especially good, there are loads of indie shows.

OvaryAction: there's a pretty important Hardcore scene, isn't there? Would you say the indie scene is rather overlooked?
Ashley: A lot of bands that come out of Vancouver are pretty great, like my sister plays in a band called Black Mountain, they are amazing, they're going on tour with Coldplay this month, it's pretty funny. There's a lot of great bands like The New Pornographers...

OvaryAction: And is there a lot of girls active on the scene?
Ashley: yeah, there is a big music scene with girls.

OvaryAction: .... and is it rather egalitarian?
Ashley: I don't know, what do you mean by that?

OvaryAction: Well, do you feel comfortable; sexism is out of the question...
Ashley: oh no... Wherever we go we get like... this is my least favourite thing... every time we're on stage, it's always some dude, drunk in the front row, who would be shouting.... because we look pretty dead on stage, we don't really have much expression, and we always get "smile more" or "you can smile for us" and that's so fucking annoying. I can't stand it! Then it's also guys coming up to you later and being like "I think you can improve yourself by this and this"... they always have some kind of input to give you, or some kind of advice, because they are guys and they can play better than you, and they obviously know more than you, right? They would never do that to a guy. I don't think a guy would come up to another guy and say, you know... they would probably more high five and go "good show, dude!" and never "you should totally like try this, move around more and this and that" It's kind of annoying in that sense, yeah.

Jenny comes back into the room.

OvaryAction: Anything else was missing?
Jenny: We found all our equipment, but no sweater....
Deborah: We had to pack up all our gear so we can play a show tomorrow without anything getting lost.
Jenny: I have like a million little tiny things, wires... and if one disappears....
Deborah: Me too, people would take my picks, and my tuner and shit... that's annoying.
Jenny: My setlist was like on a paper like this thin, with code names for all the songs... whoever took it will probably be like "what the fuck." I could not even read it. I had to memorize it until you started to play Steven Smith.

OvaryAction: So who is Steven Smith anyway?
Katie, from the other room: Morrissey, dude!
Jenny: yes, it's a Morrissey reference.

OvaryAction: well, can you explain a bit more, 'cause obviously even people from Manchester didn't get it...
Ashley: yes, it's just Morrissey, it's nothing, you know.
Jenny: like Steven is Morrisey's first name, and then Smith, as in The Smiths... A long time ago, Katie came up with it.

OvaryAction: we actually googled it, trying to see if it was some kind of Canadian serial killer, or something, considering the lyrics.... we found it was the name of an astronaut....
Jenny: it used to be a Full Sketch song actually and we adapted it. It used to be without guitar part, and then there was a guitar part ... no lyrics... we changed it a lot, but anyway, after one of our really early shows, this guy came up to us and asked "is Steven Smith a Morrissey reference?" and we were "damn, we thought it was so cryptic...nobody would ever get in"

OvaryAction: is it usually the way you write song, you put lyrics on top of instrumental parts when they are finished?
Ashley: Yes, that's usually how it goes. We all write the song, figuring out every part, Katie would be there, humming or whatever some kind of melody she wants to do, then we write the lyrics over. It really works for us.

OvaryAction: Does Katie play any instrument?
Jenny: She plays every instrument but not any in the band.
Ashley: She'll be a big part in the writing, she sits down and write with us.
Jenny: She'll have the melody in her head
Ashley: She doesn't play and sing at the same time.
OvaryAction: ok, thank you for your time.

Discography http://www.theorgan.ca/news.php

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