Pony Up, from left: Sarah, Laura, Lindsay, Lisa, Ominous Grey Blob
This past Friday, dial613 got the chance to have a chat around the picnic table with Montreal's Pony Up after their set at the Black Sheep Inn.
Through a game of Pony Up/Pony Down (self-explanatory), the band communicated their unmistaken love for romantic comedies starring Hugh Grant, male groupies, turning right at red lights, and even separatists.
They also gave a big ol' Pony Down to male band members, crushing all of dial613's future hopes and dreams in just three syllables.
Read on to find out which celebrities best represent Pony Up's most recent album, what Sarah does on Thursdays and Fridays, the would-be consequences if Laura suffered from incontinence, Lisa's Ottawa connection, and what interview question brought on a fit of rage from one side of the picnic table.
dial613 interviews Pony Up: "We're like the Crips and the Bloods."
->What is Pony Up listening to these days? What was playing on the van ride up?
Lisa: We listened to the Grateful Dead, Blue Rodeo... oh why am I saying that!? We listened to the radio. We were seeking... it's really dead between Montreal and Ottawa. There were a couple good songs, weren't there? There was a bad Phil Collins< song, and I like Phil Collins actually, I'm a fan. But it was way too sappy.
Laura: Maybe it was from like the Lion King (Tarzan). That's what it sounded like.
Lisa: In our houses we're listening to Okkervil River and Jens Lekman. And The Supremes, too.
dial613: What's your favourite Jens Lekman song?
Pony Up: Pocketful Of Money, that's the best one.
dial613: I disagree.
Sarah: You can't disagree with what our favourite song is!
dial613: Pfft, you guys don't know what you like.
Pony Up: Pfft.
->You've taken the exclamation point off the end of your name. Does that mean I should be less excited when I tell my friends about you?
Lisa: Best question ever, and I want to write it down...
Laura: No, that does not mean you should be less excited!
Lisa: I think we tried to reflect the mood of the album (Make Love To The Judges With Your Eyes) a little bit and just be more honest about it, it's not as, like, "party" as the first one, it's more introspective.
Laura: It's still an order, it's still a statement; but you could imagine there's a period at the end of it instead of an exclamation mark.
dial613: Oooh, you just answered my follow-up question.
Lisa: It's a little more jada.. jaded, a little more savvy. Like "Word, Pony Up."
Laura: A little more Jada Pinkett Smith.
Lisa: A little less Will, and a little more Jada.
dial613: Did you consider any other punctuation?
Pony Up: We discussed having a question mark, but that was a little too confusing. That would be too existential. We talked about the semi-colon, then we had the album title Semi-Colonoscopy.
->When you write a song, do you specifically write it for one member to sing, or do you write it first and decide after?
Lisa: We write our own songs. Like whatever we sing, we write.. Whoever sang it wrote the words and the melody. Sometimes [Sarah, Laura, and Lindsay] come up with stuff that is already prepared and it's already basically there, but then other times we come up with music in the practice space and, in that case, one of these guys will call dibs, and it seems like usually Laura calls dibs.
Pony Up: Sarah writes more at home, I find.
dial613: Do you ever fight about it?
Lisa: We don't fight about it, but we do discuss it. Y'know, maturely!
Sarah: I feel like if I don't write at home then I'm not going to. So maybe we're working against each other. I'm not going to get a song to sing if I don't write it.
Lisa: We're motivating you by depriving you!
Laura: I feel like if I don't dibs then I'm not going to sing because I'm not going to write it.
->So, hypothetically, let's say my girlfriend and I broke up because she thinks I'm a jerk. I want to woo her back, so I'm thinking of sending her a Pony Up song. Which one should I send her?
Laura: Hmm, to win a girl.. I don't think there is a Pony Up song [for that].
Lisa: Oh, maybe The Truth About Cats And Dogs, because the meaning is kind of vague, and then the "give me a reason/send me a postcard" part is kind of inspiring.
Sarah: How about our cover of Honest Mistake?
Lisa: Our cover of Just Like Starting Over is actually a good one.
Laura: That's a good getting back together song! The John Lennon version is good.
->Is there anything that could make you stop in the middle of a show?
Laura: If I peed my pants!
dial613: Anything someone in the audience could say or do that would actually just make you stop in your tracks?
Lisa: If somebody threw something that was not friendly. If they throw underpants and they land at your feet, you would keep going, but if somebody threw something like a beer bottle, then we would be like "yo, what's up."
->What would happen if I left on a Thursday or a Friday, would that be cool? (lyric reference to Lines Bleed. -ed)
Sarah: Yes!
Lisa: Those are the days when she's kind of like "meh, whatever, I got my own things to do." That's when she does her groceries and goes to the bank. She's kind of busy, she doesn't really care.
->If you add an 'h' to Pony Up, you get Phony Up. How do you respond?
Lisa: Whoa, ouch! First of all, what are you suggesting?
dial613: I don't know, how do you respond?
Lisa: Well, you spelled it wrong.
dial613: But then I'd say, I ran it through spell check, and there were no mistakes.
Lisa: Good rebuttle, are you on the debate team? I would try and turn it back on them, and say, y'know, do you think that there's something phony about people genuinely trying to express their feelings to you? Are you so hard that that's what you think when you see innocence in musical form? Genuinity in musical form? That's your problem. That says more about you then it says about us.
dial613: At this point in the interview, Lisa is yelling at me.
Lisa: You've got issues man, you've got SERIOUS FUCKING ISSUES.
Lindsay: You've got to stop and take a good hard look at yourself.
->Are you going back to Montreal tonight?
Pony Up: No, Ottawa.
dial613: What are you doing in Ottawa?
Lisa: We're staying at my parents' house. I was born in Ottawa, but I lived in Shawville. The 3 of us lived in Shawville, Quebec, but my mom distrusts the Shawville hospital so she drove to Ottawa to have me and then drove back to Shawville. But then I went to high school in Ottawa, at Gloucester.
dial613: Gloucester? Oh...
Lisa: Are you guys from downtown?
dial613: No, from [area].
Lisa: Oh you're from [area], that's even worse, well that's why you hate me! We're like the Crips and the Bloods.
->Can you describe your music without using the letter 'E'?
Lisa: Crazy...
Laura: Sexy cool??
Pony Up: No!, there's an 'e' in sexy. Sxy cool.
Sarah: Fun and naughty and sad?
Pony Up: There we go!
For your jilted ex-girl/boyfriends, to help them have fun and feel naughty but then cry about it afterwards:
Pony Up - The Truth About Cats And Dogs (Is That They Die)
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