Since No Joy just wrapped up their fall tour with a special Halifax show alongside fellow Canadian band Fucked Up, we thought we’d take this opportunity to ask guitarist Laura Lloyd to give us a quick guide to her native country. Check it out below, alongside a sampler of songs from their first couple Mexican Summer releases…
10 Things You Should Probably Know About Canada
1. Denim on denim is a Canadian thing. It’s called a Canadian tuxedo. I don’t need any assholes from America telling me you all invented this look because (1) you didn’t, and (2) keep dreaming.
2. Quebec, Canada’s most French-speaking province, hates the rest of the country and got really close to separating in the 1995 Quebec referendum with the vote being 49.42-percent “Yes” to 50.58-percent “No”. As you can imagine, racism is alive and well in Quebec in some circles.
3. Poutine, butter tarts, maple syrup, smoked meat sandwiches, steamés (steamed hot dogs)—enough said.
4. Basketball was invented by a Canadian, but we’ll let the U.S. continue to believe they did because knowing the truth is satisfaction enough.
5. The legal drinking age in Canada is 19 in most provinces, and 18 in a few. As a result, by the time we’re 21, we’re not running wild in the streets after our first sip of alcohol which is more than I can say for our neighbors down south.
6. This next thing I’m about to spring on you is so great it warrants a picture (see above). If you’re an American band that has had the pleasure of staying at the Lloyd Manor, I am certain I pushed these on you and I dare any of you to disagree with me when I say this is the best potato chip flavor known to man.
7. Whenever we’re on tour in buttfuck nowhere there’s always some ding-hole who comments on the fact that we don’t have accents when we say we are Canadian. I’m not ever really sure how to respond to this because it is so painfully obvious most major Canadian cities are about a half hour drive to the U.S. and I’m not really sure how that constitutes a change in accent?
8. Degrassi.
9. It gets hot in the summer—really hot—like 40 degrees Celsius hot (104 degrees Fahrenheit). It also gets cold in the winter, like -30 degrees Celsius/-22 degrees Fahrenheit, at least on this side of the country.
10. We have free health care, and I don’t mean to gloat but my grandfather, Sir Woodrow Lloyd, was the one who implemented it after Tommy Douglas was all “y’all should get free health care.”
