By I stumbled upon a kooky pastel animation of a dynamic musical duo—one is sporting a jersey and shredding a guitar, the other is on the mic and adorned with a wizard’s hood, both headbanging at breakneck speed. The song instantly transported me to a hyperactive disco party; its infectious samples—including an extraterrestrial critter on the DJ decks repeatedly interjecting, “What!”—put it in the upper echelon of bedroom hypnagogic pop. That wizard coolly punches down on a loser ex, only to pump the brakes and deflate into a tripped-out coda that’s Ween-esque. It is a bizarre and addictive hit, but my close dissection of it is almost comical given how it came together so non-seriously. The song in question is “Smash,” and its mischievous authors are Born At Midnite, who are bringing forth more of that party on their debut record, ETERNAL BAM NATION.
The Montreal duo know a thing or two about a catchy pop song. It’s like they’ve uncovered the secret recipe from the Men I Trust soft-pop playbook, but totally spun it on its head by rocking out, bending genres, and ultimately writing spontaneously. Back to the “Smash” video, that guitarist is David Carriere of indie rock band TOPS, and the wizard is Amery Sandford, visual artist by trade and synthpop extraordinaire in her spare time. They’ve been around the block.
Is their cheekiness tongue-in-cheek? Well, you’ll find out properly after reading, but I can confirm that Born At Midnite are religiously committed to not taking themselves seriously. Probing the inner machinations of Sandford and Carriere proved many suspicions true, like, “Is the animated Canadian national treasure Prozzäk a pivotal influence?” But their coolness never vanishes, even with all our giggling. Born At Midnite’s unadulterated fun is the thing that makes them cool, and ETERNAL BAM NATION is going to bestow that energy upon the world. If you weren’t in the know, now you’re going to be.
How did Born At Midnite start? How’d you two meet and start making music together?
Amery Sandford: We just started hanging out. David had this really cool house in this neighborhood called Parc Ex in Montreal. I would go over there, we’d drink beer, I’d play drums, and he’d play guitar, and we would listen to music until four in the morning. I was like, “Who is this guy?” It’s just so funny because we’d hang out and have so much fun, but I didn’t know what this dude was about. Then we casually started making songs and also dated, and here we are, eight years later.
David Carriere: We thought about the name first, “Born At Midnite,” that’s the first song we wrote.
AS: We’re into cheeky party music and making up things that people who aren’t us would say. Maybe people who are a bit more narcissistic and self-obsessed. We’re putting on these funny characters.
I can see the coolness schtick because it feeds into the act you put on, but it makes the music even more fun. It seems effortless, you know what I mean?
AS: Yeah, and trying to think of really funny words or really cheesy stuff to say, and making it sound like you can’t really tell if it’s serious or we’re totally taking the piss.
DC: [to AS] I like the housewife music that you write.
AS: Yeah, I feel like we’re really inspired by any of the Real Housewives that make music, and when they’re in the stu, they’re just loving it. Stuff that’s so cringe that it’s good, and you’re like, “This is working on many different levels.”
You both also have separate creative stints. David, you’re in the indie rock band TOPS, and Amery, you’re a visual artist and musician. What do you get out of Born At Midnite that your other creative pursuits, such as being in a traditional band, don’t give you?
AS: Maybe like, complete and utter freedom. I feel like we’ve just set the expectation really low. So, it’s supposed to be this fun thing. I mean, now we’re taking it “seriously” because we have our big tour planned and our first record, but because it’s been this thing that isn’t our main focus, it’s flourished in this interesting way. I think it’s really easy to feel pressure to be doing all this stuff right. With this, we’re just like, “Fuck it.”
DC: Anybody you work with, it’s going to be different because it’s a combination of the two people. We both come at it from very different sides, where Amery’s a singer and visual artist first, and we try to go fast. I like to use the fun toys in the studio and limit the track by keeping it as, “We’re getting it done in a day.” A lot of the stuff I work on, songs can take much longer than that.
AS: I have a pretty low working stamina for music. I can only do like three hours a day. Some people are like, “Oh my God, that’s not very long,” but I don’t need much longer than that. It’s really nice to have this thing where you trust your decision-making because of limitations on the recording process, time, and energy. It provides a sense of trust in yourself, where otherwise it’s really easy to be like, “That’s dumb, this idea sucks,” before seeing it through.
Totally, and I think that helps make the writing process more spontaneous, too. You’re not really laboring over questions like, “Does it sound good?” Maybe that leads to special lightning-in-a-bottle moments, like, “Where did that come from?”
DC: Yeah, we’ll get together and make a beat, and if it’s not good, we’re like, “Oh, forget about that.” It’s like the law of averages, but we hit pretty high because we’re not even jamming.
AS: Foolproof! Our process is foolproof. I feel like it’s easy for lots of people to labor over this thing, change it, and go back to work on it, but maybe I get bored, and that’s why we don’t do that. Like, I don’t know, some things we’re not connecting with, so we’re just gonna move on instead of having it feel stale. Maybe you have an idea and it’s like, “I wish I did it this way,” so let’s just do it on the next thing like that—take that idea and bring it into a new thing.
How does the writing happen then? David, you mentioned you both don’t really jam, so do you individually have stuff already done and share whatever comes to your mind?
DC: We usually just start a song from scratch, and we try to use the same arrangement on every song, where it’s either chorus/verse/chorus/verse or verse/chorus/verse/chorus. Crazy. Then Amery will literally just program a drum beat, and I’ll start playing chords, and we’ll record it.
AS: I want to dispel a rumor—I do the drums. Some people say, “David, I love the drums on that song,” and I’m like, “Well, guess what? I did them! On some!” But I think on “I Haven’t Forgotten You,” David just sent me the instrumental and I wrote the melody so fast because I was like, “Holy shit, this is totally something, and it’s very evocative.” When there’s a really intense, environmental feeling to a song, I feel like I have an easier time just knowing our lyrical writing. I’ll have an idea, and David’s really good at shaping it, being a bit quippy and funny with it.
You can hear that poured into the songs and their structures—they are like earworms. I was about to mention “I Haven’t Forgotten You,” because the Judie Tzuke sample just gets stuck in your head.
DC: I was scared we weren’t allowed to use it.
AS: Yeah, we were scared.
DC: We had to get permission, and we were so afraid they were going to say no. They were really cool about it.
Far out! Thank goodness.
AS: She wrote the label and called it a cover. She was like, “I loved your cover. I checked out your music on Spotify, and I love it.” That’s so cool. That’s like above and beyond. We had some other samples we had to remake, so it’s really cool to have someone you admire be like, “That’s cool.”
Playing with samplers compared to the traditional guitar band sound must also be really fun to do live.
DC: We have two samplers.
AS: We have a rig, a little rig that fits in a backpack. We haven’t really played that much, so I feel like we’re gonna spend the summer developing that, and there’s so much visual identity with the band. I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate that live, because I feel like it’s just so important to it now. We have two samplers and an Auto-Tune pedal, and then David plays guitar. There’s something really simple but effective about it, just playing vocal samples on the sampler, and people just go crazy—like, it’s simple. It’s like watching a baby press a button. There’s something really primal and hilarious about how excited people get.
Some of the samples you couldn’t get clearance for, but remaking them with your friends is still exciting. Sometimes it’s like things that shouldn’t go together somehow do go together, like “… Rock On …” is so funny because of its very growly delivery being on such a soft song. It’s hilarious!
DC: It’s insane.
AS: And that’s David’s older brother, Daniel, who’s in a rock band [Royal Tusk] that sounds like Nickelback. We had to get him to do it. He’s such a character, really a crazy guy, so we were really happy that it came together. He was so excited and sent us these different samples and options because he’s a master growler.
Options?!
DC: It’s cool how he gets the growls done. Nobody sounds that way; it’s very layered. I didn’t know. I was like, “How does Daniel do that?
That’s so good. I also want to ask about the visual element, which really drew me to listen to the music. It’s a very distinct style. The whole spacey theme with little alien creatures and pastel colors, how did you settle on that for Born At Midnite?
AS: Like, so uncalculated. So unbelievably last-minute and uncalculated in a way where, maybe because I also have other stuff to do for money, so like, I think of drawing these animated characters like, “Oh my god, I could not have had more luck on my side to develop these things.” Even getting press photos done, I’ve really been having this thought lately—it doesn’t even feel like the project, you know? The avatars are more like us. But when I work on the art, I look toward different art styles than normal. I was looking at a lot of anime, medieval drawings like wizards, and demonic imagery. I’ve been thinking about late-night party demons and our late-night scene here mixed with this futuristic medieval anime… I don’t know, just mixing things that feel different for me.
It has that cartoony energy with an undercurrent of weird, peculiar, supernatural stuff. For me, I’m reminded of the animated duo Prozzäk.
AS: Yes! I’m so happy that you know that! That’s awesome.
That’s exactly what the Born At Midnite avatars remind me of!
AS: I told another interviewer about this not that long ago, and she thought it was really hilarious, but I have a memory of listening to Prozzäk on my Walkman, watching GREMLINS when I was maybe 12. I feel that explains so much of why I am the way I am. I was letting it all sink in like I’m in Heaven. Like, content overload but 2000s.
My suspicions were correct. Anyway, your first project was EVERY SINGLE TIME, a collection of singles from 2020 to ‘25. Now you have your actual debut album, ETERNAL BAM NATION, of which I love the name. How did it start to come together as a body of music presented as an album, as opposed to tossing songs out there?
DC: I feel like we had a little bit more time. So we started stacking up some tracks, and we also thought it’d be funny to make a greatest hits and then make our first record.
AS: We were doing a huge amount of work, three hours a day during Christmas. I feel like all the really hyper ones are our Christmas session, and then all the really chill ones we finished in the summer last year, which is really funny. It was snowing and so cold, and we were in the studio just like, “Rahhhh!”
Just feeding off the hectic time.
AS: Yeah. It was just a natural evolution, like, “We finally have time, let’s just do it.” I like that we took so long to do it. People were like, “We need more!” And we’re like, “Too busy, we can’t.”
DC: It ended really quickly, for sure. The time we worked on it wasn’t very much. It was like a couple of months. It was pretty fast. I like making an album because you can make some weird album cuts, instead of just trying to make a catchy song. You can make a more fucked up song, like “… Rock On …,” which Amery wrote on her spoons.
AS: Oh yeah, I wrote it on my spoons. [grabs them and shows me] My Newfoundland spoons. The demo is a spoon demo.
That’s so funny. With the whole “fucked up” thing, it feels really tongue-in-cheek, like I’m listening in on an inside joke. Like, the opener is called “12 Bells & A Baby Crying,” and it’s literally that. Then you get to these groovy pop songs, and that disparity makes the album such a fun journey.
AS: That’s awesome. What’s your fave? Do you have a fave?
Oh, that’s tough … I’m torn between “I Haven’t Forgotten You” and “Smash.”
DC: “Smash” is so funny to me. It’s like “More Than a Feeling,” like when I play the same chords, and it just makes me fucking laugh.
AS: Live is so fun, I’m so excited for that.
I love how it does a 180 into this slower bit that’s Ween-esque.
AS: Yes! My favorite band is Ween. I like them because they have some of the most beautiful songs ever, and then some of the most fucked-up, weird songs ever.
DC: Yeah, they have very beautiful songs.
AS: “Sarah” is like one of the best songs ever, and then they have “Happy Colored Marbles,” and you’re like, “What the fuck.”
DC: I like their Pizza Hut song, the one that’s like, “Where’d the Cheese Go? I don’t know!”
AS: That’s crazy. They’re awesome.
They’re very cool, and it’s cool to see them poured into your music as well. I’m also curious about the overall hypnagogic indie pop sound. Was that another thing that you just fell into?
DC: I feel like the sound will be that way if the production isn’t very hi-fi and you’re using a drum machine and guitar. It’s just gonna happen like that. I think unless you’re writing country music, or what we call “sincerecore,” which is what a lot of people do, where they’re really all about their emotions instead of having fun.
AS: Which is fine.
DC: It’s definitely fine, but it’s a style. I listen to so much music that it’s really hard to be like, “There’s a thing that I’m inspired by specifically.” It’s like, we’re going techno, rap, country, metal, jazz, and everything.
AS: I think we just like a lot of different music, we’ll be like, “Hey, what about this rap? What about a rap part?”
DC: [to AS] We don’t have any raps, do we?
AS: [to DC] Yeah, we do. Would you say “Smash” is a rap?
DC: Oh, that’s a jig.
AS: Oh, sorry.
DC: To me, it’s a jig rhythm.
AS: Someone at the show was like, “That was very Sublime of you,” in a very fucked-up way that I was not expecting. Like the first time we played it, those faces, I was like, “I might get cancelled.” People just look horrified. It’s awesome. *laughs*
They weren’t ready.
AS: They were really unprepared. We set them up for failure.
What’s been the broader response to Born At Midnite?
DC: It’s just been very positive. People like it, which I like.
AS: When my friends like it, I’m like, “OK, thank God.” My friend called me after the “Wash You Out” video came out. I worked very hard and crazy, crazy, crazy last-minute on that full animation, and he called me saying, “I fucking loved that.” That’s like the most affirming thing I think, when your buddies are into it. I don’t know if anyone else likes it, but our friends do.
DC: That’s the most important thing, isn’t it? I mean, putting out music online is not as exciting as finishing the song because now you’re just like, “Check it out!” And you go about your day.
AS: It’s weirdly intangible for how data-driven it is. It’s just weird. You throw it into the ether, and you’re like, “I don’t even know if people like this.”
It is so weird. There’s so much music, too. Like, “Will people even stumble upon it?” Well, I managed to, on the other side of the world, so it’s working.
AS: That’s great. That’s good.
What is the ultimate thing you want to express with Born At Midnite?
AS: Complete and utter world domination.
DC: Anything that I can do to continue to make music is a joy.
AS: Yeah, it’s cool. I feel like it’s really exciting when the thing that you do for fun resonates with people. Like, how cool is that? I think doing the tour and meeting people in real life who like it will be really satisfying. Other than world domination …
DC: World peace.
AS: And lots of money.
DC: It’d be good to get money, honestly. Everybody wants money, honestly.
AS: We have a really good thing going on in Montreal right now, and I think that energy has really made that happen. We have a lot of friends making really cool stuff, and there’s a big energy and lots to celebrate on that front. People here are not very concerned with being famous or this kind of carrot that I feel in a lot of places is a bigger part of people’s intentions, so it’s cool to live somewhere where people are just like, “I want to finish my record, then have a party, and we’ll invite you,” and I’m like, “Great!”
ETERNAL BAM NATION is out now on Bandcamp. You can follow Born At Midnite for updates over on Instagram!
Comments