Amid anecdotes, spells of laughter and talk of admiration for Pixies and The Breeders, DISHPIT members Nora Kelly and Ethan Soil encapsulated the chaotic and passionate energy at the heart of their band’s music during our virtual interview last week. 

“We are all loud people, and we take up a lot of space,” Kelly said. “I think we have big personalities.”

DISHPIT is a band based out of Montreal, Canada. Its members include Kelly, Soil, and Jed Stein. The trio lives together in Montreal, and Kelly and Stein have been making music as DISHPIT since 2015. Soil joined as the drummer in 2019. 

Kelly has been playing and writing music her entire life. Inspired by The Breeders and Nirvana, she grew up playing in several bands. Soil played music from a young age and spent much of his time in various bands, eventually pursuing music in college. Although she didn’t grow up as a musician, bassist Jed Stein, has “her own relationship with music,” as Kelly explained as a dancer. 

“We became university friends,” Kelly said, “which isn’t very punk.” Kelly was playing with the band’s former drummer in abandoned factories when she decided to get her friend Stein—who she had known for two years—to come play on bass. 

“I don’t think we took ourselves very seriously until a few years ago,” Kelly noted.

She described that in the early stages, playing music was a hobby they did to entertain themselves and their friends at occasional house parties. Things changed when they started working on their first album. The band recorded with Steve Albini, producer of PJ Harvey, Nirvana, Pixies and The Breeders. Most of these sessions only required one take.

“We had played the songs for a long time, so we were incredibly rehearsed,” Kelly stated. The album was well on its way to being finished, but complications in the music industry put a hold on the process. 

“We’ve had the album for two years now, and we haven’t been able to release it. We were with this record label in England. Then one year ago, right when the album was mixed, mastered and ready to go, the guy who was in charge of our band stopped communicating with me,” Kelly said. 

Although an unexpected turn of events, the band came out of the experience with the rights to their music intact as well as the motivation to put out their first album on their own. 

DIPSHIT, their first major album, is set to release on March 12. The band has released a few singles as well as music videos to accompany them, despite further setbacks due to the pandemic. 

Soil went on to describe some of the challenges presented by COVID-19. He described how the band had to create a “quarantine Jed zone,” as Soil coined it. Due to Stein’s participation in volunteer work during the pandemic, the band sectioned off part of Soil’s car with large plastic sheets to keep their distance while traveling to locations where they filmed their music video.

“It was funny because it was so cold after the shoot, and Jed had to go back there. But the heat wasn’t getting to her zone and she’s just freezing,” joked Kelly. 

In addition to music video complications, the band has faced another challenge without live performances. Both Kelly and Soil attributed a large amount of the band’s eccentricity to their onstage presence, which made it that much harder to step away from performing with the onset of the pandemic. The band explained that who they are on stage plays a big role in setting them apart in the music scene.

“I think a big part of the philosophy of DISHPIT is to make it a really good show. To make it like, what the f— are they gonna do this time?” Kelly said, describing some of the gimmicks they have pulled while playing live. This included when Kelly and Stein got into a fake fight on stage when they dressed Soilin in a diaper and escorted him with whips into the crowd, as well as Kelly spewing fake blood from her mouth when the beat dropped in a song. 

DISHPIT is mostly led by women. However, Kelly doesn’t want this to be a distinguishing feature for the group. The band sees themselves as feminists, and they believe that more women should receive recognition for their music. 

“When you promote yourself as a girl band, you get put on the bill because you are a girl band. Women shouldn’t be tokenized like that,” said Kelly.

You don’t see a lot of bands doing music like DISHPIT. Their style does more than mimic the grunge and post-punk bands that came before them. Instead, they add their own flair to the genre. 

“The genre that we play is not really normal, [as] it is a lot of grunge post-punk and odd time signatures,” said Kelly, “I don’t see a lot of other bands in Montreal doing that. There is a fun, freaky energy with us that is sort of unique, and hopefully, that comes through to people.” 

With unconventional time signatures, fast-paced tempos, bold guitar riffs, heavy bass lines and vocals surging with adrenaline, it is evident that DISHPIT has a punk sound exploding with energy. Their lyrics themselves have a personality that is all their own. From claiming the role of “Trash Queen” in their song under that title by exclaiming “I know my place at the top of the heap!” to more serious and somber lyrics, “I just want to lay in the snow, freeze off all the things only you and I know” in their latest release “This Time,” the band delivers lyrics that cover a plethora of emotions. 

When describing her songwriting for the band, Kelly added, “I think the most consistent thing is to have a sense of absurdist humor with the music and not take yourself too seriously. I think there is definitely room in the musical market for women who are funny to be making songs.” 

In terms of her more serious lyricism, she explained, “It [song writing] is a very cathartic way to work through problems. In a lot of ways, I will take something that has happened to me or a person [as inspiration], and if I write a really good song, it’s like paying homage to that experience. It makes things that you have lived through more important because you wrote a song about it, and that is magical.”

For Kelly, it has been a long journey getting to where they are now as a band, but they are excited to get the album out and see where it takes them. For Kelly and Soil, DISHPIT plays a major role in their lives and has impacted them on a profound level. 

“Jed and I both have some anxiety issues, and [making music] is a really good outlet for that,” said Kelly. “Ethan has ADHD, and it’s important for him to be moving all the time. I think music is a very positive outlet for some difficult mental issues. For me, music satisfies this chaotic part of my soul. If I didn’t have it, I don’t know where I’d be.”

You can support DISHPIT by following the band on their Instagram as well as listening to them on Spotify. If you are excited for a one-of-a-kind punk sound, their first album releases on March 12.