Litvar

Rex Thurstan and Joe Lemieux who play, in their own words, 'unapologetic pop' in their band Litvar were gracious enough to grant me an interview with them during the coronavirus pandemic, and here are their responses to my questions!

1) Introduce yourselves and your music, in your own words

Rex: I'm Rex, and I love making songs!

Joe: I think more than anything, our music is what we've become.

2) What musicians or artists have been your biggest influences and why?

Rex: I usually listen to one artist completely and devotedly for various amounts of time. Could be a week or month. This month it's been Phoebe Bridgers.

Joe: Personally I was raised on classic rock, mainly the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the likes. As I got older these turned into Snow Patrol, Nirvana, Third Eye Blind, Coldplay, and I feel that my drumming influence really stems from all these bands. Production wise modern indie pop has had a huge impact on me, bands such as MGMT, Twenty One Pilots, Dayglow, STRFKR, The 1975 and so many more. Like these artists we never want to stay in the same "genre" twice. I feel like genre is kind of dead in music anyway, we create the sound we feel the most passionate about.

3) If you could have tea with anybody in the world, living or dead, who would it be, why, and what would you say to them?

Joe: Bit of a weird one for me, but it would have to be Kemba Walker of the Boston Celtics or Josh Dun. Kemba is such a nice guy and I grew up watching him play basketball, and I feel like Josh and I would bro out, I just love watching how happy he is playing the drums.

Rex: Phoebe Bridgers

4) What is your favourite part of being a musician?

Joe: Playing live as a drummer, and being able to control the energy of the room we're playing is possibly my favourite thing in the world. There's also something to be said about taking an idea, and completing that song in the studio, making it sound the way we imagined from the beginning.

Rex: Making songs happen out of thin air.

5) What is your favourite part of touring/doing shows?

Rex: Well as of lately it's impossible to really play shows. Beforehand however, it was the best bit. Seeing people physically react to your music.

Joe: Not being able to play shows due to the pandemic has been ridiculously tough. Right before it hit Rex and I were playing constantly, then all of a sudden we were stuck inside. Getting back out there and touring non stop is our first priority the second it's safe.

6) What is the biggest problem regarding your music that you have had to overcome so far?

Joe: Working with Rex on music has felt right from the beginning, we have such an amazing musical relationship without even trying, both when jamming together and working in the studio. The biggest problem for us honestly has been trying to grow as a band during this pandemic. Only being able to reach people through the internet has been an interesting experience, as we've had great success in failures trying to reach new audiences. We've met some truly amazing people that always brighten our day, and we just want to keep growing and meeting new people as we continue on this journey.

Rex: As Joe said, trying to grow in a time like this is not really ideal. I've mostly been focusing on mental health.

7) Describe your sound

Rex: Unapologetic ally pop, with an ambient twist

Joe: Yeah. That'll work for me.

8) Can you explain your creative process? How do your songs come about?

Joe: I'd say about half of the songs we make are a result of jamming it out, with Rex on guitar and me on drums, and the rest are more complete ideas in Logic that Rex brings me that we hash out together.

Rex: One of our first sessions, we wrote 5 songs by jamming until the early hours of the morning. Four of them didn't get recorded, one of them was called Healer, it's on the album. This is our process.

Joe: This was like, maybe a couple weeks into knowing each other. We played until like 3 in the morning (I had work at 7 the next day) and I knew we had to get our new sound out into the world.

9) Please explain how your interact with and respond to fans

Joe: Not to be biased, but we do have the greatest fan base that has ever existed. We may be small, but every day we grow a little more and add another open minded, kind hearted, beautiful human. The people that listen to our music feel like friends we've had our whole lives, people who have lived through similar experiences and traumas that we feel honoured to share our personal story with.

Rex: Sharing our music and our humor and personalities. I love to make people feel something.

Joe: Follow Rex on TikTok - it's worth it.

10) How do you think the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the music business?

Rex: It will make you go "aww" and also "weee" and then "ouch".

Joe: We spent so much time perfecting the sound, I feel like it's really something that doesn't sound like it was recorded in a bedroom studio (which it was to be clear lol). The three singles I think give a great idea for the changes the album will go through, but expect more cinematic type instrumentation and a lot more crying. "The Greatest Movie of All Time" is by far the best project I've ever been a part of, and the proudest I've ever been of Rex as a songwriter. A theme throughout the album is a love story in 2008, lived out through AOL instant messenger (something we've been hinting for a long time). We did some really cool things with this, including a drum pad I made with AOL sound effects, complementing Rex's emotional songwriting in the weirdest most amazing way possible. I'm so excited for it to release, and even more excited to play these songs live for you.