Nora Kelly Talks Touring, Overcoming People-Pleasing and the Punk-Country Influences in “Rodeo Clown"

Nora Kelly by Gabie Che

“I think one of the reasons people are kind of creeped out by clowns is because they’re always presenting the emotion of their painted face, [so] you don’t really know what’s going on underneath,” says Nora Kelly, lead of Montreal’s Nora Kelly Band. “Maybe they’re feeling something completely different.”

This idea is at the core of the band’s newly released record Rodeo Clown, an album that blends folk, punk and country influences and delves into themes like breaking out of people pleasing. “A lot of Rodeo Clown’s material is leaning into tongue-in-cheek absurdist role-playing,” Nora says, with herself as the clown.

The ten-track album is the band’s first full-length release, with songs blending punk elements with folk and country-inspired storytelling.

“When COVID-19 hit, I think we all went through introspective times in our lives, and that was an area of growth for me. To start being more honest to people around me,” she says.

“I would be in a lot of uncomfortable situations and go along with it, feeling a lot of pressure to be nice all the time and not really set boundaries. Then I would get overwhelmed.”

Songs like “Lay Down Girl” and the accompanying video embody this theme, with Nora walking around as a “manically energetic, people-pleaser” clown, running into a vampire (the energy-sucker who always asks things of you) and other characters you’re likely to recognize (in more ways than one).

“It’s a song about not being the life of the party for everyone else,” she says. “If you’re going to do it, do it for yourself.” A clown, an “evil hoarder obsessed with material possessions”, and a “horse girl-city slicker” are among the characters she possesses throughout this album (Roswell aliens even make an appearance) as she explores this path of self-discovery.  

The Nora Kelly Band was created in 2020, amid COVID shutdowns that forced Nora’s post-punk band with drummer Ethan Soil called DISHPIT to take a break. During that time, they would frequent an outdoor area near a skate park and train tracks in Montreal’s Mile End, where local musicians would meet and play country covers. It’s there the two bonded with Rachel Silverstein, Vader Ryderwood, Dylan Keating, and Ellie MacPhee, with the six of them going on to form the band. 

“The friendship dynamic was strong, so we naturally moved into that,” Nora says. “Now we’ve been playing together for two years, and we’re working on our next album. It’s cool to see it grow up this way… and now we’re on tour together, doing laundry together.”

They started recording their first EP Perfect Pig at their apartment and finished the album at the Autoland Audio recording studio in Montreal, owned by Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire.

Beyond the music, Nora is also a painter who leans into that art form to unwind. “The two practices are really opposite for me,” she says. “Music is a really collaborative thing. When I write songs, I write them alone, but I write them quickly. Then there’s a lot of workshopping with the group. With art, it’s completely independent, and I'm in control and I can start and stop when I want. I do it late at night and get in touch with myself, then I do music during the day with the band on the weekend, and it’s my little social tasty treat.”

“Horse Girl” single art

While music provides Nora with an opportunity to “really get something out,” painting is an opportunity to step back. “As much as I'm a social person, I need to recharge… like a lot,” Nora says, mentioning how she leans into painting and drawing to decompress. “Music is this chaos energy, a vessel for me to channel my intense energy as a person in a healthy way.”

When it came to creating Rodeo Clown, Nora went in an entirely new direction: “Musically, I wanted to move away from the stripped-down punk band thing, recording live off the floor with three instruments.” Rodeo Clown features a diverse catalogue of instruments, including the banjo, fiddle and pedal steel. 

Nora cites artists that are “musically diverse with different voices coming in and out” as inspiration for their record, including The Band, Neil Young, Big Thief and Songs: Ohia's The Magnolia Electric Co.

Country influences also make their way throughout Rodeo Clown. Although Nora started out playing in punk bands, she was all the while writing “folky songs that didn’t fit with that band”, only bringing them out every once in a while on camping trips. “Deja Vu”, appearing halfway through Rodeo Clown, is one of these songs, and the first one Nora wrote at 16. 

“I really love country music,” Nora says, ”but when I was a teenager, I would say I liked every genre except it. My parents love country music. They’re both from the US and played it a lot. My brother and I would scream when they put on Hank Williams III,” she laughs. “But as I got older, I really came to appreciate a lot of the humour in the lyrics. It does have this outlaw sensibility if you’re listening to the right people.”

Songs like “Horse Girl”, “Roswell” and “Purgatory Motel”—which pleads “Though I’ve been good please don’t send me to Heaven /  All of my friends are down in Hell”—lean most heavily into the folk and country influences. They poke fun at classic country tropes (“boys like trucks”) while adding in earnest musings and the aforementioned mix of instruments. 

“‘Horse Girl’ is a funny and kind-of meta song about being a city slicker who is pretending to be a cowboy…which really is our band,” Nora says. “Elie is from South Carolina and plays fiddle, and Dylan is from Alberta and plays pedal steel, so they are pretty legit, but the rest of us are from Vancouver or Toronto and grew up in the city. We like country music a lot, but we don’t have a lot of the classic childhood stories that a real ‘country-living’ person would have.” She laughs. “The song is us calling ourselves out a little.”

Discussing the unlikely similarities between punk and country, Nora says they’re both simple.  “Country is just a few chords, and punk is just a few chords,” she says, “and they both have a fuck you attitude. A lot of badass heroes to look up to, who were living differently for other people. But there are also a lot of people who give each genre a bad rap,” she adds.

Songs like “Tonka”—which closes out the record—feature raw vocals, leaning into many of the band members’ punk roots while blending other influences. 

“The nice thing about country music is it's a genre a lot of people can connect to, like little kids and older people. While punk is one of my favourite things to walk around and listen to on my headphones—it stirs me up like no other genre—country has a wider demographic that comes out to the shows.”

Nora Kelly Band by Gabie Che

The band recently wrapped up their first tour, making their way through the US’ East Coast – Nora was reporting from Brooklyn at the time of this interview. “It’s my first time seeing DC and Philadelphia (a city I’ve always wanted to visit), and we were in Buffalo and played a cute queer house show venue and people danced a lot.” 

“We were having a lot of touching moments,” she mentions, citing “playing at a place that used to be a mausoleum where dead bodies were kept in Philly” and “drinking a PBR at night at the feet of Abraham Lincoln’s statue (and subsequently getting kicked out by security)” among highlights. “We're just running around having a good time,” she says. 

“The shows are really fun, but being on tour for the first time is really socially demanding. I really respect everyone who stays on the road for months and months. It really is a grind.” she adds.

Fittingly, Rodeo Clown’s recent launch was celebrated with a Montreal show featuring Nora wearing the album’s signature makeup on stage for the first time. The band is currently halfway through writing their next record. This next album will not feature the clown motif, but listeners can expect new themes. “I feel like I should have been a theater kid, but I wasn't,” she laughs. “I love the performative aspect of music.”

Rodeo Clown is out now. Listen to the new record here.

---

Rodeo Clown

released August 25, 2023 via Mint Records

1. Mmm-Delicious

2. Lay Down Girl

3. Catch a Bone

4. Horse Girl

5. Heartbroken Over a Man

6. Deja Vu

7. Purgatory Motel

8. Rodeo Clown

9. Roswell

10. Tonka

Nora Kelly – lead vocals, guitar, banjo (10), dick flute (8)

Rachel Silverstein – keyboards, harmonies

Vader Ryderwood – bass guitar, backup vocals (2, 4, 5, 7)

Ethan Soil – drums, percussion, guitar (4,7)

Dylan Keating – pedal steel

Ellie McPhee - violin (1, 8, 9, 10)

Gabie Allain – violin (3)

Michael Feurstack – pedal steel (5)

Eric “Creature” Campbell – banjo (2)

All songs written and performed by Nora Kelly Band

Produced by Nora Kelly and Ethan Soil

Mixed by Pietro Amato

Engineered by Pietro Amato, Matt Rogers & Ethan Soil

Recorded at Skybarn, Autoland & Croc Studios

Mastered by Harris Newman

Album art photography by Gabie Allain

Album art make-up by Neve Kerry

Album art design by Owen Ostrowski

---

Nora Kelly Band

Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp

Valerie Boucher is a writer based in Ottawa, Canada. You can follow her on Instagram and learn more at valerieboucher.ca.

---

Related Articles

Hannah Lew Shares Inspiration for Cold Beat's Album "War Garden" (via Like LTD)

Driving late at night, blasting your obscurely named Spotify playlist to fit the mood, Cold Beat's new album "War Garden" makes the perfect soundtrack. Hannah Lew's poignant lyrics float about airy synths as she contemplates grief, the afterlife, and rebirth.

The album (released via Like LTD) was made over the pandemic via Zoom calls. "Exploiting the technology for how it could connect us" is how Lew describes Cold Beat's collective embrace of technologies that could potentially alienate otherwise.

We spoke to Hannah about the album, finding closure in dreams, and gardening.

Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: Can you tell us a bit about who you are and where you're from?

Hannah for Cold Beat: Half of us live in the Bay Area, half in LA. The project started back in 2013 with Kyle & I, but when Sean and Luciano joined a few years back, the band really became what it is today, a more collaborative practice with more varying songwriting and less a glorified solo project.

Also Cool: What was it like growing up there? Was there a creative/DIY scene, or is music something that you were drawn to independently?

Hannah: I grew up in a very different SF than the one that stands today. The cost of living was a lot lower, and it was just more accessible. Because of that, there were a lot of people making art and music. 

We all more or less met through the DIY scene in the Bay Area. We had all played shows together before Cold Beat formed. Sean actually played on the Cold Beat demos back in 2012 before it was even called Cold Beat. We've always been music buds, even though he didn't officially join the band until later. Kyle and I had played a few shows together with our respective bands before I asked him to play with me. Luciano worked at Amoeba SF with my husband, Andrew. I kind of eyeballed him for years before approaching him to play synths in the band. 

Though we definitely all came from a scene here, I don't really feel like the band has ever necessarily been part of a community here. We've always been doing our own thing kind of. 

AC: Now that the regular PR questions are out of the way, we can get a bit weirder. 

One of your lyrics, "In a dream, I don't like you," made me think a lot about how dreams are spaces for closure when it's not possible IRL, especially after this year or so in isolation. What's your experience with processing emotions while dreaming? Can you tell us about a favourite dream you've had?

Hannah: I think that dreams definitely offer a place to work out things that might be unattainable within the confines of the conscious mind. I think songs can serve that same purpose. 

For example, that song Weeds you're referencing was a song that Sean had sent as a demo, and I basically wrote the lyrics immediately upon hearing it. I think I sent vocals back 45 minutes after he sent the music. 

Sometimes you tap into this automatic writing where you're channelling directly from your subconscious. Melodies and sounds have a way of describing emotion in a post-lingual way that is often way more expressive and accurate than anything literal explanations can offer. Language just falls short, whereas a song can completely take you over and make you feel less alone. 

My favourite dream is one where I knew I was dreaming, so I decided to fly. It's only happened for me once or twice, but it felt really amazing.

AC: Throughout your music, there's a theme of both accepting and initiating change. What has your experience been like in this cycle of change and rebirth, and how does it tie into processing grief?

Hannah: Songs have always been a format where I like to work out narratives to help me cope with the inexplicable. We've all gone through many changes and dealt with deaths, births, breakups, all the stuff. Music-making has definitely saved my lifetime and time again by giving me a tool to process these things. 

AC: One thing I've learned from the pandemic is the ability to be highly intentional with who I give my energy to, especially in times of deep loneliness. I'm curious to know how you were able to maintain and nurture your friendships (and this album) over the pandemic and what you've learned from it. 

In other words, what have you learned about friendship over the past year and a half or so?

Hannah: Yeah, I hear that. I think many people have had a reckoning with their work and interpersonal worlds, hopefully reaching higher ground going forward. 

Sometimes, when I'm going through periods of heavier depression, I tend to retreat. Sadly, I think I did a lot of that during the pandemic and lost touch with many people. Thankfully we as a band maintained a songwriting practice that had us Zooming once a week and sending song files pretty constantly. That connection has been so vital for me. It kept me synthesizing my feelings and maintaining a close bond with people I love, regardless of how deep in despair I might have been any given day. 

One of the hardest parts of my isolation was losing access to my people, and thus a part of myself nurtured by those friendships. I was in a bubble with my family and only getting to experience myself within my family dynamic. At the same time, the part of my identity I've been fostering for the past 20 years or so since I started playing music was a bit starved. 

I think I really took stock of how important a collaborative process is to who I am as a person. It's been such a relief to be together again, practicing for our upcoming shows. Lots of PCR tests, but so worth it.

AC: What have you learned from gardening? What have the plants taught you that you practice in other areas of your life?

Hannah: Gardening has been such a humbling experience during this time. Watering dirt day after day and not seeing immediate results, yet still pushing on. It's also a somewhat private endeavour, not tied to any social validation. I'm not a naturally patient person, so it's humbled me quite a bit. 

It took almost a whole year to grow this one cauliflower, and I just harvested it and shared it with the band after practice last week. It was very satisfying.

It's optimistic to focus on plants. They lean toward the light and definitely forced me outside a lot, and kept me grounded.

AC: You've spoken a bit about rituals and the practice of being immediately present. Do you have any rituals or practices that you could share with us? 

Hannah: I think the only time I'm truly happy is when I'm in a flow state. Not thinking about the future or past, not looking at my phone while in company, not fractured in my attention span. 

Music-making, gardening, cooking are all things that keep my hands busy and in that flow state. I've been working with ceramics lately, too. It's similar to gardening in that there's a lot of room for error, humility. It requires your body to be in the moment, totally present. I like doing things I'm 'bad' at for that reason. I like to try new things and maintain a beginner's mind.

Cold Beat

Instagram I Spotify I Twitter I Bandcamp

Malaika Astorga is the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Also Cool. She is a Mexican-Canadian visual artist, writer, and social media strategist currently based in Montreal.

---

Related Articles

Holobody Releases Shimmering Experimental Pop Album "Phosphorus"

Holobody by Laura Donohue

Fuelled by love, light, and an understanding that change is the only constant in life, Holobody has released his record Phosphorus, which has been eight years in the making. Released on his label Gusding, the project fulfills ideas dating back nearly a decade and brought to a head through Saturn's recent run in Capricorn.

Phosphorus opens up the world of Holobody for us, and it feels as if we're being transported through a world of shimmering crystal light, surrounded by flora and reflections of past lives, moving towards a higher self. The album has a light-hearted psychedelic electronic tone, reminiscent of early 2010s indie pop. Soft and gentle melodies carrying beautiful narratives serve as an ode to the archetypal muse, the lightbringer, morning star, recognized variously as Prometheus, Venus, and Lucifer.

Holobody (Luke Loseth) navigates through this iridescent juggernaut by transforming his songs into breathing ecosystems, drawing on pop, electronic, and folk traditions as inspiration.

You can support Holobody by checking out his website, and listening to Phosphorus on Bandcamp.

Malaika Astorga is the co-founder of Also Cool. She is a Mexican-Canadian visual artist, writer, and social media strategist currently based in Montreal.

---

Related Articles