In Conversation: Nora Kelly
Photo credit: Joseph Fuda
The Nora Kelly Band’s set at Sled Island was stunning. The band was funny, charming, and knew how to take themselves seriously when the music demanded it. They were playing at Pin Bar on 17th Ave in Calgary, a bar with—you guessed it—pinball machines, about eight of them in a small room to the right of the stage. Nora and I agreed to interview after her set, by which point I’d drunk two tall cans of PBR and had grown quite sweaty from all of my head-nodding and slight swaying. I found her near the back of the room, introduced myself, and we agreed to meet on the patio shortly after she finished up at the merch table.
Before Nora became the alternative country star she is today, she was in a band called Dish Pit. “Dish Pit was kind of a post-punk band,” says Nora. “We were very heavily influenced by Slint and Riot Grrrl, but I always liked country music, especially Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams. I always really loved the outlaw country stuff.” The transition between the styles wasn’t difficult for Nora; she noted she was never classically trained on guitar, so much of her writing for both punk and country involved messing around and figuring things out on her own. She also noted that both punk and country have thematic similarities, often emphasizing political messaging and humour.
The Nora Kelly Band came together during COVID, when its current members had limited options to entertain themselves. “During COVID, there was a pretty crazy lockdown in Montreal. It was basically for two years you had to be home by 7:00 p.m. It was very isolating, so a group of my friends and I would get together by the train tracks near our apartments and play country covers. It was very organic. We loved the songs we were writing as a group, so we thought we should record them.” Nora said that she usually started the songs by herself, writing the melody, lyrics, and guitar part. Later on, she would bring them to the band, where everyone would add their own touch. “I love to keep it pretty loose with the actual structuring of the song. Everybody has a good level of input around how it's structured and the dynamics.”
The Nora Kelly Band has been touring recently, hitting up famous Canadian cities such as Victoria, Nanaimo, Squamish, Rossland, and Nelson. The day after their Sled Island show, the band was heading to Edmonton to perform at the Starlite Room along with Pastel Blank and King of Foxes. “I’m excited to play in Edmonton. We have this 10-year-old fan who is adorable, and for whatever reason, she regards me in the same light as Taylor Swift. She’s found photos of us on the internet and bootlegged Nora Kelly Band shirts. We’re hopefully gonna get her on stage to sing ‘Horse Girl.’” What are Nora’s touring routines? “I wanted to be the girl that, before every show, took half an hour to meditate and do vocal warm-ups, but so far I haven’t done that a single time. It’s really just like big happy family vibes; everybody gets hungry and has to pee at different times, so you’re kind of at each other’s whim. But the crew is so much fun. I’ve been surprised at how enjoyable it’s been because sometimes it’s been a bit of a slog.” What’s been her worst tour experience or show? “Last time we went on tour, we had a wild moment in Brooklyn. There were maybe seven people who came, and the venue was very strange. They wouldn’t let us drink from our water bottles inside. At the very end, our drummer, Ethan, was like, ‘I’m gonna get our money now.’ He goes to ask the guy at the door and the guy is like, ‘I guess you can talk to the boss.’ He had to go through five different doors to find him, and when he got there, it was a big round table of a bunch of dudes smoking cigars and playing cards. It’s like full mob. So he asks for the money and they’re like, ‘You sold seven tickets, you don’t get any money for this show,’ and then Ethan is like, ‘No, we had a door deal, you owe us like $100.’ The guy gets really grumpy and is like, ‘Fine whatever we’ll get you your money,’ so he goes to get it, and Ethan pulls out his lime green yo-yo and just starts stimming with it ’cause he’s so anxious. It was worth it, though.”
Nora’s been writing songs for 15 years now, and she said she’s changed a lot over that time. “I feel I’m getting a lot better at not hiding behind things. I always feel like I had a persona that I kinda hid behind, and I feel like this project and these songs are finally kinda myself.” I was curious how Nora thought her personality came out consistently in her songs, because they cover a wide range of scenarios, such as being a salt miner, and more blatantly personal topics, such as dealing with imposter syndrome. “‘Salt Mine’ is a metaphor, but I like that it ties into the bigger theme of the record, which is like smashing the patriarchy. I’m a female songwriter, but as a younger person I think I embodied a lot of these stereotypes that men deal with. Like you need to keep things to yourself, you need to not burden anyone with your problems, you need to be stoic and be tough. So a salt miner is kind of like the epitome of that, the classic ‘tough guy.’ I think people, men and women, are brought up to believe that to be a cool, strong person is to be really detached and never vulnerable.”
However cool a salt miner may appear, it’s not a career Nora hopes to pursue. “My day job is that I’m an illustrator for magazines, but I’m actually going back to school in September for psychology. I just really like to help people. Like, I love playing music—it’s so much fun, and it helps me to work through my emotions—but I think it could be really awesome to kind of clock in and feel like I’m contributing to society.” For a moment I talked to Nora about my experience being a songwriter, and if in some way it’s selfish to be a musician instead of, say, a psychologist or a doctor. “I think honestly it is ‘selfish,’ but I think it’s okay to be selfish,” says Nora. “It’s your life and you only live once, so you should do what you want. I don’t think it should discourage anybody from following what they love. But I do think it does become a little exhausting going back into yourself, mining for more ideas, more epiphanies, sometimes even more pain. I think songwriting, depending on who you are, can be a little masochistic. And I do think there’s no better feeling than knowing you serve others in a productive way.” Does she see her own songs as a way of helping people? “I do feel like there’s a thread between a lot of these lyrics where it’s like a lesson that I’ve learned or one that I’m learning recently. It’s kind of like my process. I feel like at the end of the record you get to a lot of moments on the map of the past few years of my growing up. Like realizing you have a power you didn’t have when you were younger.”
Listen to The Nora Kelly Band’s new record, So Wrong For So Long, wherever you listen to music, and if you’re a nice person, go buy it on Bandcamp and support some Canadian music.
