By: Sheena LyonnaisSeptember 22, 2008
I am having a long-distance love affair with Montreal. Every now and then the city dares me to betray my long-term lover Toronto in lieu of something a little more eccentric, a little more theatrical and a little more risqué. Usually I keep my ground by staying true to my one and only, but sometimes the offer is a bit too much.
“It’s got highs and lows and its our first full-length so we’re very excited,” White-Gluz said. “We recorded with Howard Bilerman at Hotel2Tango in Montreal. He helped us with the recording and helped us out, and now we have a great team helping us with the promotion.”
We caught Bad Flirt when they played Toronto’s Virgin Fest, an appropriate venue to promote the October 7 release of their correspondingly (but unintentionally) named album. The show fell just one month short of their upcoming headlining little tour.
“Little? It’s like 90 days or something like that!,” keyboardist Evan Dubinsky chipped in. “In October we’ll do a lot of Canada and then in November and December we’ll do most of the United States, at least 20 states. I like to do at least half at all times. Fifty is a little much.”
Bad Flirt already has a good following in the States. Having successfully completed a North American tour in May and even once winning an obscure competition where they became Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen’s favourite band for five months. Bad Flirt headed to the States to film videos and interviews for the twins, but eventually the glory faded.
“They literally are like little children who get new toys and then get bored of their toys and get new ones,” Dubinsky said. “It literally took five months for them to not care at all. But for those five months, boy oh boy did they ever care. It was really flattering. It was great just to be well liked by such an important duo of girls, but they lost interest.”
With all this touring, the topic of Europe and overseas comes up revealing an uncommon little secret for a traveling band.
“I have to be 100 per cent honest, the reason we’re not going overseas is because of me,” White-Gluz said. “I have a huge fear of flying. I hate flying. I can’t stand planes, I can’t go near them, I can’t go on them. I freak out. I have a feeling this fear is really deep.”
“We made a deal if we get a huge stadium deal in Europe she’ll go,” Dubinsky said. “Our dream is to support Lenny Kravitz on his fall tour, his big world tour, if we could support that tour we’d go to Europe, but otherwise we won’t.”
The new album of indie-pop madness is said to take on a dialogue about innocence, inspired by a 90s sitcom about youth and childhood memories. Their website doesn’t specify the true source of inspiration, but the idea seems ironic and interesting for a band called Bad Flirt.
Check Out Bad Flirt at Tiger Bar on October 9, just two days after Virgin Talk drops. We’ll try to be there, will you? For now hear their tracks at www.myspace.com/badflirt .