band of the month

Somebody saying the quiet part.

Partway through "SICK OF IT!!", the singer leaves the stage. Jubs has a goofy telephone mic and a habit of dropping into the mosh pit, getting knocked around, then working toward the back of the room, where the people who haven't joined in yet are standing. Jubs walks right up to them. Hi, I'm here now. Nice to see you. Welcome to the show.

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Julie Olive, who goes by Jubs, grew up in Sylvan Lake and came to music through classical piano and violin. The lessons were the one thing Jubs was good at and couldn't be bullied for, and so they stuck. Writing started later: folk songs performed online, then learning to produce, then pop.

None of what Jubs was making made sense to her solo, so she asked every friend at college who could play anything to do a show, and then another, with the lineup changing along the way. Today it's a five-piece: Bernard Almero on lead guitar, Maria Bustos on keys, Milo Clarke on drums, and Carter Randall on bass. With a band behind the songs, the pop turned into rock.

Most of them are classically trained. Maria arrived by way of Colombia and Quebec, then studied composition at the University of Calgary.

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The name goes back to how it felt to start. Jubs felt scared and awkward on stage at first, and the whole band carried that unfamiliarity but willingness to try. SHY FRiEND fit. It has since grown into an invitation: shy, outgoing, or somewhere in between, you're welcome here.

They carry a mantra: to be cringe is to be free. Making things and being honest about them is scary by nature, and Jubs leans into that discomfort on purpose. Milo's read on it: you can always look back at something you made and call it cringe, but the cringe grows out of sincerity, and nobody regrets having been sincere. Ten years from now, nobody in the band expects to wish they had been less themselves.

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The songs start with Jubs caught in a feeling. The idea gets followed as far as it goes, anywhere from four and a half to even seven minutes, then sent to the band with one question: what do we think?

Every song comes from personal experience one way or another. Sometimes the story gets pushed a little wilder so the song can be bigger. Jubs is loyal to what a song means more than to the exact facts. When the emotion comes through clearly, each player can work out how that particular feeling sounds on their own instrument.

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For a first listen, Jubs calls the genre scumpop. A little grimy, a little nasty, still femme, fruity, and upbeat.

"Freaky Nightmare" is probably the one to show anyone who asks what the band sounds like. Carter plays it both fingerstyle and slap, with a short solo break in the second verse. Bernard, more used to classic rock, had never played a progression like it, or a lead part like it either. Then there's the opera part. At the album release in Calgary, the person filming only realized partway through a pan that the voice was Jubs.

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Jubs hopes people who listen feel listened to. And they want it to be a party, first of all. But under the party is something quieter. A lot of shy people feel they can't really express themselves, and Jubs wants them to hear somebody out there saying the quiet part. The reaction she's hoping for: yeah, no, actually, that's me.

Before SHY FRiEND, Bernard played guitar mostly alone at home, making excuses not to join a band. About five shows in, at Rockin' 4 Dollar$, the energy ran so high Bernard couldn't contain it: too much in the crowd, too much coming from the band, too much to keep up with. Bernard's advice now is to put yourself out there.

Jubs's advice runs the same way: don't wait until it's good enough. You can practise in your room forever and still not be used to people staring at you. The only way to get used to that is to get up in front of them.

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The session is four songs: "NEVER BEEN A SINNER", "is this what i've been chasing after?", "Pillow Meets Head", and "No One, No One".