Meat the Vegans Aim to Conquer

How did the Meat the Vegans form?

Well, it’s a bit of a long (and totally believable) story, according to Whitehorse guitarist and vocalist, Michael Anderson.

“Meat the Vegans was formed in a test tube experiment from mold and grease in the mid 70’s,” he says. “Once the incubation process was complete, the doctors operated to separate us, as we were conjoined by our heads. We were each sent off to different families and were unaware of one another until we all somehow ended up in the Yukon where we were reunited about 18 months ago.”

Featuring Anderson, Simon Charles on guitar, Alex MacKay on bass and Steve Jacob on drums, Meat the Vegans’ brazen, up-beat brand of rock has been lighting up various dance floors around Whitehorse for the last year, resulting in a steadily growing fan base.

“Our sound is like a full-course meal with meat as the main course,” says Anderson, “This is why we refer to our audience as ‘Meatheads’… we do love our Meatheads.”

In February, Meat the Vegans will be riling up their biggest dance floor yet as they open for one of the hottest events all winter: the Frostbite Music Festival. As a group that writes original, harder-sounding rock music, Anderson says it’s great that they been accepted to play at Frostbite.

“We are the opening act, so it’s up to us to bring up the energy of the night right off the bat and settle the audience into a night of music and dancing,” he says, adding, “It’s exciting that new people will get to hear us play.”

Meat the Vegans will be releasing their brand-new, four-track EP at the festival. Recorded in Whitehorse by Laurie Malo, the EP features songs from the group’s up-coming full-length album.

“Thanks to Laurie, we will be able to achieve a really professional quality sounding recording,” says Anderson, adding that the group has been very deeply focused on the recording process. “We become very particular about quality at this stage… The recordings are permanent so if it’s not just right, it can come back to haunt you every time you listen to it in the future.”

Maintaining a strong work ethic combined with a sense of fun is important to the members of Meat the Vegans, who state that they prefer to focus on the quality of their music and meeting their own standards than creating a commercially viable sound.

“Personally, [my philosophies] are probably not the best for becoming commercially successful,” admits Anderson. “I’m not a fan of the bigger pop music stars. Bubble gum, repetitive cookie-cutter arrangements do nothing for me and I am only interested in writing music that I would listen to myself.”

Bassist Alex MacKay is right there with him.

“There’s lots of crappy auto-tuned computer-generated crap on the radio, so we don’t need to do that,” he says. “We should always have a good groove, quality guitar playing and thoughtful lyrics. Basically we shouldn’t suck. If something sucks we just want to get rid of that right away.”

Once the new album is released, Meat the Vegans plan to tour as far as time and budget will allow.

“Our first area to conquer will be Vancouver Island,” says Anderson.

After that they hope to film a music video for one of their songs.

But for now, the next thing on their to-do list is convert some new music lovers into Meatheads at Frostbite.

For more information and updates from Meat the Vegans, check out their webpage: www.Facebook.com/MeatTheVegans

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