It wasn’t long ago that a beloved Montreal band, Silly Kissers, laid down their instruments. While this may have been disappointing at the time, it’s important to recall what our mother’s told our childhood selves when things didn’t go our way: every cloud has a silver lining. This time, that lining can be found in the fact that three former Silly Kissers band members have reunited, along with a little fresh blood, to form Tops. “Silly Kissers sort of came to a head in the spring” explained Jane Penny, the band’s vocalist, and a graduate of McGill University, in a phone interview with The Daily, “and then we still wanted to make music, but it was a really nice opportunity to kind of take it in a different direction, and sort of do something that is more relevant to what we are into now.”
And thus, Tops was born. Joining Jane and her former foolish smoochers, David Carriere and Thomas Gillies, is the bands new drummer, and former McGill student, Riley Fleck. “He’s a really good drummer and his contribution has been really good” Penny explained.
While there may be a significant overlap with Silly Kissers in terms of members, according to Penny, the overlap in sound is fairly minimal. “Silly Kissers was electronic, and this isn’t, to put it simply. But also, I think there are different influences now.” While the differences may be clear-cut, the Tops’ aesthetic remains “a little difficult to describe.” “I think we started out with soft rock because, in all manners of speaking, what we’re doing is rock music, but I don’t think we really feel an affiliation with rock necessarily.” Like its music, the band itself has taken on a new life of its own. “It’s really collaborative, we all write the songs together, and it’s really rehearsal based… It’s more of a band” Penny laughed.
For this relatively new Montreal music outfit, performing at POP is a welcome proposition. “It’s really a show that everybody can go to and everyone knows about,” noted Penny. “I’m really hoping that we get to share what we’re doing, cause I feel like it’s really reached a point of development where it’s ready to go.”