Montreal's
Pottery take a freewheeling approach to indie rock that borrows from cult heroes like
Devo, Orange Juice, and
Josef K and mixes in bits of garage rock, psych-rock, country, and whatever else they see fit with abandon. The band's energetic, genre-defying style fueled releases such as 2020's
Welcome to Bobby's Motel.
Pottery began soon after frontman Austin Boylan moved to Montreal and met guitarist Jacob Shepansky through a mutual friend on his first day in the city. The pair quickly bonded over shared loves such as
Josef K and began writing together; once they had a handful of songs, they enlisted keyboardist Peter Baylis and drummer Paul Jacobs, whose garage rock band Boylan and Shepansky had been fans of when they were in their teens.
Pottery began playing shows in February 2017 and recorded an EP's worth of songs with producer and singer/songwriter
Renny Wilson during a couple of days that June. When the band's original bassist departed that November, he was replaced by Tom Gould, an English native who was studying at McGill University at the time. The band kept a relatively low profile until December 2018, when they released their debut single, "Hank Williams." The first song Boylan and Shepansky wrote together, its jerky rhythms and angular rhythms stoked anticipation for
Pottery's debut EP,
No. 1, which arrived on Partisan Records in May 2019. For their first full-length, the band worked with producer
Jonathan Schenke at Montreal's Break Glass studio. Even more eclectic than
No. 1,
Welcome to Bobby's Motel appeared in June 2020.~ Heather Phares