We Need Surgery

The latest import to the Vancouver indie music scene is a group from Korea–well, sort of. Miso, Valentino, Jung Kyu, Paul, and Brandon are five guys from different parts of the globe that had a chance meeting in Korea, and to the benefit of music lovers around the world, formed a currently little-known band called We Need Surgery.

Since the migration west, the boys have already secured numerous gigs at notable small venues including the Biltmore Cabaret, the Railway Club and the Media Club. It is no wonder that their brand of pop rock mixed with intentionally repetitive, ultra simplified beats and rhythms has lit a fire that’s already captured the attention of the online community, local press, and fans around the world.

You guys formed in Korea, correct? How did that happen?

Valentino: These guys had a band called SunRadio–Brandon and Miso. He kept saying, “Come to my show.” One day he gave me his EP and one day I was sick, so I said I’d listen to it. [This was] six months after he gave it to me. I listened to it and literally jumped out of bed and I said, holy fuck this is amazing! I went to their next show and it was amazing. I went into the studio a week after that and We Need Surgery was born. The theory going into the studio was to make music ultra simplified–beat and rhythms completely repetitive the whole time. Sounds like techno, but made with instruments.

Brandon: We just started jamming one night and I think we wrote five, six, seven songs, or sketches of songs. And we called this club that SunRadio liked to play at frequently and said, “Hey we have an idea. We have some new music. Can we play a show this weekend”? Literally like five days later we played this show with the material we came up with that night. A lot of our SunRadio fans came and said, “We like this more than SunRadio”. So we just kind of went with it from there.

Why Vancouver now?

Miso: Well, we had a few options, moving to Portland or…

Brandon: We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. Why North America first? We reached our peak in Korea, we felt like. As mostly foreigners in the band, we weren’t going to get a record deal in Korea with a Korean company and not that many people abroad were hearing our music. We just thought if we’re going to go to the next level with our music, we have to get out of Korea and into North America.

Where did the band name come from?

Miso: That story that Brandon was actually telling, the night that we called the club, they asked what was the name of this new project we were working on and I said, “What do you guys think of We Need Surgery?” Everyone was like, “Done”. There was no debate.

Valentino: And it means nothing. Nothing political, nothing scientific, nothing religious, nothing cool, nothing dark, it means nothing.

You guys are recording your new album and took to Twitter recently to say that it will be a 1972 vibe.

[Band points to a paper on the wall with "1972" drawn on it]

Valentino: The concept for the recording of this album is “good takes”. No technology involved whatsoever, just good, solid takes. No cutting and splicing, no Auto-Tune. Just amazing takes and we’ll do a hundred takes and we’ll know when we get it. That’s the whole 1972 concept: is act like we don’t have the technology because the last demo that we recorded, which has been overwhelmingly well-received by people in Vancouver and people who listened to it period. That’s what we did for that EP. We don’t work well with too much technology.

What’s the process of writing, adding instruments, and recording for you guys? Is it very democratic?

Valentino: By democratic do you mean a dictatorship? [Laughs] Everybody does what they do best. Just be who you are, but do the best at that. The only thing that we dictate is, “I think you can do better”. We do what’s best for the music and that’s really the idea.

Prior to the new album you are working on, you released the EP Simon Says.

Valentino: It hasn’t even been properly released. We just kind of handed it out.

Brandon: People can just stream it online or download it. That group of recordings opened a bunch of doors for us. We did that in Korea very low budget and it just came out really good.

Paul: On a personal level, I think it’s the first thing we did where we weren’t sick of it a month later. A lot of times you do something and two months later you’re like, oh God, I don’t want to hear that again, you know? We hear this now, five or six months later, it still sounds fantastic. That’s what makes us most proud.

How does it compare to this new album you’re are working on?

Valentino: If it’s not better than the Simon Says EP, then we delete it. For example, Paul spent eight hours yesterday doing a bass track because we had to get it perfect and everybody in the room was totally aware of it. It wasn’t like, “Paul, do that again”. Paul was like, “I’m doing that again”. If you guys heard us in here yesterday, you would think that we are neurotic, insane people because the slight nuance of a difference between each take–you would’ve thought we were insane.

What are your thoughts on this whole digital phenomenon of spreading music?

Brandon: What I find inspiring about it is that we get people tweeting? No, tweeting about us from, like, Arizona that have never seen our show, they don’t know who we are, but they start sending us personal emails and tweets. That’s so cool to know these people found our music through some chain of events. It got to them and their home town somewhere around the world.

What are your long term goals?

Valentino: We’re constantly working. And even if we did, for example, get really big and we’re like Madonna status, I don’t think we’ll change. I still think the only way we’d be fulfilled is if all of us are together and working on music. So the ultimate goal is just to make great music for as long as we can. - Strint Magazine Interview by Joyce Quach

For a band that’s been based out of Vancouver for less than six months, South Korean dance-rockers We Need Surgery are doing very well for themselves. Already with a number of local shows firmly tucked under their belt and their EP Simon Says getting attention from local labels, they are clearly carving out a niche.

??Initially formed in 2007 as a three-piece, We Need Surgery is a collection of American, Canadian and Korean musicians that came together on the floors of Seoul expat bar rooms. As singer/keyboardist Miso Stefanac tells me from their East Van rehearsal studio, the first iteration of the band jammed “on a Wednesday, and had a show [that] Friday.” In the years that followed, We Need Surgery grew to a quintet, perfecting their sound and commanding the hips of locals and expats alike in a scene thirsty for original music. “There was a lot of bar-band weekend warrior shit going on,” says guitarist Valentino Avignoni, and with influences that include the Smiths, Killing Joke, the Rapture, !!!, Dinosaur Jr. and The Cure, their goal was clearly laid out: “We were like, ‘let’s get people dancing.’”?

?Their sound is a dynamic concoction, brewed from the widely diverse tastes of the five members. It includes a healthy mix of jangly guitars and soaring synth melodies married to a driving swing, and complimented by Miso’s dynamic and occasionally sultry delivery. Elements of rock, blues, new wave and modern Britpop can be heard and supply ample traction for the ears. “It’s all about balance,” Valentino explains, “we look at a song and [ask], ‘What is it missing? What does it need?’ And we add from the exact opposites of the spectrum.”??

This philosophy has yielded a carefully layered sound, accomplished with a sense of place and a loose instrumental hierarchy in which each band member fills a calculated, yet essential role. This is perhaps fitting for a truly international band. - beatroute.ca

I was blown away by the quality of this band. I have an EP called Simon Says and it is really good but it doesn’t capture the energy and the charisma that they portray when they play LIVE! The songs will crawl into your head and stay there until you have to play them in your stereo at loud volume.
A lot of bands and influences rushed through my head when I was watching at them, the first one was De Lorean, that Spanish band, but also some songs really remind me of The Strokes, so I guess their pop indie rock is between the electronic ambient of De Lorean and the guitar riffs of the Strokes. “Joy Division” says Miso, the singer “The Smiths” replies Valentino, other member’s answers start flowing “New Order, The Cure, Britpop, Donosaur Jr. The Velvet Underground, T-Rex, Spacemen 3, Stone Roses”. I saw them at the Biltmore and invited them to The Morning After Show a couple of weeks after that to know more about this indie band. Listen to the podcast and the exclusive interview they did with The Morning After Show hosted by Oswaldo Perez Cabrera.

The podcast has really good music, it started with Fond of Tigers and the song Vitamin Meathawk from the CD Western and Continent and then Mogwai from Scotland with the song Mexican Grand Prix. We listened to their whole EP Simon Says which contains my favourite song Stranger, Cocoon, Simon Says and Why does it have to be this way. But we also listen to EV with an anti Valentine’s song, Stars with my Wasted Daylight, Santa Lucia among other great songs during this podcast. We interviewed the band We Need Surgery, they were formed in South Korea, in the capital Seoul where these guys were working, only one of the members is from Korea, another one is from Vancouver and two guys are from USA and one from Ontario. “We felt we kind of reach the ceiling there so if we want to break through we had to come home” refers one of the guys. “To go further we need to come back home” They met through music, in open mics and music venues in Seoul. Miso and Brandon already met and played in a band called Sunradio, and the rest of the band came together in Seoul. The band already recorded a CD that will contain 11 songs at Nimbus recording strudio.

The name does not really mean anything, they just like the sound and adopted We Need Surgery. The band has been playing a lot of shows in the city, I saw them rocked the Biltmore, The Forum and I am pretty sure they rocked the Cobalt, they are winning new fans with every show.
Miso: Vocals/Synth/Guitar
Valentino: Guitar
Jung Gyu: Guitar
Paul: Bass
Brandon : Drums - vanmusic.ca