For many, a strained romantic relationship can be a scary situation. It’s a topic that Toronto-based PONY – the power pop group featuring singer/guitarist Sam Bielanski and multi-instrumentalist Matty Morand – brought up on their song “Haunted House,” off their latest studio album Velveteen, which came out in May.
“This song was initially inspired by the first season of American Horror Story,” the band says. “We were doing an episode of our podcast 2MUCHTV about the season and that’s how this song was born.”
Earlier this fall, just in time for the Halloween season, the band released a remixed version of the song featuring MSPAINT.
“Last fall we toured with Militarie Gun and MSPAINT and we quickly became obsessed with them, so we asked [MSPAINT keyboardist] Nick [Panellaf] he would be interested in remixing one of the songs on Velveteen,” says the band. “He picked Haunted House and truly gave it a new life.”
The song opens with Bielanski singing “My boyfriend is dead / I met him when I moved into a haunted house / Lingering in bed / It’s all his fault that I turned into a ghost.” Later they sing “I’m tangled in memories I thought I forgot / Tied up in your mess with a thousand knots / And I’m tangled in memories I thought I forgot / Tied up in your mess with a thousand knots.”
The band also used another fictional audiobook version of British author Margery Williams’ 1922 illustrated childrens’ book The Velveteen Rabbit as inspiration for the album’s title and lyrical themes. Bielanski, who was experiencing a nine-month struggle with insomnia, turned to the audiobook and instantly resonated with the book’s story which explored feelings of existential dread or worthlessness as well as self-acceptance and vulnerability.
Around the same time, they were faced with isolation created by Covid-19 lockdowns. So, not too long after releasing their debut TV Baby in 2021, the pair decided to make the most of it by challenging themselves to write a song each week. They ended up writing over 200 songs. They eventually culled that down to ten tracks for Velveteen, showcasing a band further growing its sound and ability to create impactful lyrics. The album was also inspired by hours of self-reflection, literature, and television, and its songs explore the complex relationships between longing, connection, and being true to oneself.
Bielanski recorded many of the album’s demos on an iPhone in their closet due to a neighbor wanting things quiet. It’s the same space they’ve used as a vocal booth for voicing animated character Jazz Hooves in recent episodes of My Little Pony.
Galloping PONY
Scummy Water Tower caught up with the duo earlier this year to talk about the band’s evolution from their early days, why The Velveteen Rabbit was such an impactful story and how their songwriting challenge helped them hone their craft.
You’ve been playing together for a handful of years. What’s the story behind the band’s name?
Bielanski: We tried a lot of names and Pony just fit the vibe. I also feel like a Pony is a state of being and I feel like once you’re in PONY, you’re ready for a party.
How did the band originally form?
Bielanski: The band formed originally in 2015 after I had graduated from a musical theater program. And I wasn’t really getting much work in that field, so I kind of just wanted to do my own thing. So, I started the band with a couple of people that I knew in Toronto who were also making music. Matty joined the band in 2018, and that’s kind of when the band really became what it is, and we started writing songs together.
How do you think the band’s chemistry now compares with when you first started?
Bielanski: When I first started writing songs, I did not really know what I was doing. I kind of thought that writing a song was lightning striking, so I was like, “Oh, maybe I’ll write four songs this year,” or something like that. And my abilities as a songwriter and musician were pretty minimal, but Matty is very talented, so working with someone who’s really good at what they do kind of pushes you to try and be the best you can do.
Morand: I think we both complement each other very well, and I’m always seeking to just do what’s going to suit this song and what’s going to help elevate Sam’s songwriting. Whereas in the past, prior to me joining PONY, it was kind of a band with multiple songwriters and that sort of thing. To me it just kind of seems like a different band prior to that. It really becomes Sam’s vision with the first record, sort of, TV Baby.
Sonically, how do you think the band’s sound has grown most compared to your debut album?
Morand: I think we leaned into just a lot more of our influences in general. When we were making TV Baby, it felt more like PONY had to exist within the confines of being sort of grungy rock band sort of thing. We didn’t get too meticulous with the production and that sort of thing. And this time around we spent a lot more time on that sort of stuff. A lot more time on guitar sounds and extra instruments and just building up the songs. So, I think the songs feel sonically richer than they did the first time around.
Bielanski: We both love pop music, so we learned a lot about producing during the pandemic…which we are really fortunate to be able to do. We were able to take all the stuff that we learned and apply it to the new record. And I think it’s a cool mélange of our old techniques and the new stuff that we’ve learned.
Sam, you’ve done voice work for My Little Pony. What’s that experience been like, and how has it impacted your songwriting and your view of this band?
Bielanski: It’s so cool. It’s definitely my favorite job I’ve ever had, other than the band. I was an actor out of work for many, many years, and during the pandemic my agent was like, “Well, you’re not touring right now, so how about I start submitting you for some more animation stuff?” And I had to do several rounds of auditions for My Little Pony, and I didn’t get any of them, and I was like, “Ugh, that sucks because that would’ve been so cool.” And then a month later I got the call that I had been booked for the show, and it’s been a really cool experience.
I don’t know how much it’s impacted my songwriting, but it’s definitely been cool to use my voice in a new and different way, and experiment with my voice. To do storytelling with your voice in a different way other than singing, has been really cool. So, I feel very blessed to get the opportunity to do that and be involved in the show.
I imagine that it’s given you an added boost of confidence that helped out with everything.
Bielanski: Absolutely. It feels cool to be in a band called PONY and also be a pony on TV. It feels like everything is right in the world now.
You’ve recorded a lot of the voiceovers and demos in your closet. What was it like recording in that manner?
Bielanski: It’s kind of cool and kind of weird because you’re going to work, but you’re just taking a step inside of your closet, and then you log on and everyone’s like, “All right, let’s get down to business.” And then 15 or 20 minutes later, you’re done work for the day and you’re like, “Okay, that was awesome and really cool.” We demoed the songs a lot during lockdown, and I don’t even think for a moment, we took a break from writing and demoing.
Morand: No, definitely not. It was the most productive songwriting time of my life, for sure.
Bielanski: We were so busy prior to the pandemic with multiple jobs and multiple bands and tours and just the hustle and bustle of life, that having the opportunity to write a song felt very precious to me at least. And very high pressure. But having so much time at our disposal during lockdown was really great for being able to write a lot and make a lot of songs and make a lot of bad songs.
Morand: When you’re making a record, you have to write a lot of songs that really suck …
Bielanski: Really suck.
Morand: … to get to the good ones.
You chose to record in your closet so it wouldn’t be too loud for your neighbor. Can you talk about that?
Morand: We had a terrible roommate situation. We moved during the pandemic into an apartment building, and when we saw it, nobody was living downstairs. And then the day that we moved in, somebody else moved in. And it was just an extremely unreasonable situation where she called the landlord because we were folding laundry at 2:00 PM once, and it was like, “You guys are being way too loud.” I think we were listening to a podcast playing off of an iPhone and folding laundry.
Bielanski: She forced us into the closet. But you learn a lot about your abilities as a singer when you have to sing incredibly quietly for nine months. And when we started practicing again for playing live shows, I was like, “Whoa, my voice has changed because I’ve spent almost a year singing so quietly,” it was hard to get those muscles back to sing live again because I had trained my voice to be quiet.
Many of the songs on the album were pulled from a self-imposed songwriting challenge where you wrote over 200 songs following the release of the band’s debut album TV Baby. What led you to wanting to challenge yourselves to something like that?
Bielanski: So, about half of the songs on the record are from the challenge, but I think that we both saw lockdown as an opportunity to grow and use the time very wisely. We decided to challenge ourselves to write as many songs as we could because we knew that it wasn’t going to be forever. So, we had to take advantage of the time.
Morand: We had also both mourned the loss of live music pretty early on. I was like, “Okay, well, this is probably not coming back, looking at the way things are now. I can’t really see how this could feasibly be a thing again. So maybe we need to pivot the way that we make music or what we do with music and just try to really focus.” Our songwriting was a part of that.
Was it something that you knew right away that you wanted to write a song a day or was it something that revealed itself over time?
Bielanski: Well, we wanted to start a podcast and the song challenge was a part of that. And our main mission with the podcast was to kind of demystify songwriting and show people that you can write a song about anything, and the song doesn’t have to be a masterpiece for it to be a valid piece of art. And so that was kind of the goal that we had set, but then it kind of morphed into this journey of us growing and becoming just different songwriters than we were.
For the songs you wrote for the songwriting challenge, how would you describe your songwriting technique?
Bielanski: It’s hard to say because after a while of writing songs all the time…I would choose a key and I’d be like, “All right, so I’m writing my song in F Sharp,” and then I would choose a BPM, and I’d be like, “I’m not straying from that,” to kind of challenge myself further. To not overanalyze and not be overly critical of the song that I was writing, just to get it done and write a song and finish a song and not be too precious about it. The process would change a lot, but we would use television shows as prompts. So, there was always some sort of context beforehand, which I think made it a little easier, but sometimes it also made it a little harder.
Morand: I think the approach changed pretty often. Some weeks I would be coming into it, “Oh, I’m going to try to play drums on this,” like actually play drums rather than use a drum machine or whatever, or “I’m going to try to write a song in this style.” It was a lot of trying to venture out of what we normally do or what was normally considered a PONY song.
Bielanski: And most of the time because we couldn’t play guitar in the house. I would have to write my songs on a keyboard on my phone. So, a lot of the songs, even the songs on the record that weren’t from the challenge started off that way, which I think is kind of cool and interesting because that’s definitely not how I wrote the first record.
Morand: Shout out to GarageBand for iPhone!
Bielanski: That saved my life.
Were most of them written in your room?
Morand: We have a little home studio space that we’re in right now, that’s where we do most of the demoing and that sort of stuff.
Bielanski: We would each write a song, so we would kind of separate into different corners of the house so that we could both be little … I don’t know, like little scientists working on our silly songs.
What are some of your favorite stories during the songwriting challenge?
Morand: I think that one of the coolest aspects of that challenge and the way that the record came to be, is the song “French Class,” which Sam wrote in GarageBand on the phone. And a lot of what’s on the record is the same parts that Sam played. We exported just the MIDI files and whatever and brought it to life…and you can really see the evolution from the bedroom demo to the finished product.
What were some of the biggest things you learned about yourselves writing so much?
Morand: I learned that I love tambourine. I didn’t know that before.
Bielanski: I learned that if you are afraid or intimidated about something, you should just try it anyway. Because for so long it was like, “I don’t know anything about production. I don’t know anything about arrangements.” But then you can just try, and you don’t have to do things in the industry standard way. You can make a song on your phone, and it can be very scrappy, and it can be very DIY, and it can still be a good song. And also, it doesn’t have to be the final product, that can just be a jumping off point. So, I think I learned to not over criticize where I’m at in the process of songwriting because things change and things evolve.
Morand: I think I also learned to sing. I really wasn’t good at that before, and I think I’m a little better at it now.
How did you go about compiling songs for the album from the large collection of songs you created?
Bielanski: I think just the ones that we were like, “Damn!”
Morand: So, half of the record was made outside of that, and that was just demos that Sam had already that we then reworked. But going through the songs from our songwriting project, it was like, Sam made a SoundCloud playlist of them, of just the ones that on initial listen, we were like, “Oh yeah, that could be something.” And then we all sat with that for probably a couple months. Just seeing what ones suck, what ones felt like they could be something, what ones inspired you to want to work on it. And I don’t remember which song it was, but one of them kind of hit for me first one day when I was just hanging out at home and was like, “Okay, this one’s going to be …”
I think it was “Who’s Calling?” And we just started putting together the demo from that. So, it was all a kind of a trial-and-error thing. Process of elimination.
Being able to look through them, I imagine you saw songs that fit with each other.
Morand: It was kind of odd because the songs that Sam had demoed that we were working through all, they’re quite stylistically different from how they end up on the record, and quite stylistically different from each other in the first place. And I’m not really sure what the commonality between them was.
Bielanski: I think it was just the ones that would get stuck in our heads. And we’d be like, “Oh, that’s good.”
Morand: Exactly. That’s what bonds them together, is the ones that you find yourself humming later on. Those would be the ones that we were like, “Okay, well maybe we have to come back to that. There’s something there.” But some of the original demos are pretty wacky.
Bielanski: Yeah, they’re pretty goofy.
Morand: They mostly start out kind of as synth pop songs.
Bielanski: Yeah, like lo-fi, kind of synth pop.
Morand: None of it is really a rock song in their original form.
The British children’s book The Velvet Rabbit had a big impact on the album from the title to its themes. Sam, it sounds like a long stretch of insomnia led you to listening to the audiobook version. Can you talk about that challenging period and what led you to that specific book?
Bielanski: I was listening to this sleep podcast, and I was not sleeping, so I enjoyed listening to episodes of the podcast that were a full story instead of just a snippet of a story, and so that was one of them. I just would listen to it, and I just kind of fell in love with it, and how kind of tragic it is. It was really resonating with me at the time about how this little toy rabbit, all he wanted was to be real, and he was willing to sacrifice all this pain in order to be loved by this child. I just thought that was very beautiful and sad. And then he becomes real because of a magic fairy, which to me seems very ridiculous. But I guess, it is a children’s story.
Morand: I think that maybe what resonated so much about it was that we were in this time of isolation and pretty serious self-reflection, and it’s a story of self-realization. He becomes real because he opens himself to love from another person, basically.
Morand: And regardless of whether he’s truly a real living rabbit or not, his perception of himself is what makes him real.
Bielanski: It’s just a cute little story.
Morand: A cute, little, deeply depressing dark and twisted story.
Bielanski: Deeply depressing. The scene where he realizes that he’s not like the other rabbits, that just gets me every time. And it just really speaks to the human experience. We all know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, but it does happen.
Morand: It’s hard not to.
Bielanski: It happens naturally.
Morand: It’s also, from having made this record and talking about it so much, a lot of people have been like, “Oh yeah, that story was very traumatizing to me as a kid,” or stuff like that. So, it seems like a lot of people had some kind of reaction to this story.
You were kind of desperate to try to find a new way to try to deal with your insomnia. Do you think that’s what led you to the podcast?
Bielanski: Oh, yeah, absolutely. We still listen to that podcast pretty much every night. We just listen to different stories.
Morand: We mostly just listen to Chapter 22 of Little Women now.
Bielanski: Because the thing with Velveteen Rabbit is, I was listening to it so much, I was becoming… well, first of all, obsessed with the story, and then I was becoming very emotionally attached to the Velveteen Rabbit. And then I would just listen to the full story, and then cry, and then I’d be upset in the night, and then you can’t be upset in the night. So, it was just a vicious cycle, that’s still happening. But whatever, you live, you learn.
What was a moment in the book that really resonated with you?
Bielanski: I definitely think the scene where the Velveteen Rabbit is confronted by the other two rabbits, and he’s so sure of himself that he’s real, but they’re like, “Nah, bro, you can’t even jump. Your legs don’t even work.” And he’s like, “No, I swear, I’m real. I’m real.” It just wrecked me. It wrecked me.
Why do you think the story is so relatable during these current times?
Morand: It’s always a journey of self-realization and trying to figure out who you are and what makes you real.
Bielanski: And it’s very hard to love yourself. So, I think that just really the story of just wanting to be loved.
Morand: Self-acceptance. And being vulnerable.
Many of Velveteen’s lyrics focus on the complexities of relationships, including longing for someone, connection to someone, and being true to yourself. What was like making these discoveries and why do you think those are important things?
Bielanski: I think that when you’re growing up, you kind of, at least for me, tend to lean more on the side of people pleasing. The more and more you tend to conform to what other people expect and want from you, the more and more you lose of yourself. But the time away, and the time that I spent just truly believing in my abilities, and being okay with the way and who I am, felt more comfortable. And so, I feel like I was on this journey of self-realization myself. Not trying to think too hard about what other people want or expect from me was very freeing. So, I think that’s kind of where that all comes from.
What was your inspiration for album opener “Tres Jolie”?
Bielanski: That song was one of the last songs I wrote for the record. And I was reflecting on when Matty and I first met, and when you fall in love with someone for the first time, you feel almost like you have this superpower. And you’re so healthy and you’re so mentally well, and you’re like, “Oh, wow. I’m right where I need to be, and this person loves me, and I love this person so much too.” And you’re kind of floating and levitating, but then your mental illness finds a way to creep back in. And so, it’s just kind of about maybe feeling like you can deceive yourself into thinking that you’re maybe doing better than you truly are because of the love and how good it feels.
What was the most surprising song to write?
Morand: I think, one of the ones for me was definitely the last song, “Haircut.” That was one that Sam had probably made a demo of in 2018. No, 2019?
Bielanski: I wrote it during the pandemic, like right at the beginning.
Morand: It was one that had been kicking around in a pretty loose form originally that I liked a lot. I really liked the vocal melody and kept being like, “All right, when we make the record, we have to go back to that one.” And it ended up being the one that we worked last. So, by the time we got into the studio, it was the least refined. And I came into it a little worried about the outcome. All of the other ones, we had a pretty clear image of what it would look like. And when it came time to work on it, we were working with our recording engineer, Alex Gamble, who is the number one recording engineer in Toronto, in my opinion.
The only person I would go to in the city. We love Alex. He just kind of encouraged us to try whatever we wanted, and to just go with it and stick with what works, get rid of what doesn’t, and just rock with it. We had the song mostly done, and there was just a little something missing. Alex had us go back to the demo, and we found this little synth part that Sam had played on it originally, that we played through a Farfisa organ, which Alex really wanted us to use.
Bielanski: He was like, “We’ve got to get that Farfisa on there. We got to use the Farfisa.”
Morand: And just the way the song came together at the end, it ended up being one of my favorites on the record. I think it’s different from some of the songs we’ve written. That one was a surprise for me. It had a long journey.
Bielanski: Because originally you wanted it on the record and I didn’t, but then I re-demoed it because I lost my original demo, and then I liked it, and then you didn’t really like it. And then we went to the studio. It was one of those things where we’re like, “So, I guess we’re going to work on ‘Haircut’ now,” and we’re all kind of putting it off. But then it was really cool to see how all of our ideas came together, kind of like a little collage to make the song what it is now. And it’s definitely one of my favorites too. It’s cool.
Morand: It felt good, after so much of the record being very nitpicked and reworked and reworked at home and whatever. Like 9 of those 10 songs, we came in with a very clear image of what it would be.
Bielanski: The vision was there. We knew exactly what we wanted.
Do you think you might revisit some of the songs that didn’t make it on the album in the future?
Bielanski: Absolutely. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned through this whole experience is that you can really rework things and change things and take things from other places. And just kind of like, no idea is really a bad idea because you can always mix it up, change it up.
Morand: You might make a song that you think is garbage and then you go back and you’re like, “Oh, well maybe I could use that bridge.” And then the bridge just pops into something else and the whole thing comes together. So, none of it is wasted. We’ve already been working on some newer stuff.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
