Q-and-A: July Talk capture drive-in shows, health struggles in new documentary

TORONTO – What was supposed to be a 10-minute short film about July Talk’s drive-in concerts at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic grew into a full-fledged documentary that traced the band’s formation and a health crisis for one of its members.

In the summer of 2020, therock act’s lead singers Leah Fay and Peter Dreimanis wereplotting two concerts at an Ontario drive-in theatre. The visual spectacle was set to play out live to a sea of cars and be projected on two giant movie screens behind the stage. But something was amiss.

“Maybe 10 days before the shows, we started noticing that I was losing weight,” recalled Dreimanis, who is also the Toronto band’s keyboardist, in a recent phone interview.

“We didn’t understand what was at stake or what was going on.”

Dreimanis soon learned he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, a surprise that rattled July Talk’s members as the drive-in shows fast approached.

The dramatic turn colours “July Talk: Love Lives Here,” a new black-and-white documentary from filmmaker Brittany Farhat that debuts at Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival on Wednesday, with an additional showing on Friday. It will play single-night screenings in select Canadian cities this June.

The film uses July Talk’s drive-in shows as the framework for reflecting on the band’s origins and contemplations about their future in the face of a changing world.

Fay and Dreimanis paused during a recent tour stop to speak with The Canadian Press about the documentary, Dreimanis’ diabetes diagnosis and the health of the music industry.

CP: While most documentaries serve as a time capsule, yours is a significant moment for the band that you couldn’t have anticipated. How did this project come together?

Fay: Brittany Farhat is someone we’ve known in the Toronto music scene for like 10 years and she’s always made great work as video director BrittPaperScissors. Her plan was to make a 10-minute short film. She was there on our first visit to the site and so many rehearsals. And it went from being “Maybe it’ll be like a 10-minute thing” to giving her the reins to make a feature-length documentary. We gave her a box of like 40 hard drives of footage of the band since we started (more than a decade ago). She sifted through everything and made sense of a lot of it.

CP: The film captures you both confronting the unknowns of Peter’s health issues. What’s it like to look back on that period?

Fay: The first few times we watched the film it became clear some of the trauma that was going on (amid the pandemic). Peter having this new diagnosis that we didn’t really understand at the time was a lot of information to learn quickly when we had never been more busy. Type 1 diabetes is a real life-changer, it shifts everything. We got so lucky there were no health emergencies on stage. We were able to see the drive-in as this moment where we made the most out of this album release and bringing people together. It was so joyous and beautiful, but it really was a marker in time.

CP: Peter, you learned about your diabetes as plans for the 2020 drive-in shows moved forward, but how closely were these two things intertwined?

Dreimanis: I took my first insulin shot at the rehearsals which were two or three days before the shows. We had very limited knowledge about what we should be doing. And that became very clear in the months following the shows. I ended up having a hypoglycemic seizure in October 2020. Leah revived me using an emergency glucagon (injection, a treatment for severely low blood sugar). You can imagine once we understood those stakes, looking back at this documentary experience, (we realize) that could have easily happened on stage.

Fay: When I watch the drive-in performances, I’m so grateful that we had those two shows, because that really was a coping mechanism for Peter and I, and I think everyone in our band. We didn’t really get to play for all of 2020 and then the fact that we got to still have these two performances, in the midst of one of the most complicated times in our entire life was just a godsend.

CP: The documentary does a good job of capturing just how significant those performances are to the band. There’s something about it that feels magical.

Dreimanis: I don’t think anybody working on that drive-in site either of those two nights was searching for their purpose. They knew their purpose. (Outside the circumstances of the pandemic,) all of the crew would’ve been so busy with other work and never have been able to contribute three and a half months of their time. We all came together like a family. We understood the vision of what we wanted to do.

CP: Peter, there’s a point in the doc where you point out that the drive-in shows could financially ruin you if they don’t go according to plan. I’m assuming that didn’t happen. But how did you fare? Did you turn a profit?

Dreimanis: Definitely not. I cannot recommend the drive-in (concert) business to anyone. We were trying to film a nine-camera concert in a way that everyone was safe (from catching COVID). So we lost money on it. But it wasn’t that we thought it was going to be some big payday. We had to work our tails off since and get paid less. Our audience has been extremely loyal to us and is made up of a bunch of folks that are really invested in the culture around the band. And we’re very lucky to be able to sell merch and get on the road again. But it’s a tough time — any band will tell you that. It’s been hard to make the numbers match. I feel that asking a teenager to come up with $500to see their favourite bands is a pretty tall order. You can’t ask someone to pay a month’s rent to just go see a music festival. It’s not sustainable.

CP: I can see that argument, but at the same time teenagers seem to be paying $500 to see artists on the level of Beyonce and Taylor Swift. From your perspective, as a rock band that works largely in the Canadian market, what does that mean for your future?

Fay: When I talk to my peers, we’re not really sure how this is going to go. I think that there needs to be a reconfiguring. Our band started at a time when we never got to see album sales as the thing that’s going to help you buy your home in the country or a down payment on a house. So there’s a weird love-hate relationship with things like streaming and social media. There were times in the pandemic when it was like, “Can I even call myself a musician? I haven’t played a gig in many months.” When it feels like it hasn’t necessarily come back, I think a lot of us are thinking, “OK, what else can I do?”

CP: Are you looking at doing things other than music?

Dreimanis: It’s already kind of started to happen. On a subconscious level, we know that the jig is up and that we’re not going to be able to make a full living in the music world alone. Leah has golden hands, we always say. She can do anything, she’s incredible at making clothing. I do my best to get as much film work outside of the band as I can handle. What’s unfortunate is that we probably will have to prioritize that kind of work because it’s lower expenses (compared to touring). That’s the bottom line. We understand that our jobs are not something to be counted on. It’s been precarious for some time. We definitely couldn’t do what we do without the funds made available through Factor, the Canada Council and Starmaker fund. But I’m very proud to say that on top of the grant funding, we are a profitable business. We worked very hard to keep that being the case.

— This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 2, 2023.

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