Interviewing Toronto's The I Spies was one of the more surreal experiences I've had leading up to North by Northeast. On a three-way call with singer/guitarist/keyboardist Johnny Kay (in his kitchen "cooking up a whole mess of farfalle pasta") and lead guitarist/singer/keyboardist James Roberston (on his cell being chauffeured around town), I found myself in the middle of an arsenal of snappy one-liners and in-jokes that one might expect from a comedy troupe.

That's not to say that their music is a joke by any stretch of the imagination. The I Spies deliver powerful guitar-fueled pop songs reminiscent of the early days of new wave (Television, not Culture Club). With energy to spare and hooks galore, their debut album, In the Night, stands as testament to a local act ready to take on the world.

"It's killer," Robertson concedes (with maybe just a slight, barely noticable trace of irony), "just listen to it, it speaks for itself."

First stop on their tour of global domination is Reykjavik, Iceland. The band is currently plotting dates in Northern Europe this fall. Autumn will also bring another record from the TO quartet (filled out by Steve Payne on bass and Markus Saks behind the drum kit). "We have an EP we're probably going to be following up with maybe toward the end of the summer, if not the fall," explains Robertson. "We're working on that right now. We're going to continue; we just released our first album but we already got some new material coming out soon."

A big fan of the first record, I tell Robertson that I'm looking forward to the new one, to which he quickly replies, "As am I."

The I Spies play [the] el Mocambo Saturday night at 10 PM as part of NXNE with We Are Wolves, The Two Koreas, and The High Dials.

Photo of The I Spies by David Waldman

Related links:

• The I Spies Website


• The I Spies MySpace


• North by Northeast Website