{"id":960621,"date":"2026-11-06T14:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T14:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/960621\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T14:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T14:24:12","slug":"vancouvers-piss-makes-itself-heard-by-turning-pain-into-something-brutally-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/960621\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver&#8217;s PISS makes itself heard by turning pain into something brutally beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"http:\/\/newsletter.straight.com\/subscribe\/?utm_source=straight&amp;utm_medium=article\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"http:\/\/newsletter.straight.com\/subscribe\/?utm_source=straight&amp;utm_medium=article\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Sign up for our free newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">As PISS is a project very much rooted in personal trauma, one of the strange things is how a past horror has led to countless positives. On the front of things to be grateful for, there are many.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The members of the Vancouver quartet\u2014singer Taylor Zantingh, guitarist Tyler Paterson, bassist Gavin Moya, and drummer Garreth Roberts\u2014are living the kind of hurricane dream most bands never get to experience, especially those that fall under the umbrella of unapologetically extreme. Two and a half years ago PISS played its first ever show, taking an unsuspecting audience by surprise at Vancouver\u2019s Red Gate Arts Society. Looking back to that time, Zantingh recalls the band having a goal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWe were like, \u2018Can you imagine if we got to play in Toronto one day?\u2019\u200a\u201d the singer says with a laugh in a video interview with the Straight. \u201cThat was literally one of the early conversations that we had.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Everything that\u2019s happened since that night suggests PISS was aiming a little low. As 2026 enters its dying days, the band has just unleashed its debut album, with you made me \/ skin on linen hitting global record stores on Sub Pop, the Seattle label responsible for more than one pop-culture palace coup, starting with Nirvana.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Recent weeks have seen a spread in England\u2019s standard-bearing The Guardian, and a New York Times video feature titled \u201cWe Still Need Riot Grrrl\u201d. The U.K.\u2019s venerable New Music Express tapped PISS for its flagship digital feature The Cover, which spotlights emerging bands from around the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Backing up to before the hype, PISS quickly built a reputation in Vancouver for live shows that mixed flamethrowing noisecore with sampled recordings and shock-therapy spoken word.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Because the band\u2019s songs deal with subjects including personal trauma, sexual violence, and systemic misogyny, performances start with trigger warnings, with support available on site. As one might expect from that, shows played out like personal exorcisms, with Zantingh seemingly intent on purging the demons inside. The singer is, magnetically, the centre of the onstage storm, often dropping to her knees, screaming, with her trademark long braided locks flying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">To see PISS is to witness art at its most raw, visceral, and cathartic, the band\u2019s sets short and brutal, audience members often reduced to literal tears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Sometimes music truly matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cAfter we played a few shows,\u201d Zantingh says, \u201cit became pretty clear to me that, if we can be put in a room with people\u2014the people we are supposed to reach\u2014we will reach them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Rather than be content playing the Vancouver underground circuit, PISS began touring, often exhaustively, building a following organically. Conventional thinking is that a band releases a record before loading into the tour van. With PISS the only warning the world got was a handful of demos on Bandcamp and a couple of guerrilla-style live videos on YouTube. That was enough. The live shows did the rest, establishing PISS as a must-see act in the global underground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt took me by surprise that we\u2019d be able to tour as much as we have,\u201d Paterson admits. \u201cWe\u2019ve honestly been lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Video of PISS &#8211; time loop at hot slit (Official Music Video)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Flash forward to today and PISS continues to be a rarity: a Vancouver underground band that\u2019s blown up beyond Vancouver. Seattle\u2019s mega-influential KEXP radio station recorded the band live in-studio, with the performance racking up over 190,000 YouTube views in the two weeks since its release. (Sample comment: \u201cThis is literally the first time in my 45 years a song has made me cry when I\u2019m sober.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Positives? Too many to count.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt kind of feels like riding a roller coaster,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cAt no point did any of us expect to get to this point. It\u2019s been very surreal, but I\u2019ve just tried to stay as grounded as possible, and be grateful for the opportunities that we\u2019ve had.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">But even as PISS has become one of the most important bands to ever come from this rain-soaked city, it\u2019s not lost on Zantingh that there is a cost. Imagine not only tapping into your worst traumas on a daily basis, but doing it night after night in front of people who are, for the most part, complete strangers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">PISS is a lot. And sometimes that\u2019s draining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThe resistance you\u2019d expect\u2014trying to get people to come to your shows, trying to get people to invest in your project, trying to get people to talk about your project\u2014it felt like we didn\u2019t face any of that,\u201d she says of the ascension of PISS. \u201cBut it\u2019s almost like we\u2019ve traded the usual grind and slow slog that bands have to do for the physical toll that the project takes on me\u2014the emotional vulnerability. Like I traded for something intangible. That the more I suffer, and the more that I push myself, the more that I sacrifice, the more that I give, the easier that it has been for us. So, for me, it\u2019s constantly trying to find where that line is for myself so it\u2019s sustainable. And so I can protect myself a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>        Grace Gignon <\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">AT THE RISK of understating things, you made me \/ skin on linen (released on Paper Bag Records in Canada)\u00a0isn\u2019t the kind of record found in the easy listening section of your favourite record store. (For the in-joke there, see PISS\u2019s Bandcamp page, where the \u201cfile-under\u201d tag suggests the band has more in common with Michael Bubl\u00e9 than Converge or the Blood Brothers).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">At first listen you made me \/ skin on linen\u00a0sounds like a red-alert emotional meltdown in real time, Zantingh howling and panting, seeming to grasp for words while her bandmates traffic in full-bore no-wave chaos. At just 42-seconds, \u201ca little girl\u2019s horse craze betrays her\u201d is warp-speed hardcore at its most condensed and brutal, while \u201ctime loop at hot slit\u201d serves apocalypse-now punk with a lethal dose of blind range.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">But get beyond the album\u2019s doomsday bass and drums and scratch-acid guitar violence, and it\u2019s clear that PISS is also shooting for something more than nonstop aural terrorism. Check out the way \u201ci wanted to be a singer\u201d swings from grey-skies postrock to nail-bomb metal, and then back again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">There are moments of painful reflective beauty: see both \u201cblocking a scene you can\u2019t remember\u201d and \u201ci keep trying to change the ending\u201d, each astonishing in different ways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">But mostly you made me \/ skin on linen is a record that\u2019s uncompromising, unrelenting, and entirely impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Quite understandably, Zantingh tends to get much of the attention with PISS. That\u2019s going to continue with the release of you made me \/ skin on linen.\u00a0 To ingest her lyrics is to have it driven home that the project has been an outlet for working through some things. Start with the record\u2019s second track, \u201ci wanted to be a singer\u201d, which has her screaming \u201cI don\u2019t know if writing about violence is helping me\/Am I helping you?\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">What follows on you made me \/ skin on linen is often harrowing, from \u201cI was 10 years old and learning blow jobs on a glue stick\u201d in \u201ctime loop at hot slit\u201d, to \u201cDo you ever get flashbacks of the bed springs squeaking?\/Do you respect the power of liquor and Oxycontin?\u201d in \u201chow can you act opposite to this emotion?\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Zantingh, quite fairly, won\u2019t discuss the specifics of her lyrics, noting that past events are now even walled off to those in her personal life. Listen to the songs, pay attention to the audio samples, and then feel free to bring your own experiences to the table.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt\u2019s very easy for me to make the art and share the art because I have all the control over it,\u201d she allows. \u201cI have crafted things down to the syllable. But I also choose not to share details about things, only because I\u2019ve never really found it to be helpful to do so. I\u2019ve never gotten positives by sharing details\u2014it\u2019s only ever made me feel more alone. Words spoken in conversation cannot accurately describe the weight of what happened. That\u2019s why I make art.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>        Grace Gignon <\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">She does feel it\u2019s necessary, however, to make it clear who the lyrics aren\u2019t about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI want it to be clear and on the record that I didn\u2019t write any of these songs about my parents,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">As is the case for many of us, it would seem not everything was perfect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt\u2019s tricky to talk about, and I think if it\u2019s something that I was to talk about, then I would talk about it in art in some way, because these things are so complicated,\u201d Zantingh offers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Perhaps a way to frame things is that, no matter how much our parents try\u2014and by that, we\u2019re talking about every procreator on the planet\u2014they aren\u2019t going to be perfect. No human being is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Reflecting that reality, Zantingh says, \u201cI struggle to talk about my parents because I know that they did the very best that they could. I love them and have so many great memories from my childhood. I just don\u2019t know to talk about it all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">She acknowledges that, as is the case for many of us, she\u2019s been shaped by the people who raised her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI learned a lot of really beautiful and important things from my family members,\u201d Zantingh shares. \u201cMy dad is a super-articulate and passionate person who definitely never has any problem speaking his mind, whereas my mom is a very soft-spoken person who can empathize with literally anybody. I think that contrast definitely informs how I move through the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Indeed, the person we see onstage with PISS isn\u2019t the same person in an interview situation. Like Paterson, Zantingh is thoughtful but easygoing and chill, laughing often.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Those same traits would prove important when PISS got down to thinking who they wanted to work with for their debut. you made me \/ skin on linen was produced by Victoria-based Colin Stewart, a much-respected veteran who normally works with less abrasive acts like the New Pornographers, Dan Mangan, Yukon Blonde, Brasstronaut, and Veda Hille.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cOne of the main reasons why we worked with Colin is we had an incredible meeting with him even before we actually went over to his studio,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cHe really put all of our minds at ease.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Video of PISS &#8211; blocking a scene you can&#8217;t remember (Official Music Video)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The recording took place over five days just after Christmas in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWe did the majority of the album live off the floor,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cThat was always the approach we wanted to have going into it\u2014to capture the rawness and live energy as best we could.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Stewart understood what PISS was after sonically, the main goal being to capture the spontaneous energy of the band\u2019s live show in the studio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cAll the vocals are one consistent take,\u201d Zantingh says. \u201cThere was no punching in to fix mistakes, because it\u2019s very important to me that my breath is an instrument on the record. If it sounds sometimes like I can\u2019t get the words out, then I can\u2019t get the words out. That\u2019s the way I wrote things\u2014it\u2019s supposed to be a struggle, and sound like a struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The songs that would become you made me \/ skin on linen weren\u2019t new to PISS. The band had been playing them live\u2014both in Vancouver and during constant touring\u2014for the better part of a year when it entered the studio. But as much as PISS left a trail of newfound disciples every time it loaded into the tour van or hit Green Auto, there\u2019s sometimes a difference between being told you\u2019re doing something great and actually believing it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt\u2019s strange to look back on the mindset going in to record,\u201d Zantingh reflects. \u201cIt really was a transformative experience for me. I remember early on, writing PISS songs with Ty, and being nervous to tell him my ideas when it was just the two of us. I was really anxious. And so I had really bad imposter syndrome being in the studio\u2014having all these ideas while we were working, but being really afraid to voice things, and going, \u2018Maybe that will be stupid.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cBut by the end of the five days,\u201d she continues, \u201cI really got to feel this sense of, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m a musician now, and I\u2019m allowed to be here. And I am here because I\u2019ve proven myself\u2014and I don\u2019t need to feel so insecure all the time.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">On that level alone, you made me \/ skin on linen represents a triumph. She acknowledges that, over the years, she\u2019s had her share of dark days filled with doubt and self-loathing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI graduated high school and then spent a lot of years doing nothing with my life except being severely depressed, working at Home Depot and living in a basement apartment,\u201d Zantingh shares. \u201cWhen I was in high school, I wanted to, like, be a perpetual student, because I love reading and studying and learning. But then, you know, trauma and depression do crazy things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">At one point, she decided she wanted to leave Home Depot behind. Her sense of self-worth got in the way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI can remember thinking that I should apply to be a waitress, but then not doing it because I thought I wasn\u2019t pretty enough,\u201d she recalls. \u201cNever mind the fact that you do not have to be a model to be a waitress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The blackness didn&#8217;t stop with the self-talk.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;I definitely was in a very, very, very destructive\u2014really self-destructive\u2014time for like five to seven years, I would say, of my life,&#8221;\u00a0Zantingh says. &#8220;I always feel like my life has been like literally crawling on my hands and knees out of a hole that I was pushed into. And sometimes it has felt, I guess, nihilistic, where it feels like, &#8216;Okay, this is never gonna get better.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Eventually things did. She enrolled in Sheridan College in Ontario, earning honours in the Bachelor of Creative Writing and Publishing program. That, along with time at Durham College and internships at literary journals, would open up a whole new world of thinking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI was like, \u2018Oh, wait, I can actually do all this stuff,\u2019\u200a\u201d she says. \u201cIt was suddenly all about having corrective experiences, which has been my passport ever since. Whenever I feel like I can\u2019t do something, I\u2019ll seek a corrective experience. And by that I mean if I have a belief that I can\u2019t do something, I find a way to get an experience where I prove to myself that I can, and then those types of things become easier after that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Like, for example, making you made me \/ skin on linen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;I feel like I&#8217;m definitely not in that place anymore,&#8221;\u00a0Zantingh says. &#8220;But sometimes when I think about the things like the way that I used to treat myself, and also treat people around me, I feel very sorry for myself and\u00a0my past self. And grateful that I&#8217;ve come as far as I have.<\/p>\n<p>        Grace Gignon <\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">PRIOR TO PISS, both Zantingh and Paterson had been in bands. Zantingh was a member of the Ontario punk group Doctors Hate Her, where even though she sang and played guitar, she wasn\u2019t involved in the writing of the songs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cIt\u2019s not like I was consciously going \u2018You\u2019re not good enough to write a song,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s more like I didn\u2019t even try because it wasn\u2019t a possibility to me that I could make music because of my skill set. I took writing very seriously\u2014I was studying at university and writing poems\u2014trying my best to write good poems and stories. But the textural and sonic elements that are part of music, that\u2019s never been a language for me the way that it is for Ty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">While country music and Top 40 were played around the house when she was growing up, Zantingh parents weren\u2019t particularly musical. Paterson\u2019s mother and father were, however, signing him and brother up for piano lessons as kids. When piano stopped being cool for them, a drum kit, guitar, and amp arrived one Christmas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWhen my parents realized how into music me and my brother were getting, I remember my dad took it upon himself to run out to HMV,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Now I need to school the kids on music\u2019, and getting us a bunch of CD by the Buzzcocks, the Clash and old Black Sabbath.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Paterson played in a long succession of Vancouver bands, often serving as the primary songwriter. Collaborations included playing wingman to Vancouver singer-songwriter Riun Garner; on the 2020 single \u201cWrote Myself Off\u201d, the pair sound like disciples from the church of Sufjan Stevens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">PISS started with Zantingh and Paterson connecting at Vancouver house parties. Zantingh was living in Victoria, but thinking about abandoning the West Coast and returning to Ontario. Paterson was finishing up a degree in film at UBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Both drew up a playlist of artists they found inspirational, starting with CRASS, Swans, Coughs, and homegrown Vancouver agitators Mutators. If one thing binds those acts together, it\u2019s that they sound like the terrifying end of times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI was finishing up four years of film school, and I had really been taken with the idea of sound design and recording as well,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cAnd I think that also informed a lot of the direction that we would go in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The inspiration for PISS didn\u2019t stop with music.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cA big catalyst was going to a poetry reading that Tay did one night,\u201d Paterson remembers. \u201cIt really blew me away. She\u2019d only shown me slivers of her writing up to that point, so it was a really incredible experience getting to hear her recite her work live. It kind of rewired my brain as to what this project could be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">When a roommate moved out to go back to Japan, Paterson suggested to Zantingh that she move in rather than going back to Ontario. The two began sketching out song ideas, committed to the idea that the only rules they would play by would be ones of their own making.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cTay started sharing a doc with me\u2014a kind of general outline of what PISS, and what a possible album, could be,\u201d Paterson shares. \u201cShe didn\u2019t have lyrics on it\u2014they were more sort of vague concepts\u2014like the duration of a song, or the general mood of a song. I really loved that\u2014it was kind of a jumping-off point to go bury myself in my little bedroom studio and experiment with things. There was a lot of excitement and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">At first PISS was just Zantingh and Paterson, free to build songs around whatever they pleased, whether that be audio clips of feminist activist Andrea Dworkin or French philosopher Manon Garcia, or abstract sheets of guitar violence. Realizing they\u00a0were onto something, they brought in Moya on bass and Roberts on drums to form an actual band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWith bringing Gavin into the project, I\u2019d known him for years,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cI knew that he would gel well in the project because he\u2019s such an open and down-to-earth person. We had a few meetings with Gareth before we even went into the practice room. It was like small steps to see how well we all gelled as a group before we went the full mile. Very quickly, we all clicked and got along so well. The atmosphere was just comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">But there was also another factor at play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cSomething that goes along with making music about trauma is that you have a traumatized person that you\u2019re in a relationship with, who has trauma symptoms sometimes,\u201d Zantingh says. \u201cThere\u2019s been a learning curve for all of them to sort of understand what it is like to live with mental illness and to have, sometimes, emotional regulation issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Indeed, PISS is a safe place\u2014one where Zantingh feels supported by people who care about her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cFrom the beginning of the project, it\u2019s been about making sure\u2014even before we were playing shows\u2014that there was a support system for Tay and that she\u2019s always comfortable in what she\u2019s doing,\u201d Paterson says.<\/p>\n<p>Video of PISS live under oak street bridge<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">AS YOU MIGHT\u00a0have noted, the Paterson and\u00a0Zantingh tend to describe PISS as a project with multiple components rather than a band. That&#8217;s in some ways tied into the idea of community\u2014which in turn speaks to community being one of the most\u00a0crucial support systems for anyone who&#8217;s gone through trauma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWe always considered PISS as having three main branches,\u201d Zantingh says. \u201cThere\u2019s the music\u2014and now the album\u2014being music and poetry as the first part. And then there\u2019s the art project, including the visual art for the record being the second part.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The cover art for you made me \/ skin on linen is a reproduction of a quilt the singer worked on in real life, the centre panel being a dancer caught in mid-flight, shown from behind, arms flailing, with long blonde braids flying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThe art project was a month-long process that definitely took years off my life,\u201d Zantingh says with a laugh. \u201cEssentially, I really wanted to explore the themes on the record in a visual medium. I\u2019m not a visual artist personally, but I liked the idea of surrendering control for the visual aspect of the album.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The process was indeed involved. For the centre image, Grace Gignon, a photographer friend of Zantingh who also shot PISS for this feature, took pictures of the singer dancing in a studio. The photo was then given to an artist, Emma White, to interpret and abstract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWe have the record and we gave her the photo,\u201d Zantingh shares. \u201cShe made a drawing of the body with some imagery from the record, and was asked to abstract the body in some way. So she kind of bent the arms a little bit, and made the dancer look broken\u2014like someone slipping away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">That drawing was given to a painter, who was given the record and the same instructions as above.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cShe created a painted collage with different images laid on top of each other, and cut the body in half,\u201d Zantingh says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">All these provided a template for the singer to get quilting by hand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI sourced fabric from thrift stores\u2014different elements that reminded me of pieces through that whole project, and also themes on the record. So have wolves, although they are supposed to be dogs, and horses and clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In the end, what the quilt, and album, signifies, Zantingh suggests, is different communities coming together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI liked the idea of passing my body, through art, into the hands of different people, and having it change over time,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then having to pick up these different pieces and make something out of them for our album cover. There were couple of of hiccups that I won\u2019t got into detail about, but I\u2019m very happy with how it turned out. There\u2019s a lot of heart in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The idea of community also factors into the third branch of the project that is PISS: the live shows where, in addition to trigger warnings, community an activist groups are invited to set up tables to provide information and support on issues important to the band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThe last part is the performance, Zantingh says, \u201cThere\u2019s the performance art element of it on stage, but it also includes the way that we take care of our audience and the environment at our shows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>        The people of PISS (left to right): Gavin Moya,\u00a0Garreth Roberts,\u00a0Tyler Paterson, and Taylor Zantingh. Grace Gignon <\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Zantingh says that navigating everything that\u2019s happened over the past couple of years has been at times challenging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI think maybe that a lot of survivors of sexual violence will understand that sharing your story, even with people you know really intimately, is very often met with criticism and being picked apart and questioned,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve noted a lot of parallels between me sincerely telling my story in a literal way to friends in my life, and also the experience of getting on a stage and sharing my story with strangers who you don\u2019t know, and who you have no trust with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Finding time to write new material has been almost impossible thanks to PISS being constantly on the road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI\u2019m a person who needs a lot of quiet and boredom in my life to create anything,\u201d she says. \u201cI need a lot of solitude, which I\u2019m not getting at all because I\u2019m either in a van with three people at all times, or I\u2019m trying to catch up with people who I\u2019ve been missing when I\u2019m home. So I haven\u2019t written anything in a serious way in over a year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Even though you made me \/ skin on linen was only released days ago, there is a very valid question of where PISS goes from here with its next record. The songs on the debut are, after all, ones they\u2019ve been playing nightly, always in the same order at shows\u2014the reason for that having everything to do with curating an experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">On the music side of things, Paterson can see PISS evolving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWhen we\u2019ve talked generally about what the next album would look like, it\u2019s been about having a very different approach,\u201d he says. \u201cSomething distinctly its own that\u2019s in a new direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Lyrically, Zantingh has ideas, but stresses that, at the moment, that\u2019s all they are.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI know the subject matter that\u2019s interesting me right now, and it is in the same world, same book, and the same chapter,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">For now, there are also positives\u2014many of them. Some are quantifiable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cI love being on tour\u2014it\u2019s something that I\u2019ve always wanted to do,\u201d Paterson says. \u201cI\u2019m very excited to be on the road, experiencing new places, meeting new bands, playing so many cool venues. But also having the time to pause and take a breath and really ground myself and be grateful for how far we\u2019ve come.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">And then there\u2019s what PISS has become, including a beacon for anyone who\u2019s ever had an experience that\u2019s left them scarred. A project that started out rooted in trauma has become one that\u2019s about healing. And while that process is ongoing, at least there\u2019s progress\u2014something that should inspire us all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cPISS has been the healthiest relationships that I\u2019ve had with men, like in terms of friendships, in my entire life,\u201d Zantingh says. \u201cTo have three men approach me with so much openness and respect for my artistry is huge, especially when we\u2019re talking about this record. It\u2019s the complete opposite of the types of relationships, or experiences, that I\u2019ve had in the past. It\u2019s been a corrective experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In \u201ci wanted to be a singer\u201d, Zantingh howls, enraged, \u201cI spent my life trying to turn my pain into something beautiful.\u201d Mission accomplished. With the warning that she\u2019s just getting started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletter. \u00a0&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":960622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[76,49,48,8497,569,16291,75,1048,1187,1554,2998,890,341,13117,3560,404,348,55],"class_list":["post-960621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-arts","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city","tag-culture","tag-dining","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-food","tag-lifestyle","tag-music","tag-nightlife","tag-restaurants","tag-shopping","tag-tv","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}