With the group’s cited influences ranging from cubism, dadaism, Baltic disco, Italian soundtracks, and babbling brooks, the LP’s cover perfectly reflects the maximalist music assemblage contained within.

Born out of friendships first, Dr. Joy is the collaboration between celebrated songwriter/cosmic rider of the range Matthew ‘Doc’ Dunn and Toronto based psychedelic savants Mr. Joy – whose membership includes songwriter/visual artist Blob, Harrison Forman, Steven McPhail, and producer Asher Gould-Murtagh, all of whom are deeply talented multi-instrumentalists.

How did you get together?

Harrison: Well Brett, Asher and I met in high school in 2006. We all played music and collaborated over the years but it wasn’t until 2016 when I moved to Toronto and we started Mr. Joy. Steven joined soon after – him and Asher met through working together at this restaurant called Fresh.

Doc: I first came into contact with the Mr. Joy family through a few mutual friends and heads on the Toronto scene, probably circa 2016/17. Can’t recall if it was Sam Davis or Scarlett Rose or photographer & collaborator Laura-Lynn Petrick who put us in touch, but once the connections were made it was def kismet. Brett was working at local gear hub Pauls Boutique, and between that and a couple of local shows with The Cosmic Range band we all got to know each other and just struck up a good, positive rapport and vibe. Bonding over Acid Archives, British Psych, et cetera is always a righteous place to hang. We did a show or two together with my solo band, got together to jam and hang out and next thing we knew we were making a record, ha!

Brett: Ya we’d bump into each other when I was working at Paul’s Boutique in Toronto, I was already a fan of his band The Cosmic Range so we’d get to chatting a bit here and there when he’d come into the shop and at shows. I don’t really remember but I think eventually he just invited us up to his place to do some recording … It was pretty casual. I was just excited to hang and be playing music together … Maybe Doc knew we were making a record but it wasn’t really clear at first.

You’re very busy with your own careers outside of this project. Would you like to take a moment to talk about what’s currently in the works?

Harrison: I’ve been recording a folk album as Hieronymus Harry with Patrick Lefler (Roy/Possum) which is nearing completion. I’ve also been playing guitar in the Roy live band and with a few new groups that will be popping up later this year.

Doc: Lately I’ve been working on a new solo LP alongside both Asher & Brett that’s been a sprawling, widescreen project. Really hoping the record will surface later in the year. Also been finishing up some archival work from my old Transcendental Rodeo band, as well as some live Cosmic Range shows. And later this spring/summer I have a single coming out on the Subpop singles club. It is also co-produced by Asher and features my old pal J Mascis helping out on “mountaintop flamethrower” guitar on a track. I hope folks get a kick out of it.

Brett: I’ve mostly been taking time to focus on my visual art practice and making paintings since the record came out … sitting on some other recordings I’d like to release but no definite plans about any of that for now.

I would get your record just based on the cover artwork! It’s fantastic. Who made it?

Harrison: Our resident multimedia artist Brett Zadravetz made it! He’s done all the album covers and music videos for Mr. Joy as well. He’s been producing a bunch of excellent paintings these days.

Brett: Ya that was me, Steven helped too when we were making the collage. We went to this cool antique market here in Montreal and bought some old comic books and fashion magazines to cut up for it. I think we made it over dinner and some drinks at my apartment that evening, haha. I finished the rest of the artwork later but me and Doc had been talking about doing something technicolor and discussing different cover design ideas for the LP as we were recording so the idea was already sort of there … It was fun to make!

Doc: I love the artwork as well. Brett did a FANTASTIC job. Think it’s almost as important as the sonics. But that’s just me haha.

“We just set out to jam, record and see what would happen”

What can you tell us about the songs on the record? How did you approach songwriting?

Harrison: For this record, a lot was figured out through jamming on little ideas we came up with beforehand (a chord progression, a sample, et cetera). We recorded the jams and sculpted the material to create key structural points in the songs. So a lot of the form came into play afterwards. There were very few group discussions about what the album was gonna sound like, or even that we were beginning to record an album. We just set out to jam, record and see what would happen. Most of the material came from a couple sessions we had together, though a few tunes required a fair amount of overdubbing, which mainly took place at our homes because the pandemic had hit by that point. Songs like ‘Signed, the Body Electric’ and ‘Midtown’ were behemoths in this regard. Asher did a great job collaging all our parts together though and these ended up being some of our favourite tracks from the record!

Brett: Ya the raw material was mostly improvised, but it was Asher’s approach to capturing and layering all of that which I think makes the record sound so unique.

How do you manage to create a palette of such a diverse sound?

Harrison: There were a variety of factors at play, starting with where the ideas came from. Starting a song with a chord progression, samples, or just jamming were all on the table from the get-go and all yielded different results. Everyone showed up to the sessions with whatever instruments felt right to them, so the instrumentation ended up quite diverse as well. We recorded at Doc’s old house, which was such a treasure trove of instruments already. There weren’t any attempts to workshop a “sound” before recording – we instead set out to discover the sound through the act of recording. From the beginning, the project was meant to be an experiment and I think the result really reflects that.

Brett: Not to sound pretentious but it’s kind of just what we do, especially when we’re all together. I love making weird sounds and I think the rest of the guys do too so it’s not unusual for something we work on to be so sprawling. Maybe to a fault?

Is your material set in stone by the time you record, or is it an ever-evolving process? Are there any songs from your past that you’d like to revisit or rework?

Harrison: Definitely the latter for this record, though we’ve done things differently on other projects we’ve worked on together. I don’t think there’s anything of ours we’re particularly interested in reworking, but we love hearing other people’s remixes of our music! We definitely feel like many of our songs could have gone many different directions. We explored this recently on the Mr. Joy EP titled ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’, which was actually released alongside a remix EP, ‘!sey !sey !sey’, where Moon King, Zones and LordAUK remixed songs off our EP. There’s been talk of some Dr. Joy remixes, but nothing’s materialized yet.

Brett: Ya I don’t know if it’s intentional but our recording process always seems to drift off more into the endless searcher side of things rather than working towards some concrete idea. Can yield some interesting results for sure but can also be frustrating at times. I think each time we’ve finished a recording project we end up vowing to never approach it that way again haha

Have you ideas that refuse to step through the door with you? And what do you do with those sketches?

Brett: Mmm … I mean there’s stuff that didn’t end up on the Dr. Joy record that we tracked but typically it just goes to a vote if we’re feeling skeptical about any of the material.

How’s this last year under lockdown been for you? Have you found the isolation creatively challenging or freeing?

Harrison: My life got uprooted in all sorts of ways throughout the pandemic. I got renovicted from a beautiful house in Toronto and ended up living in an old trailer out in California for the winter last year. It was a pretty unproductive time for me creatively, but a very inspirational and transformative time nonetheless. I’ve been settled back home outside Toronto for a while now though and having lots of alone time with my instruments and recording gear has been positive for sure.

Brett: A bit of both in some ways, I’m still playing guitar on the regular but I do find it hard to sit down and have the motivation to finish something on my own. I have a lot of half finished and half recorded work at the moment … mostly I just miss playing with my friends.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favorite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Harrison: Lately I’ve been really loving the Holger Czukay and Jah Wobble collab albums, ‘Full Circle’ and ‘Snake Charmer’ for some great psyched-out disco dub jams. ‘Music by William Eaton’ has been another one on rotation a lot in the past year – a very cool New Age solo guitar record. And as always, I’ve been making my rounds through Woo’s discography. They’re one of my biggest influences for sure.

Brett: Mmm most recently that Joni Mitchell Mingus LP … the second track is called ‘God Must Be A Boogie Man’ and that one’s really been doing it for me … that and a song called ‘Love Is Like Oxygen’ by the band Sweet.