SPILL FESTIVAL FEATURE: NXNE 2026 – SPILL MAGAZINE PRESENTS 5 QUESTIONS

SARAH JANE RILEY | LAUREN CARSON | BBQ POPE | BACKCHANNEL | EMMETT JEROME | WOLFVILLE | ELEVEN MINUTES LATE | XAVIER SOLIS | GADFLY

ARTIST NAME: SARAH JANE RILEY

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

My favourite thing about a festival like NXNE is, it’s a very cool snapshot of a musician’s career. SO many artists who have very successful careers such as Billy Talent, The Arkells, Daniel Caesar, Feist, the Weeknd, Sam Roberts, and Lizzo have showcased at NXNE in rooms to modest crowds. These success stories lays the framework for current artists in the industry to follow and expand their careers.

2. What should we expect from your live show?

Fun, weird dance moves, braids, hair clips, climbing on tables and bars, head banging, leg kicks, colour, lights, making core memories. My live show is a very high energy rock and roll show with a flair of pop melodies that keeps the crowd extremely engaged and having a lot of fun. A mix of excitement, unexpected surprises, and my show keeps the audience engaged for the entire performance.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

Every band member shares the same birthday.

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

I like animated movies, so I would write the soundtrack for the lion king but make it hard rock.

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

This is a tough question, but I would have to choose Bruce Springsteen because I really love the BOSS!

ARTIST NAME: LAUREN CARSON

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

NXNE crams a wild amount of music into a tiny window, and that’s the magic of it. You wander into a venue for one band and stumble out three hours later with four new favourites you’d never have found on your own. It pulls me out of my own genre and into rooms I’d never think to enter.

2. What should we expect from your live show?

Heartfelt songwriting with a wink. We take the music seriously, but not ourselves. The audience can xpect smooth melodies, lyrics that veer somewhere unexpected, and stage banter that’s a little too honest for its own good. People tend to leave feeling like they’re a part of our inside jokes.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

Most of us go back to our Queen’s University days, but our drummer’s origin story is a little more dramatic. We were booked at the Horseshoe Tavern when our original drummer pulled out the morning of the show. A drummer there with another band learned the entire set in a single afternoon, walked on stage that night, and never left.

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

Lady Bird. This is a movie about wanting to get out of the place where you grew up and then spending the rest of your life figuring out how much that place actually made you who you are. It is like music with a guitar, soft drums and sometimes a nice harmony that surprises you. The songs are about how it feels to be seventeen years old and think you should be else and how it feels when you are older and realize that maybe you were wrong.

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

Neil, hands down (though I’d lose sleep over turning down The Boss). There’s something about Neil Young that feels uniquely Canadian and uniquely uncompromising: the songwriting, the activism, the refusal to ever phone it in. I caught him at Bud Stage with my parents last year and walked out genuinely moved, he’s a guy who clearly still loves doing the thing, after all this time.

ARTIST NAME: BBQ POPE

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

Having grown up in Toronto, NXNE played a big part in helping me to discover new and exciting bands, and that continues to be my favourite part of it. The programming always feels like the fresh new wave of artists hitting the scene. When I was fifteen I got to see Speedy Ortiz open for Pissed Jeans, and then later see Ratking open for Run the Jewels, and those were some of the first shows I ever went to- how cool is that? This year I’m particularly excited to see Worry from Quebec City, who we happen to be playing with at Collective Arts, so that’s gonna be rad!

2. What should we expect from your live show?

People who come to see BBQ Pope live can expect a fun, high energy performance filled with catchy hooks, tight transitions, dancing, and lots of air time! We care a lot about our live show, and really try our best to bring it, no matter what.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

People often wonder what our band name is in reference to – it is the name of a Butthole Surfers song. Go check it out on YouTube!

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

That’s a tough one. I feel like a lot of the movies coming to mind have soundtracks I wouldn’t change at all, like Trainspotting, The Living End, or La Haine. I guess my serious answer is I’d write the soundtrack for Submarine, because that’s a movie I associate a lot with being a teenager getting into music. I’d probably lean more into its setting in the 80s, and draw inspiration from The Jesus and Mary Chain and early shoegaze bands. I think sonically that would work well with the cinematography, and the backdrop of Wales. My silly answer though would be the first full-length Spongebob movie – I would just cover the songs in the original, but make them like super heavy stoner metal jams. “I’M A GOOFY GOOBER, AGHHHHH”.

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

I’d rather open for Neil Young, because On the Beach is one of my favourite albums ever. And he bridges so much music from the 60s to the 90s, he basically invented Grunge 20 years before it happened. Plus, he’s still got it today! “Rock and roll will never die!”.

ARTIST NAME: BACKCHANNEL

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

We’ve actually been combing through all the bands in genres related to ours and finding a bunch of sick new artists we haven’t had the pleasure of getting to know or listen to yet. For example, In Disarray, a metalcore band we’re playing with, is coming from Montreal. So the ease of discovery is one of our favourite things about this and the festival overall.

2. What should we expect from your live show?

Amps cranked way up, lots of sweaty bodies moving, our vocalist screaming his head off, nobody standing still. We do our best to put on a high-energy show while also focusing on tightness and tone.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

Each member has known each other for about 20 years. We’ve all played in various projects together at some point over the years, and this band has become a kind of “reunion” of sorts (even though the band/name itself is pretty new).

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

We’re going to have to go with 2003’s cinematic masterpiece GRIND, which follows a ragtag group of skateboarders travelling cross-country to get noticed by their favourite skater. The original soundtrack had a bunch of 2000s pop-punk–style tunes, but we’d try to one-up the intensity a little bit.

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

Neil Young, 100% — a Canadian legend. My dad’s a big fan of his and comes to some of our shows, so that would make an epic lineup for him to see.

ARTIST NAME: EMMETT JEROME

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

I love the hang! Canada, despite its size, has a pretty intimate music scene. There are few degrees of separation between any upcoming band, and festivals like this are a great way to say hello to folks that you’ve been vibing with from afar.

2. What should we expect from your live show?

I’ve been performing live all my life – and I throw everything I’ve got into my live shows. Expect dancing, good vibes, and plenty of guitar solos.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

My band and I live together in our house in East Vancouver! We all tour consistently with other groups and are seldom under the same roof, but when we are, we enjoy BBQs and jamming on the front porch.

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

I would love to tackle an iconic sci-fi film, like Blade Runner or Tron. I’m really into that classic 80’s synth sound; I’d love to reimagine it with some more rustic elements, like pedal steel and live drums.

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

BRUUUCCEEE
While Neil is a (Canadian) hero, I am a freak about the boss. ‘Nuff said.

ARTIST NAME: WOLFVILLE

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

Our favourite thing about a festival like NXNE is the feeling that the entire city briefly rearranges itself around music. It’s a reassembly of a community that spends most of the year existing inside little online bubbles. Familiar faces reappear unexpectedly in crowded bars and on street corners–people you haven’t seen in years. It feels less like an industry event and more like a homecoming for Toronto’s creative undercurrent.

2. What should we expect from your live show?

Our live show is an intersection between a concert, a confessional, and a very public argument. Our project is built around the real story of our 13-year relationship and breakup, so the songs are all connected to lived experiences between the two of us. There’s humour in it, tenderness, tension, storytelling, harmonies, and moments that feel almost uncomfortably intimate. We try to make people feel like they’re watching a narrative unfold rather than just hearing disconnected songs.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

On the surface, Wolfville probably looks like a fairly standard folk/pop male-female duo. Which it is. But beneath that, the project is really built around the remains of our former relationship. We were lovers and bandmates for thirteen years before the collapse of that relationship became the prelude to what is now Wolfville. The songs trace the arc of it — the romance, the erosion, the aftermath. And in a strange way, the continued act of standing beside one another and making music inside the ruins of that history became the emotional architecture of the project itself.

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

We’d probably choose something in the world of David Lynch — maybe Mulholland Drive or Blue Velvet. Lynch understands something we’re deeply drawn to creatively: the way music can transform emotional reality.  A tender love song can suddenly feel menacing, nostalgic, or grief-stricken simply through context. There’s always this undercurrent of emotional dissonance i.e beauty existing beside dread. The songs we’d write would probably live in that tension. Intimate folk harmonies against darker textures. Dream-pop atmosphere colliding with emotional decay. Old Americana sounds warped slightly at the edges. Music that feels warm and heartbreaking on the surface, but leaves behind the uneasy sense that something underneath it has quietly come apart.

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

Neil Young, without hesitation. His emotional directess and his willingness to leave imperfections in his work feels spiritually closer to the lane we occupy. Also, as Canadians, we feel a certain responsibility to champion our national treasures.

ARTIST NAME: ELEVEN MINUTES LATE

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

We love that festivals like NXNE give emerging and local artists a real platform. It’s one of the best ways for new music scenes to grow, and there’s something exciting about discovering bands you’ve never heard before all in one weekend.

2. What should we expect from your live show?

High energy and an honest performance. We’re all on stage because we genuinely love playing live, and we try to make every set feel authentic and fully committed.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

The first song we ever wrote together was actually an anti-war western-style song with a shuffle beat. It still exists somewhere on SoundCloud.

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

We couldn’t agree on one answer here — half the band says Spider-Man or Transformers with huge riff-heavy guitars and chaotic energy, while the other half says The Wizard of Oz crossed with Dark Side of the Moon. So somewhere between cinematic psychedelia and pure arena rock.

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

Probably Bruce Springsteen — partly because his crowds would show up early and bring huge energy. But Neil Young gets an honourable mention for being Canadian.

ARTIST NAME: XAVIER SOLIS

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

The opportunity to share my music with audiences that haven’t been exposed to my music yet. It truly does give me the joy of being able to gain a first time reaction from people who don’t know me. I also really appreciate being able to do this alongside some other very talented Toronto musicians/artists!

2. What should we expect from your live show?

My shows are always full of high energy moments, but more than anything it’s about elevating the experience to bring a sense of class, passion and soul the audience won’t find anywhere else. The audience won’t just feel like moving to the music, they’ll feel like they discover themselves all over again within the music.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

Each musician comes from a different background in music which really brings a new life into my original music! There truly is no such thing as one genre in our team!

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

I would want to write the soundtrack for a Martin Scorsese film simply because he’s my favorite director but also because his films always stand within an old school fashion that I really resonate with. It would definitely be very blues heavy and doo wop inspired!

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

Definitely Bruce Springsteen. I think his anthem like musical approach would be a better fit for my musical style! But more than anything, I think that his heartfelt storytelling approach is something closer to my style than that of Neil Young. The both of them have such distinct and unique ways of singing and writing, so it really comes down to Bruce Springsteen being the closer option for my style!

ARTIST NAME: GADFLY

1. What’s your favourite thing about a festival like NXNE?

This is our first time playing NXNE, we’re excited to see what it’s all about.

2. What should we expect from your live show?

Unhinged on the edge of chaos madness, if you don’t move we will be sad.

3. Tell us something we probably don’t know about your band.

We’re a face melting trio!! me: Homa I’m Persian YEY.

4. If you could write the soundtrack for any existing film (from any decade) which film would you choose and what would the songs sound like?

If they ever made a movie for cyberpunk, I’d do a soundtrack and it’ll sound GADFLY

5. Would you rather open for Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, and why?

Neil Young, because he sounds better.

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