"The sky's the limit." Said Lee Brochu of the Hoa Hoa's. "Who knows. Maybe one day we'll make, like, a thousand dollars a year. Like I said, the sky is the limit."

I was scheduled to interview this "trippy" indie band at the Cloak and Dagger - a favourite College St. drinking hole of mine. I showed up fifteen minutes early, but they had beaten me by about an hour and a half. After grabbing a pint I joined them in the back patio.

"Yeah, we figured that we didn't really have anything else to do today, and this patio is so nice and private, so we came by to knock back a few."

While their MySpace page lists their official inauguration as a band in 2006, Femke Berkhout and Lee say that they actually began jamming in 2004. With only a minor line-up change along the way, the band is quite happy with their progress.

After releasing their third album -Sonic Bloom- in June, and recently opening for the Spoons at the Velvet Underground, Lee says that they are already talking about recording another album in the spring.

"We've got a studio set up in the house, and it's finally a space where we can take our time and not feel all rushed."

This house that Lee was talking about is something that I'd like to be invited to. From what I was told -and we talked about it quite a bit- is that it's a haunted, free-standing, studio/party house. (Femke is the only one who thinks that it's haunted).

"Hey, when you start seeing shadows and your cutlery starts moving, then you'll believe me."

I haven't been invited yet.

Their next show is tonight (October 18th) at the Silver Dollar and when I asked Femke what I could expect from it, she told me that it would be "psychedelic".

What do you mean psychedelic? How?

"It'll just be trippy; every song is psychedelic, because it's trippy. And when we play we all sing, we all play different instruments, and at the end Lee sometimes makes the mistake of inviting everyone back to the house and it's a party. Yeah you did! Remember last time we played at the Silver Dollar? It's always a party. Like last night after the Stereolab concert, people came back, and we partied."

Still ...no invite.

All photos by Femke Berkhout

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