Eating Ice Cream with the Vancouver's Soft Serve

Photo via Soft Serve's Facebook

Earlier this year, a boutique ice cream shop called Soft Peaks opened up in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood. Specializing in all-natural soft serve and simple yet gourmet flavours, it follows in the mould of New York’s famed Momofuku Milk Bar. And since there’s nothing better than an on-the-nose joke—particularly one that gives an excuse to write off ice cream as a work expense—this was the perfect place to meet with Soft Serve about the Vancouver band’s newly released self-titled debut album.

On a sunny, crisp fall day, singer-guitarist Kyle Thiessen and bassist Alex Smith sat down with Noisey to discuss their music and have their inaugural Soft Peaks experience. Thiessen got a flavour called Green Forest, a Japanese-style creation with green tea powder and sweet red bean; although the green tea powder had a mouldy appearance that Theissen acknowledged looked a bit like “garbage,” he insisted that it tasted delicious. Smith got Sunrise in California, which was topped with yuzu marmalade. This writer, meanwhile, got a Salty Himalayan with chocolate, which is not a sex act like it sounds, but instead features a topping of Himalayan pink salt and chocolate sauce. Much like these desserts, Soft Serve’s music is summery and sweet, with a hazily jangling sound reminiscent of contemporaries like Real Estate and DIIV or past indie faves like Orange Juice and Flying Nun’s classic ‘80s roster. The nine tracks that make up Soft Serve were recorded at home, with Thiessen doing the initial tracking using a drum machine and cassette four-track before fleshing out the arrangements with psychedelic guitar leads from Thom Lougheed, bass from Smith and drums from Chad Neufeld.

Thiessen began writing this Soft Serve material a few years ago while treading water as the bassist of Spider Legs, a slow-working Vancouver band that hadn’t—and still hasn’t—formally released an album. “It was me being frustrated and wanting to put music out.,” Thiessen tells Noisey between bites of ice cream. “I just took the lead and learned how to play guitar.” Smith chimes in, “Kyle’s got a really interesting not-really-knowing-how-to-play-guitar style.” When Thiessen laughs self-deprecatingly, Smith continues, “No, I’m serious! I think your guitar playing is awesome, and it’s because just use a bunch of open tunings and you’re like, ‘What works? Oh, this sounds cool.’” Despite the record’s breezy sound, the lyrics touch on serious themes like family and aging. With the exception of the younger Lougheed, the members of Soft Serve are all in their late 20s or early 30s, and they’ve become acutely aware of their age within an indie scene typically characterized by youth. Theissen reflects, “We’re kind of at that age now where maybe we shouldn’t be doing this. When you tell people that you play music, it’s almost like, ‘Should I be telling people that I play music?’ It’s something you have to keep out of conversation, otherwise you have to list all of these reasons why you do it.”

So when will the members of Soft Serve be too old to keep on serving up their sonic treats? Theissen muses, “Once, I don’t know, my receding hairline goes back any further? No, I don’t know. A few more greys.” At this, Smith tilts the side of his head forward and points out, “I’m pretty grey. I’ve got a got a good streak of grey.” But even though Smith refers to himself and his bandmates as “old guys with guitars,” he notes that there are plenty of older musicians in still-relevant indie bands, so there’s no need to stop anytime soon. Theissen agrees, “It’s when you stop enjoying it, I guess,” he decides.

Where did the name Soft Serve come from?
Kyle Thiessen: I was trying to think of what’s my only connection with soft serve. My grandpa—
Alex Smith: Kyle’s the air to a soft serve empire. That’s where this is going.
Thiessen: Actually, he had the first soft serve machine in southern Alberta. He’s an entrepreneur-grandpa type. Every time we’d drive by a Dairy Queen, he’d be spiteful. He was like, “I had it first and nobody would buy it! The minute Dairy Queen came around, all of a sudden, everybody wanted soft serve.“ He was kind of mad about it.
Smith: We should really reach out to Dairy Queen. Although I guess that would be really dishonouring your grandfather’s memory.
Thiessen: Yeah, exactly. So who knows — maybe another Soft Serve band will come out and they’ll just crush us. It will be the same thing — history repeating itself.

Soft Serve is a summery treat. Do you think it’s as good in the fall and winter as it is in the summer?
Theissen: The music or the food?

Both.
Smith: I’m pretty cold having inhaled this ice cream, to tell you the truth. I wouldn’t recommend listening to us in the winter, honestly. You can if you want.

When you decided to name the band Soft Serve, did you think you were going to have to answer this many questions about ice cream?
Thiessen: I knew it was going to come up. I knew it was going to go in that direction. Well, this is your first-ever interview, and we’re absolutely beating it to death, so this is the last time you’ll ever have to do it. Well, this is your first ­ever interview, and we’re absolutely beating it to death, so this is the last time you’ll ever have to do it. Thiessen: Note for anybody else that wants an interview — this is the last time [I’ll talk about ice cream].

Let’s finish with reviews of your ice cream. How did you like your flavours?
Smith: Mine was called Sunrise in California. It’s advertised as “bittersweet sour yuzu marmalade.” I think yuzu is some kind of citrus thing, but I don’t really know. It just tasted like normal marmalade to me, but it was really good and I love marmalade.
Thiessen: I really enjoyed mine. It was a wonderful Japanese treat.

Alex Hudson is a writer based in Vancouver. Follow him on Twitter.