Tuuli serious rock band

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/06/2002 (8521 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Equal parts punk rock and sugary guitar pop, Tuuli seems tailor-made for the post-Britney set. The Toronto-based quartet looks like the perfect band for bummed-out bubblegum fans who’ve just graduated to heavier music.

But looks can be deceiving — these women toured Canada for six years before their debut disc Here We Go was released this April.

“It took that long to get the first CD out. We’re not some brand-new band,” says singer-guitarist Jenny MacIsaac, a 24-year-old originally from Sudbury, Ont.

“Ever since I was in high school, I wanted to pursue music. I never went to university. I didn’t do anything else. It’s a common misconception we’re some kind of (prefabricated) band.”

MacIsaac formed Tuuli after she met bassist Claire Blake in Sudbury. Blake, a Thunder Bay native of Finnish descent, came up with the band name — Tuuli means “wind” in the difficult Finnish language.

Guitarist Dawn Mandarino and drummer Jen Foster round out the group, which plays the Pyramid Cabaret tomorrow on a bill with Retrograde, Pretty Train Crash and Winnipeg’s Paper Moon.

“All kinds of people come to see us,” says MacIsaac. “Everyone from eight and nine-year-old kids with their parents at all-ages shows, to old people in their 40s and 50s when we play clubs.”