There’s a quiet weight to Spite House that doesn’t rely on volume or spectacle. Their songs sit in the uncomfortable space between anger and reflection, carrying emotional honesty without turning it into a performance. Their growth is shown on Desertion, their most fully realized material to date. Preparing for an international tour, Spite House feel less like a moment and more like a band settling into exactly who they are.
Scene Point Blank: Spite House feels very deliberate in every aspect whether it's emotionally, lyrically, or even sonically. When this band first came together, what was the goal? Was it about catharsis, community, survival, or something else entirely?
Max: When Marc and I first met up with the specific goal of making music together, I had just lost my mom to cancer, and he was coming out of a long-term relationship while starting a new life in Montreal again. I was carrying a lot of things I had held onto for years. The goal was really to stop living in the shadow of my own doubts and see what would happen if I trusted myself fully. I wanted to take the courage people often talk about when someone is going through grief and actually make something out of it. The first album was all new territory for me -- my first time making an album from start to finish, my first time singing songs, my first time fully putting myself out there. In that sense, it was me opening a window to a world I knew I wanted to be part of. It was also a way to express myself cathartically and honor my parents at the same time.
Scene Point Blank: Band names usually come from jokes, moments, or ideas that stick. What does “Spite House” actually represent to you now, and has its meaning shifted as the band’s grown?
Max: Band names can be painfully hard to figure out -- something that really represents the vision of a project and still sounds cool. Our name came from a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where everyone becomes incredibly productive out of spite. It felt representative of me in a certain way -- trying to make something meaningful out of something bad, to express myself, but also to spite the part of myself that keeps telling me I can’t or that I’m not capable of doing certain things -- And I just thought of the whole concept as a funny thing. It still represents that to a certain extent -- because I do still constantly doubt myself -- but now Spite House also serves as a reminder that I am able to do stuff that I was doubting myself about years ago.
Scene Point Blank: There’s a lot of restraint in your music. Parts don’t overstay their welcome, and emotion often comes from holding back rather than exploding. Is that a natural instinct, or something you’ve learned over time in your song writing?
Max: Thank you. I think restraint, silence, and holding back can be just as powerful as big explosive moments. When those things are timed right, they can feel even more dramatic. That’s definitely something I think about when writing songs, and it came from writing a lot of bad, static songs that never quite felt right. I also get bored with music very easily, so I try to make every moment feel intentional and engaging.
I think production should never come in front of a song, but should support it as much as possible.
Scene Point Blank: Your recordings feel raw but intentional. It's never sloppy, never overly polished. How do you decide what imperfections stay and what gets tightened up when you’re recording?
Max: I have very specific taste when it comes to how music is recorded. I think production should never come in front of a song, but should support it as much as possible. When I listen to music, I want to hear a real band playing. I want to be able to imagine how they do everything live or think, “Wow, how do they reproduce that on stage?” I love how real drums sound, and I prefer minimal pitch correction in the music I listen to. If I notice it, it pulls me out of the song, so I try to approach our own recordings the same way. Some imperfections in music are what make a moment feel human and magical. The challenge is identifying which imperfections create that feeling and protecting them, while removing the ones that distract from the song’s intention.
Scene Point Blank: Playing emotionally heavy music night after night can be exhausting in a different way than just loud or fast music. How do you take care of yourselves on tour while still giving the songs what they demand?
Max: Well, I have this tendency of getting sick every tour and losing my voice. So I guess I didn't quite figure that part out yet, haha. I would say that while it takes a lot from me, it also gives a lot. There's no better feeling than after a show where you gave absolutely everything and felt a connection with the crowd. We are very respectful of each other when someone feels tired, we take care of each other emotionally and are generally there for each other. Other than that: Ginger, honey and trying to find good spots to sleep are musts on tour!
Scene Point Blank: People hear echoes of emo, punk, and post-hardcore in your sound, but it never feels like cosplay or revivalism. What influences shaped you individually that might not be obvious from the outside?
Max: I absolutely love bands that fall more into the indie/art-rock world, that you might not hear immediately in Spite House. Bands like Yo La Tengo, Radiohead, Built to Spill, Guided by Voices, and Duster. They often spark ideas for Spite House songs, whether it’s a pedal trick, a chord progression that evokes something in me, or lyrics that inspire a certain way of thinking.
Most of the songs I write for Spite House start on acoustic guitar, which leaves room for those influences to breathe in a stripped-down form before we make them as loud and powerful as possible together. The rest of the band has very eclectic tastes which all come to play when we are trying to arrange a song.
Scene Point Blank: Looking back at your earliest material compared to now, what’s changed more you think: your songwriting, or the way you understand yourselves as people?
Max: I think what’s changed the most in our approach to songs is the consideration for how they would translate live. We wrote a lot of the second album thinking, “Wow, this is going to be really fun to play in front of people!” whereas with the first album, we didn’t even know if we’d ever get the chance to play those songs live at all. Desertion was also a more deliberate attempt to tell a story in a straightforward way, with a clear concept and direction from the start. That came from evolving as people -- or at least from my need to eventually address certain things with more perspective and adult eyes.
Scene Point Blank: Have there been moments where someone’s response to a song surprised you? Either because they connected in a way you didn’t expect, or because they heard something you didn’t consciously put there?
Max: I have to say I feel incredibly honored and humbled when people come up to us after a show and tell us the music connected with something they were going through. I dealt with a lot of loss early in my young adult life, and what kept me going was discovering bands and albums that made me feel less alone, or gave me something to look forward to -- a new record, a new band, a clever lyric, something that could channel my anger or confusion. To hear people say that our music does any of that for them feels like a huge accomplishment.
Scene Point Blank: As more people discover Spite House, do expectations ever creep into the writing process? How do you protect the honesty of the band while navigating increased attention?
Max: I think everything in Spite House is so personal and true that it wouldn’t work if it were faked or built around what other people might want to hear. We write music that we feel conveys the emotions we’re trying to express, and it naturally gets filtered through what we’ve been going through -- what life gives us to absorb, both consciously and subconsciously. We’re not the most culturally aware or aligned with what’s supposed to work, and we’re often put off by the results of that mindset. What we do care deeply about is finding ways to write more powerful songs and continuing to challenge ourselves at every step.
Scene Point Blank: You just dropped a full-length, which is usually a big exhale moment. Are you in “take a breath” mode right now, or are there already tour plans and new ideas starting to take shape?
Max: That’s one way to look at it, but for me it's almost the opposite. When you finish an album, you still have to find a home for it, then think about everything else -- artwork, rollout, videos. And once all that’s done, the work only begins. We made songs we believe in, and now we want to play them in front of as many people as possible and show how important they are to us. I really believe an album fully takes shape in a live setting. I’m answering this exactly one week before leaving for a three-week European tour with Militarie Gun, which we’re incredibly excited about. After that, we’ll be heading to the West Coast in the US for the first time with Slow Crush, and we’re hoping to keep filling the schedule well into 2026.
West Coast tour 2026 w/ SLOW CRUSH & SHE'S GREEN
03/13 - San Diego, CA - SOMA Sidestage
03/14 - Santa Ana, CA - The Observatory
03/15 - San Jose, CA - The Ritz
03/16 - Reno, NV - The Holland Project *
03/17 - Boise, ID - Shrine Ballroom
03/18 - Eugene, OR - WOW Hall
03/20 - Spokane, WA - District
03/21 - Tacoma, WA - Airport Tavern
03/22 - Vancouver, BC - The Pearl
03/24 - Sacramento, CA - Harlow’s
03/25 - Fresno, CA - Strummers
03/26 - San Luis Obispo, CA - Linnaea’s Cafe #
03/27 - Las Vegas, NV - Grey Witch
03/28 - Tucson, AZ - Hotel Congress
