High school was the beginning. Monks grew up in the town of Newmarket just outside of Toronto with her older brother Dave. She’ll be the last person to point out that Dave fronts Canadian indie rock staples Tokyo Police Club, but has previously credited him with inspiring her to chase music for a living.Monks met future bandmate Liz Ball at the end of grade nine, two self-taught guitarists that bonded over bands like Pixies and became determined to start their own. They co-founded Dilly Dally in 2009 and sealed the deal with matching Dilly Dally tattoos—even before they had a body of recorded songs.“Right from the start, we’ve always had the attitude that our band could take over the fucking world!” Monks told Noisey in 2014. “Even if we didn’t know how it was going to happen, we believed blindly in the project and have been playing shows every month in this city for the last four years.”Dilly Dally‘s melodies and melancholy grew increasingly aggressive as they fought to be heard—scrapped album be damned—and with the addition of Benjamin Reinhartz and Jimmy Tony on drums and bass respectively. The band started writing what would become Sore at end of 2014, a period when Monks had left a relationship and ran into having unrequited feelings for a friend."I was singing a song thinking that the people on each side of me, that everybody wasn’t on the same page, that we didn’t share the same goals and dreams, and that all of this was for nothing. Dilly Dally, from the beginning, has always been about friendship, so when those friendships started to deteriorate on tour, it felt like it was the end." —Katie Monks
The cover of their 2016 Sore remix EP fkkt now appears to be an accidental metaphor, the savoury ice cream cone from earlier single artwork smashed and broken on the ground. Monks’s onstage breakdown in England eventually led to a revelation: she had an unhealthy codependency on Dilly Dally.“My whole life was in question, and I felt like the only person who could really save me was me. I learned that I can’t need the band… We just had to shake that codependency, and just kind of reclaim our own lives for the moment. Once we were strong, it was like, ‘Now let’s just make some art.’”“Being on tour is like being in a pressure cooker. We felt like it all just erupted. There were a lot of exterior factors for us in our personal lives, demons and shit, that we had to overcome.” —Katie Monks
It’s a surprising and welcome new direction. “Sober Motel” starts with a familiar cloud of distortion and Reinhartz’s gut-punch drums before pulling back into a clear blue sky. “Believe” features Monks’s cathartic riff overcoming a sea of anxious noise. “Sorry Ur Mad” is a push-pull with Tony’s melodic bass at the eye of the storm. “Doom” has an extremely non-doom hook: “Remember who you are / And where you’re gonna be / What’s inside you is sacred.”Monks is directing and starring in the music video for “I Feel Free.” Surrounded by pink eyeshadow, her blue eyes light up in excitement as she explains the concept. “The video is something that I totally had a vision for: me wearing a vintage silk, black funeral gown from the 30s, and approaching a graveyard with my bandmates buried in it, and digging them out of there along with my white Flying V.”"I just wanna be free and do what feels right in the moment for ourselves." —Katie Monks
Aug 18 - Ponderosa Music Festival - Rock Creek, Canada
Sep 07 - First Avenue - Minneapolis, MN *
Sep 08 - Vic Theatre - Chicago, IL *
Sep 10 - Newport Music Hall - Columbus, OH *
Sep 11 - The Majestic Theatre - Detroit, MI *
Sep 12 - Phoenix Concert Theatre - Toronto, Canada *
Sep 14 - Paradise - Boston, MA *
Sep 15 - Terminal 5 - New York, NY *
Sep 16 - Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA *
Sep 18 - 9:30 Club - Washington, DC *
Sep 19 - Cat's Cradle - Durham, NC *
Sep 21 - Cannery Ballroom - Nashville, TN *
Sep 22 - Masquerade - Atlanta, GA *
Sep 23 - Tipitina's - New Orleans, LA *
Oct 3 - Berlin, DE - Maze Club
Oct 4 - Rotterdam, NL - V11
Oct 5 - Brussels, BE - Botanique
Oct 8 - Paris, FR - Espace B
Oct 9 - London, UK - Sebright Arms
Oct 18 - Observatory Park North - San Diego, CA *
Oct 19 - The Van Buren - Phoenix, AZ *
Oct 22 - Emo's - Austin, TX *
Oct 23 - White Oak Music Hall - Houston, TX *
Oct 24 - Canton Hall - Dallas, TX *
Oct 26 - Gothic Theatre - Denver, CO *
Oct 27 - The Depot - Salt Lake City, UT *
Oct 29 - The Vogue Theatre - Vancouver, Canada *
Oct 30 - Showbox SoDo - Seattle, WA *
Oct 31 - Crystal Ballroom - Portland, OR *
Nov 02 - Fox Theater - Oakland, CA **w/ FIDLAR