On Saturday, May 20, 2023, I had the opportunity of interviewing Gem & Tauri from Ophelia Records at History when they were touring with Seven Lions for the Beyond the Veil The Journey III tour! On this tour, there are 40 stops and this was their 25th stop. With Toronto being their last Canadian stop after Quebec City and Laval, we were blessed to have two shows for their debut! Day 1 was sold out and thus we had day 2 along with an after party at Rebel. Wow!
For those of you that don't know. Courtney Simmons and Emma Montalvo are THE powerhouse duo under the alias Gem & Tauri. They are under Ophelia Records which is the label under Seven Lions Jeff Montalvo. They started their career in 2020 with their first EP "All You Need" which brings a blend of melodic vocals and bass lines that just makes you want to dance and groove it out. On May 4th, 2023 in the middle of their tour, their second EP "Crownless" was released. To get to hear both the EPs live was sensational. Nothing beats going to events to see the DJs you love and listening to the songs you love live!
That night, from OBLVYN warming up the crowd with some future bass, we had Gem & Tauri on next to offset the vibes with their groovy blend of tech, melodic & progressive house to get us ready for Andrew Bayer (Day 2 for Jason Ross) and Seven Lions. The energy that night was immaculate, good vibes and energy all throughout the venue with smiles on everyone's faces. Must I say, that both days and the AP was like this and this is exactly "All You Need"!
Thank you, Haider from Canadian Ravers & The Seven Lions Team, for this opportunity of interviewing this powerhouse duo. Prior to their set that night at History, I had a chance to sit down and chat with them for this exclusive interview. I will say that even though it was an interview, it was my pleasure to have such a heartful chat and connection with these two beautiful ladies!
K: Can you tell us about yourselves and where did the name Gem & Tauri came from?
G&T: I can go back to the beginning. This was about 3.5-4 years ago. We were touring with Jeff here and there, Emma was, as a tour manager for Jeff & I was kind of coming to shows sometimes but I still worked my real estate job. We went to a show once and the opener didn’t show up & he’s like well, do you guys just want to open? Cause Emma had done a few shows as the opener on Jeff’s last tour, and I’ve played some house parties before, but I’ve never been on stage like that before. We were very nervous but we had our USB and so we came up with a name quickly. We had Ian put some visuals up and just like improvised and this was 2019 in Denver at Mission Ballroom. I don’t really want to say this really, but we had our first name as Contrast. It just didn’t fit right; we didn’t like it & it just wasn’t the right vibe. So, we started brainstorming some names after the show because the show went very well, and we were like maybe we had something together. The chemistry we had together on stage was just so fun. Emma started brainstorming some names too because she’s very good at that kind of thing. She named off four other names and she saved Gem & Tauri for last because it was obviously her favourite. I knew that was my favourite too when I heard it. I was like THAT WAS IT! Emma pulled it from the fact that I'm a Gemini and she’s a Taurus. So yeah, that’s where the name came from & it's just fun now because we’re playing with that astrological vibe (Stars & Magic). It does, it gives our brand a lot to source from artistically and visually.
K: I understand because with astrology and symbolism, it goes along with the Ophelia feels, so it works so well that its ongoing! It's also uplifting and inspiring to a lot of people that may need some kind of guidance.
G&T: For sure, it very much represents unity and acceptance and obviously allies in the gay community. It's really important to us that everybody in the industry & the people in the crowd just feels love and acceptance. That’s the most important thing, be yourself, like you want to make other people feel comfortable.
We’re here for the music but we do want people to know that like however they feel, whatever makes them happy and comfortable, just like, be your truest authentic self and maybe it doesn’t have to be the cookie-cutter life our parents told us it needed to be. Might as well live in your true colour.
K: What's your process when creating a new track, do you go around different melodies and demos?
G&T: Our process doesn’t have a structure that we stick to every time. Every time it’s different, sometimes we’ll get a vocal first. Sometimes Courtney will deliver a demo first, sometimes we like the demo so much we don’t think that a vocal is needed. It changes every time.
It’s not really a linear process. Its whatever creative flow happens. Sometimes, I’ll find a cool drum loop, or I'll hear a melody somewhere and it’ll inspire me to just play around on the keyboard a little bit, or it’ll be in an arpeggiator that’ll inspire me to write around it. I’ve been doing more of the production and Emma’s been doing more of the songwriting because I’m not a poet and she is! I'm a little more technical and Emma’s more artistically and visually creative which is why she does more of the visuals and creative direction for that stuff. I’m a little better with computers and I’m very new. We’re DJs, we didn’t mean to be producers, but we got thrown into the deep end, we can sink-or-swim and we decided to run with the opportunities that were given. We feel very grateful.
K: And in a way, do you think covid helped with that too?
G&T: Oh definitely! 100%! We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for covid. The team pushed us into live streaming, and being in front of people and doing things that made us uncomfortable. I don’t know if I would have pushed myself that hard if I didn’t have a team that was like make a set every week and do these streams, we had to learn quick. It was bootcamp for touring for sure. I had to force myself to learn music production, and that is sooo complicated.
K: I remember watching all the streams during covid for Freesol Fridays and the Sunday Brunch streams. So, I know you guys got the Botany song, I know you both love plants and that the song goes “let’s talk about plants”. So, have you both ever considered remastering the song or releasing it to the public?
G&T: We might, for now I think we’d like having it for our own headline sets and for the people that now know! But I think maybe one day, we might put some more work into and do a free release. But for now, we probably will not release though, it's likely that you’ll have to come to our show. There’s also mash ups and certain things we make that will never be released and it's just for a set and that’s kind of one of those things.
K: It’s more of those exclusive in the moment vibes where you come you hear it and you go yo it’s the best thing ever!
G&T: And our quarantine fam knows!!! You never know though, keep checking our SoundCloud. Maybe we’ll just put it out for fun someday!
K: Being two newer DJs with three years of experience playing for the public, what advice would you give to DJs and producers who are just starting out in the industry?
G&T: I would say for DJing, practice, watch a lot of videos and play around with it. When no one’s watching, and you don’t' know if something’s going to work. Just push the buttons, mix the songs and the most important thing is to play what you like, play what makes you happy. There’s nothing worse than a DJ getting on stage and playing music they’re not interested in. It’s going to show in their stage presence, it’s going to show in their performance and that’s ultimately going to be felt by the crowd. So be you! And if you’re getting into production and you want to learn. There are some amazing resources on YouTube, and I would say the best thing you can do is to try and recreate songs. You'll learn so much just trying to produce songs that you love and reproduce them. For the sound design aspect of everything, it's so complicated, but by doing things, you’ll learn so much from just trying to recreate sounds, so that’s probably what I've learn the most out of. If you’re making sets, drop switching is fun too, keeping the flow going will help keep people’s attention and we really like doing that.
K: What’s next for Gem & Tauri after the BTV tour?
GT: Groove Cruise, we’re more excited for that than any other festival. It is my favourite thing ever! We love GC, we’re GC fam! It’s pretty fun! This tour was incredible for our exposure, and we’ve played a lot of markets where we never played before including Toronto. So that’s really fun and I think we’re just going to target festivals next year. There definitely will be another headline tour in the works but we will nap after this tour! We do miss our dogs & cats too! We do need time to work on music too so that’s hard to find a balance between touring and working inspiritively. But there's definitely a headline tour in the talks probably sometime next year, maybe a coheadline with someone, we don’t know yet but we’re still working on that with our team. But more touring after we have a little break, definitely festivals and working on more music!
Following this, I had the chance to wish Emma a happy belated birthday and Courtney a happy early birthday considering that both our shows in Toronto happened to land on May 20th (Last day of Taurus) and on May 21st (First day of Gemini) What a coincidence for Gem & Tauri’s debut in Toronto! Woot Woot! :D
Altogether, this heartful chat we had was very enlightening and we concluded that in life. You got to YOLO! Definitely spread the PLUR, whether it’d be through music or through any interactions you have with others. Let’s try and make the world a happier place!
As for their sets though, I truly loved every minute of it and being able to hear it multiple times including the time I saw them on this tour at Buffalo Riverworks the week before. I can’t get enough of it! Haha! With both the EPs out, this set was truly the best set I’ve heard from them yet considering there was a good number of songs they were able to showcase! Including their remix of “Miss You (feat. GG Magree) - Seven Lions”. This is also the 3rd time they’ve played in Canada considering they were here in Calgary and for Escapade in Ottawa last year for the Ophelia Stage Takeover! Which was the BEST day of Escapade last year. I did not leave that stage for even a second, nope!
For any cities out there that the tour is heading towards to still. If you get an after party! Make sure you go! Their AP set was so dark and dirty, and it showcased a whole different direction they can go with for their music, which I completely loved! At the end of the night, they even did a Gem & Tauri b2b Seven Lions b2b Jason Ross set with all four of them jamming it out in front of the decks to the mega-collab song Pantheon as their last song. What better song to use other than Pantheon. And at the AP, the amount of energy they really brought to the crowd was ECSTATIC!
After that weekend, a few of my friends that’s never heard of Gem & Tauri are now in love with their music as well. It’s nice being able to share the music you love with others and have others love it as much as you do too! I will add that the Ophelia family has grown to be one of the most influential and well-known labels. And having Gem & Tauri being part of that family truly makes Ophelia special!
Honestly, this was an amazing experience and must I say again. Thank you to everyone (Haider & The Seven Lions team) for setting this up for me! Considering it's my first interview and Gem & Tauri’s first Canadian interview, I hope you all enjoyed reading through this. To many more shows in the future and we FOR SURE hope to see the Ophelia Fam here in Toronto more!
PS. Jeff I’m coming for you! It’s my dream to meet you one day! My #1 artist and DJ! Haha :D
Also don’t forget to follow them on their socials!!
Thanks! -Keith Au aka Keyfu
