Blue Grazer Records

Who is “PDS”?
I am Justin La.Liberty AKA Michael Meredoth AKA Plains Desperate Symphony. I am a 42-year-old artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba. I produce electronic music for electronic people

Tell us about your career so far.
My career so far has been exceptional. I went from selling computers in 2000 to fixing them in 2006 before getting into the trade show game around 2010. Presently I am a proofreader for Pollard Banknote, where I will hit my 5-year anniversary in August.

I realise now that you probably meant musical career. Considering that I have made about $100 or so as a professional musician it’s hard to talk about my music as a career.

As for when my interest in music began, that would have to be the first time I remember walking home from school and hearing my dad blasting The Beatles on our home stereo. The sound of that music intrigued me and made me feel a way that nothing else ever did or has.

My first experiences making music were in school where I played recorder, xylophone and other simple instruments as well as sang in my elementary school choir and orff groups.

Later I took trumpet in junior high and high school. It was great to experience playing music with other people who shared my passion for music.

Towards the end of high school and beyond I took lessons in guitar, piano and music production. I also formed my first band, a duo with my best friend, Aaron Sawich, called Sonic Fluid. My first album was with him. It was called “Demos Are Strange” and it was a mix of acid and big beat techno.

Around the same time I created my solo project, Plains Desperate Symphony, for my more experimental and industrial stuff. My first album under that name was a double album called “Now and Then”. It sold exactly 1 copy and has been out of print for 24 years.

Around 2005 I moved with my wife Claire to Calgary where after a few years we formed a rock band called Rosewater Uprising with a great guy and songwriter named Steve Pruden. The lineup changed several times over a span of around 10 years to include artists like Mitch Wolfe and Aaron Corris.

In 2017 I was diagnosed with stage IV Small B-Cell Type Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. It was especially scary for me because I had a 1-year-old son who I had quit my job (and gave up my health insurance) about 6 months earlier to spend more time with. He was, and is, the best thing in my life and so I fought my ass off to beat cancer and get back to him and Claire.

After my recovery we moved back to Winnipeg to be closer to family. In 2018 I released a Plains Desperate Symphony album called “Mary the Sunshine Girl” which contained songs that I started with Rosewater Uprising as well as earlier Sonic Fluid and PDS tracks.

I followed that up with 2021’s “Get Me Outta My Head”, which contained new songs as well as more unreleased material from the first 20 years of PDS.

2022 saw the release of “Collected”, which was once again a collection of songs that I wrote when I was in Rosewater Uprising as well as new versions of older PDS songs.

In the same year, I released “This Is Temporary”. On that album I had one rule: nothing was allowed that I had previously worked on in any capacity. Only 100% new material.

I was very depressed when I released that album, as my first two albums that received wide streaming releases had failed to find any kind of an audience. This was reflected in the final song on “This Is Temporary” called “UnFlex” where a text to speech engine says, “In December my Spotify monthly listeners were 2 and I couldn’t figure out if that was me and my brother or me and myself from another IP.”

I thought very hard over the winter of 2022 if I wanted to continue making music. Ultimately, I decided that even though it sucked that no one listened to my music, I loved doing it even if only my brother and I appreciated it.

Thankfully it was not long after that that I discovered Band Together and the incredible community of artists in that orbit.

When my next album came out, called “Philip K Dick”, it quickly found greater success than all my previous releases combined. With the help of promotion from Vox + Stix (including an incredible review from Christina aka Vox herself), Dukester, Ghost of Rucker, Histheory, Lost Cause Industry and so many others my album didn’t hit any charts or make any money, but it made me feel heard for the first time as an artist in my entire life.

Around the same time that the PKD album came out I met an artist named The Monogon who I instantly clicked with. Within a few months of meeting him online we released an EP called “The Monogon vs Plains Desperate Symphony” which contained my most popular song to date on Spotify called “Datapipes (Lofi Mix)” and my most popular song on YouTube, “Trans Neptune Express”.

How would you describe your sound to a four-year-old?
I create electronic music that makes old people feel sad.

Now elaborate on that…if you’d like.
No thank you. If you want me to talk to 4 year olds about music I would recommend they listen to Parry Gripp. He writes excellent songs about tacos raining from the sky and penguins with funky shoes. (editor’s note: 😂 and yea… Parry Gripp is actually awesome.)

What’s your favorite album of all time?
My favorite album of all time is a hard one to pin down. I feel like that album really changes from era to era in my life. When I was 6, I might have said “Hangin Tough” by New Kids on the Block was my favorite. In high school it was probably Radiohead’s “OK Computer” or Nine Inch Nails’ “The Downward Spiral”. When I was recovering from cancer my favorite album was “Colors” by Beck and in 2021, I listened to “Garbology” by Aesop Rock more than any other.

I love an indie rock band from Canada called July Talk because I saw them 5 times, and at my first show of theirs all of them signed for me the last copy of the first run of their first album on vinyl, and another time Leah invited my wife and I to join them at Boston Pizza after an incredible concert of theirs with The Rural Alberta Advantage in Calgary.

All the albums of Las Vegas’ The Crystal Method are special to me because they are the first electronic band that I saw live, and they are the artists I’ve seen live the highest number of times (7 times including live PA and DJ sets).

What does musical success look like to you?
I don’t know. I guess being happy with the music that I have created. There are moments after I have created music where I feel successful for having created it. I guess for some it looks like making a living doing it or being able to buy a house or a car with money made from making music. I would love to be able to buy a Nissan GT-R with the proceeds from my music, but I don’t know if that would make me feel successful.

My greatest feeling of success making music was once when I played my first solo album in an empty room with just my brother and our friend Crazy Pete, and Pete said that my remix of Eleanor Rigby sounded like what The Beatles would make if they were still making music today. The other time was when I sat with my brother just a couple months ago and listened to the finished mix of my latest album, Full Lucid, on his incredible digital surround system and it somehow sounded even better than I had hoped.

What is next for you?
This year I released a new single called “Lo Ambition” written and produced by myself with spoken word vocals by my brother, Sir Tiger of Winnipeg and singing by Elizabeth Weaver. It is one of my more personal songs, as it deals with issues that I have gone through my entire life: depression and lack of ambition. It is the first single from my next album, the above-mentioned “Full Lucid”, which I am releasing later this year.

On July 12 I am releasing the second single from this album, “Dream Catcher”, which is a collaboration with a friend that I met through Band Together, Ghost of Rucker. He is an incredible person and Lofi / GhostFi artist extraordinaire. (It’s out now, and it’s fantastic! We highly recommend you give it a listen here)

Where is the best place for people to follow you in order to stay up to date on all things PDS?
I would say my Facebook page is probably the best, but you can also check on Linktree for your preferred streaming or social media service. I’m on more of those than I am capable of handling.

Facebook – PLAINSDESPERATESYMPHONY

Linktree – plainsdesperatesymphony

---

Want to get to know Plains Desperate Symphony even better? Then these are the links for you…