MIESHA & THE SPANKS
Think Peaches meets The Beaches.
Calgary two-piece Miesha & The Spanks, comprised of Miesha Louie and Sean Hamilton, winners of the 2024 WCMA for Breakout Artist of the year, are back with a new EP, Visions, on a new label, SUPERCONNECTED (formerly Red Music Rising). Produced by Juno Award winner Hill Kourkoutis (Aysanabee, Royal Wood, SATE), the follow-up to 2023’s Unconditional Love In Hi-Fi is filled with raw and catchy destined anthems that cover themes of self-esteem, gender norms, Indigeneity and stoicism.
“I never really know until I'm done writing, but the whole concept behind the EP became where you envision your life going and where it’s ended up,” says Miesha. “I've got a family now, but I'm still doing the thing that I dreamed I would be doing. That's not exactly how I thought it would be; you dream bigger than reality — or reality yet — and come face to face with where you’ve landed.”
Four singles — the metaphorical “Cut My Bangs” (out in January), forgiving “Fight My Body” (April), stoic “Smiling” (June) and hopeful “Good Boys” (Sept.) — will be released throughout the first half of 2026, as Miesha, a married mom of six-year-olds twin boys, takes care of her newborn girl. Meanwhile, Sean has plenty to keep him busy, singing with his wife in country duo Sean Hamilton and the Amber Hour, as well as drumming for Julius Sumner Miller, and Beta Boys.
“Visions is kind of a refresh,” says Miesha who formed the namesake project in 2008 and cemented the duo with Sean in 2015. “It's 10 years of me and Sean playing together. This is where I envisioned the band going, what I imagined it would be like, the kind of music we're playing, the kind of stuff that we're able to put out. Our energy, our live show, it was always working towards this.”
The song that kicks off Visions’ world-works-in-mysterious-ways concept is the empowering pop-pogo “Cut My Bangs,” which is loosely about Miesha meeting her husband. “When you cut your bangs, you're over everything. You're just like, ‘Fuck it, this is something new.’ I cut my bangs and was like, ‘Okay, no more shit relationships; I'm just focused on my career,’ and then I met my husband,” she says. “Guess what, you can have both. When you cut something off and make a decision, good things usually happen.”
The follow-up single, “Fight My Body,” kicks the shit out of low self-esteem, stemming from youthful years of partying too hard, too many diets, and finally forgiving yourself. “How are we treating our body? We don't feel comfortable in our own skin, and we fight against something that we should be working with. The song is about the frustrations around that,” Miesha explains.
Also on Visions is the dirgy angst-filled “Can I Scream” about the apathy and discrimination displayed by the Manitoban leadership when the families of two missing Indigenous women, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, wanted a landfill searched for their remains and were told it was too costly and dangerous.
Miesha, who is mixed Secwépemc, says, “I write a lot about being Indigenous now, which I wasn't super comfortable about earlier on just because there's just so much trauma and bullshit in my family’s history. What do I feel comfortable sharing? What do I feel comfortable identifying as and representing? It’s not every song I write about, but it's present in everything I write because it's just so much of who I am.”
Miesha and the Spanks’ early self-produced recordings feel more like demos now. The first producer they worked with was Ian Blurton (of Change of Heart and C’mon fame) for 2013’s Girls, Like Wolves (released on Saved By Radio). Unfortunately, that’s when the drummer decided he didn’t want to tour anymore, and the fill-in drummer ultimately decided she didn’t want to either.
One day, Miesha recruited her coworker, Sean, from the diner they worked at to play a 15-minute set at the popular Rockin' 4 Dollar$ and, for the past decade, he has been “and the Spanks.” Their first recording together is 2018’s Girls Girls Girls album, produced by the Buzzcocks Danny Farrant and his studio partner Paul Rawson (released on Saved By Vinyl), which won three 2019 YYC Music Awards, Female Artist, Single of the Year, and Rock Recording of the Year. The pair then cut the independent Singles EP in 2021, produced by Leeroy Stagger, for which they won a 2022 YYC Music Award for Rock Recording of the Year.
For the next album, 2023’s Unconditional Love In Hi-Fi, they worked again with Farrant and Rawson, which pushed the band to the next level, winning CBC Searchlight’s 2023 Outstanding Indigenous Artist for the song “Dig Me Out,” 2024’s YYC Music Award for Single of the Year (“So Mad”), and the coveted 2024 Breakout Artist of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards. The reception enabled Miesha and the Sparks to tour Canada, the US, UK, Germany, Sweden and Poland. Highlights include Winnipeg’s Burt Block Party with Billy Talent, opening for Bif Naked on her Alberta club dates, and a slot on Poland’s Different Sounds Festival, as part of gender equity organization Keychange.
Now, Miesha and the Sparks will build on that momentum with an EP that’s full of hits.
As listeners will hear when Visions drops, it starts with a 16-second intro, “túme,” featuring her twins, then goes into the lead track, “Vision 4 U,” in which Miesha sings this personal manifesto, “It’s my world; it’s my life. I’m doing fine. I’m having the best time.”
Manager: Carly McFadden
Label: Superconnected