On a day like this where the sun was claiming victim after victim with its viciously scorching rays, the only way to cool down was with a chill, sweet scoop of ice cream. As I let the air-conditioned space inside The Big Chill on College Street wrap its cool arms around me, Chris Chu walked in to hand me my card for a free scoop of dairy goodness and joined me in line. “I used to work in an ice cream parlour,” Chu informed me, noting his skills in waffle cone-making. But as we near the front of the line filled with fans trading their tickets for free scoops – a gift that came with the free acoustic set by Chu later that day – he revealed an interesting tidbit. “Does that one have any dairy in it?” asked the Morning Benders front man, quizzing the girl behind the counter. Chu is unfortunately lactose intolerant.

“It’s like rubbing it in my face,” admits Chu, about performing at an ice cream parlour. The lead singer opts for a fruit-flavoured scoop, free of dairy. When asked if the California quartet has played any other bizarre venues, Chu thinks pretty hard but can only list another lactose unfriendly locale. “We’ve played two pizza parlours, one in Illinois and one in Austin, Texas. But I can have a slice of pizza and be fine.”

Mildly strange venues are just one of many signs of a band who’s toured extensively. This was the band’s third time back to Toronto in five months, skyrocketing from the dark basement of the Drake Hotel to the big box venue of the Kool Haus now. The band’s latest release Big Echo lightly grabs onto the bandwagon of the summer, featuring breezy waves of lo-fi melodies that oozed onto playlists everywhere like the shores of the west coast. Having been on the road so much has to take a toll on a musician but Chu sees it more as an opportunity to seize the day. When asked about being homesick Chu explains that he does miss both his hometown and his new adopted home of New York City but “I feel like this is one of those times where I absolutely have no responsibilities, besides band stuff, where I have nothing holding me down so I can just travel on a whim. It’s kind of nice to not have a place to live.”

Touring does stifle one thing though: songwriting. “I don’t write when I’m on the road but if I have a couple of days off, I’ll write,” says Chu. But fear not, the band already has new material in the works. Chu admits to having written two full albums worth of songs, one not entirely along the lines of what the Morning Benders are currently doing but the other being “the next logical step.” Will we see the return of producer Chris Taylor? “I don’t know…we’ll see,” says the tight-lipped Chu.

Chu may not take part much in the dairy food group but he is a self-professed food enthusiast, geeking out every type of cuisine possible and where you can find great offerings of each when questioned about where one would find good food. “I’m pretty serious about this. If you’re looking for Vietnamese or Korean, the best is in LA. Indian is best in New York, I think. I have a lot of friends who I consult with and the internet, of course.”

And just as our miniscule cups of dairy-less ice cream were about empty, I cap our conversation off with the Singing Lamb last question: if you were a singing animal, what would you be? “A koala,” Chu replied immediately. “I’m just always connected to the koala bear. I used to buy those Koala Yummies at Japanese markets all the time! Pocky is good too.” And I thought the food talk was over.

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