Arkells

Part 1

0:00Dan and Max, thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having us. Appreciate it. So you're telling me, you guys are heading home now. How's the tour been? Homeward bound. Homeward bound, just like a bunch of five stray dogs. Yeah. Looking for a place to. I always, I'll be the little one. What's the one that gets into trouble? The little one I'm talking about. He's played by Matthew Fox, I think. And I'll be the cat. Who's looking at party at five? Where are you going with this? Well, maybe that's party at five. That, I think. I think we're talking about friends. OK. What's going on? I'll be channeling. No, yeah, we're, I think it's a 19th show on the tour. And we've had a really great time with the waking eyes. Funny guys. Funny, great guys. And you and your manager tells you

0:45who you're going to be on tour with. And you've got to cross your fingers and hope that they're going to be fun to hang out with. And we're having a ball with them. You made some drinking friends, have you? Yeah, definitely. Do we look like we've made some drinking friends? No, I don't mean to see that. I don't mean to see that. Maybe a little. No, you should have seen us the first day on the job. Yeah, we were suits and ties. Yeah, we were straight up in a really shaved. We were doing push-ups and stuff. We were doing push-ups. LAUGHTER Cool. Yeah. Well, you guys got lucky, though. Matt May is in that now waking eyes. You got in some good tours. Yeah, no, we've been really fortunate last year to be getting some great gigs. Have you toured the country before that? I was May's the first time across. We did one before that. OK. Well, it kind of one and a half before that. We did. St. Helvier Cartel first. Yeah, we did. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like kind of a tour with them. This is our first time out ever.

1:30And they're like much smaller shows. But at that point, we didn't even really, we just wanted to see the country. Yeah, of course. It was awesome. And then in the summer, we did three dates with the Black Crows in Winnipeg. Really? Yeah, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton. That's May. Oh, it was on the air that night. That's why I didn't go to the show. Yeah, we played the Jack Singer down the road. That must have been something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The catering for those three shows. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Much better than any other catering. Yeah. Those are real rock shows. Because they're rock crows. You get the massages backstage. Totally. Yeah. We didn't show off. Yeah. Why? I don't know if you can say that. But we'll keep it at any rate. Let's play song and get off that topic. OK. So you guys are going to play a song for us? Yeah. What do you feel like playing? We're going to play pulling punches. Yeah. How come that one? Well, it's cool. The songs on the record are kind of rock songs.

2:16But we can folk it down a little bit. And yeah, it's kind of a cool folk tune when we play it acoustically, I think. Nice. Yeah. One, two, three, four. Brunch it. You know it's better get as to play. Do you know how it attracts? Well, there were times when you strike those cheers.

3:24You take them fast. To play. And I know you. And times you don't see them take them fast.

4:45So pass for the take them fast.

5:34Nice tune, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I like it. So you met Elton John. What was that Elton John thing in the middle there? Oh, yeah. We didn't meet him. Well, well, no, I didn't see you met him. Oh, yeah. No. If you listen closely to that section of the song, there is an Elton John reference. Yeah. So, and homage. And homage. And homage. Good homage. If you listen to the tune, it's like in the bridge of Pull and Punch is a few of the record. And you will hear some similarities. But nothing that we're willing to admit. Nothing live on the air. Fair enough. Not fair enough. And legally. I understand seed too. You didn't eat it. OK. Yeah, our lawyers have a strict answer. I understand. Yeah. I'm sure. This day and age, you can't really do anything. No. You'll be very careful. Yeah, that's right. So we'll switch topics altogether to the next single, which might be Pull and Punch, is because there's something

6:20going on your website where fans are deciding what's going on there. Well, yeah, we have we put it up to the people of Canada to decide what they wanted to hear. And I think it looks like actually the it was a close race. It was a very close race. And they were all we felt like they were all worthy competitors. But in the end, it looks like the ballad of Hugo Chavez is going to take the cake. Very nice. But that won't be out for at least another month or two. So yeah. Cool. So all people can always go download it now. They can download it now. Yeah. Yeah. We plan on releasing every song as a single. So you'll be hearing the next four years will be just Archales. Nonstop. Jackson Square. I like it. We're going to rerelease Jackson Square next year. It's going to be called Archales the Singles.

7:06Yeah. It's just going to be Jackson Square. Yeah. Through the years. Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president. Why? What's the song? How did why write a song with him, of all people? We thought it was an interesting story. It doesn't really take place now. It takes place in the song takes place in the early 90s when he was put in jail for trying to have a coup to overthrow the government at the time. And the song is just about him being in jail and reading. And I thought that was pretty interesting because he learned a lot while he was in jail. And so yeah, I think if Dan and I ever get thrown in prison, we're supposed to be. Oh, yeah. Hopefully we'll have to keep going and talking about that Elton John stuff you might do. Yeah. We hoped at least soak up some books. And then maybe overtake another country.

7:52Oh, yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Well, let's play the tune off the record. You guys will play some more songs for us in a bit. But if that might be the next single, let's give people a preview now. Cool. Yeah. Oh, God, you guys can both answer.

11:05Oh, good. At the same time. Same time. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Rode or studio? Hold on. Tell you. Or road or studio? Studio. Laneway. What? Oh, play the game. OK. All right. Come on, man. You imagine this. I can imagine you in Little League Baseball. I did do a lot of that. All right. So Rode or Studio? Rode or Studio? Studio. What do you have to think about it? Do I like the road or the studio better? Yeah. Well, it depends what kind of shows we're playing again. Today, where would you rather be? I like to be in the studio with you. That's the first. That's charming. Yeah. It's a band. That's the first. I did it on McCartney. Oh, my name. McCartney. Hi. Hi. And I'll try to work some of these. That's why we also hate each other.

11:52Yeah. Alcoholing me I want to. Alcohol. For sure. Say no to drugs. Say no to drugs, kids. Song you've written your most proud of. Can I say a song that I didn't write that I was like, I'm proud of. We can play one of those songs later. Yeah. What song do you do? I mean, what do we listen to? I'm a big fan of. I think John Lennon is one of our best. Yeah, I think John Lennon, tune. It's, you know, when we think about my favorite bands, there's always like, at least on like per record, there's like one kind of defining song that seems to not fall short on any element, whether it be lyrics and music and arrangement. And for us, I think John Lennon comes closest to that, I think, in terms of being a full song, like on your big fans Joel Plaskett.

12:40And who hasn't really been in. He has a song down at the Kyber. And that song just, you know, murders all the way through from start to the top. Yeah, cool. Yeah, like Armie by Ben Foltz Five, like that song all the way through is like, he keeps on getting good. And that one's cool because we didn't know how. We really didn't know how that one would turn out. We went in the studio. I remember, because that was like a new one. And we didn't really, we had road tested a little bit. But it's one of the ones that we went in really sort of like being greened to how it would turn out. And it ended up being one of the surprising ones that we really liked at the end. Cool. That's nice and happy. But all of you too, to write a song called John Lennon, because you know you're going to get criticized for it, no matter what. Oh man, I think it's funny though. I think, you know, I don't know, keep on Lennon.

13:26Yeah, and the song doesn't really have much to do with John Lennon at all. Yeah, that's the funny part. It has nothing to do with John Lennon. We're hoping that we can meet Yoko though. So yeah. That'd be nice. Yeah, or even an angry email. Slapper in the face. And an angry email. Yeah, but yeah, we actually haven't got too much criticism. That actually song, that song has gone over best live. I think like people have a really good time singing along to it. Yeah, it's fun. Back to the five questions. All right, sorry. No worries. I like answers. It's good when interviews have answers. Yeah. One word, R calz. OK, what's the question? One word, describe your band. Oh, oh, yeah. Should really preface that one more. Yeah, you'll get to use a lot of time. One word. OK. Probably handsome. Handsome. Yeah. Charming. Charming, endearing.

14:11All right, before you guys. OK. Just we can't go on all that. We can just play another song for you. OK, this is a song called The Blueprint. The last song on the record. Yeah. Why, why, you know, you know, some bands have a lot of thought into the sequencing of the record. I don't know if you guys do or not. Oh, yeah. Is there a reason it happened to be last? Is it come last in your show? Yeah, Blueprint. Because, yeah, lyrically, it made sense, you know, sort of like the send off the album. It was, you know, the lyrics are sort of like about not fearing the new year and making a plan and trying to follow it through. So that was sort of like the last, yeah, I don't know, it just sort of made sense. Plus, there's this really badass explosion at the end of it. Yeah, Dan was really proud of that. So, yeah, it's sort of like our attempt at making some sort of epic ending to a movie,

15:02like if it was a Hollywood movie, that would be the Armageddon. That would be the wave coming and crashing over everything. We definitely fought a lot about sequencing, though. It took us like a whole week to like arguing back and forth like all day long as to how we were going to sequence the record. But yeah, Blueprint, yeah, we do play it last a little lower at the end of a set. So, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, I do some sort of explosion at the end of this song for us, too. Yeah, actually we're going to like see you on fire. Wonderful. Yeah. My boss is going to love that one. Yeah, you had us in. You might be coming soon. Cool. See what I just did to hide. I got that. That's good. Like we did.

15:51Hey, if my moves come by, she's worse. Am I happy like those drums? I wouldn't. I keep wishing to figure some kind of voice. So many that I got it for. So let's go. Never root. So many that I got it for. So let's go. Never root. Well, thanks, guys.

18:17Cool tune. And I'm glad you did a little explosion ending for me without lighting the studio on fire. Like you promised. Yeah, there's always, we sell like 10 more minutes in here. Yeah, that's true. You never know what's going to happen. So what's next for you guys? This tour ends. I mean, the rack you've gone twice across with this record. Yeah, we just got our calendar from our manager. They send us a postcard in the mail with a calendar. And we're like, all right, you guys. So anyway, we drive back home. We got a few days off. We get back next Tuesday. I work from Wednesday to Friday back in my job. What do you do? I just file things. I alphabetize things too. You just got to put those in. And I put things in a chronological order. The one, the other job you were working with, it's pretty cool. The one where you were doing the sports. No, yeah. I had another cool job where I do like I format the sports section.

19:05I have a new paper. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so like the sports box source come off the wire. And then for like the Calgary Herald, our department does it. Cool. And the Edmonton Journal, I do the Edmonton Journal. And so if I wanted to, for instance, I could put in like Max Kerman, which is me. Yeah. Scored six goals yesterday for the Calgary Flames. I'm in control of that. And I would show up in the Calgary Herald. So just, you know, if you have a keen eye, I'd be looking out from Wednesday to Friday next week. That's amazing. Well, hopefully this music thing will take you away from those jobs. Yeah. This one is it sounds, but that's the goal, right? Oh, yeah. Actually, I didn't get a chance to finish. Okay. Stop coming right now. That was my fault. Yeah. It's your fault. No, and we get back when Canadian Music Week and we're doing like a weird like songwriters

19:52circle showcase at the Mod Club in Toronto with Tom Cochran and Burden Cummings where the opening act. Wow. And Sash Jordan and Serena Ryder, like the five of us. Oh, that's cool. And we'll have some of these songs and talk about them. And then we're playing the area. Collectic match. Yeah, it's all over the board. Then we're doing the next night, we're doing the India Awards. We're playing with a bunch of great Canadian indie acts. And then we drive to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest the following week. Wow. And we're playing with like Sam Roberts and a bunch of good Canadian bands like To Our Traffic and some American bands, the Primal Scream and the Black Lips. No, the Spirit. That's a really good spirit. Wow. Yeah. And we're going to time off. We're going to do Ontario, Gens, do some smaller markets.

20:37Yeah, the whole town stuff. Yeah, yeah. And then we're going to go to England. We got some shows in England, some showcases and a show at the bar fly and a show. Cool. And it's going to be great. And then we're going to Whistler in April as well. And we're playing with, I don't know if this is officially announced. I feel the lawyer, we have like a shock bracelets on our ankles. Yeah. If we do. Well, don't bother. We'll talk about England. Have you guys been across them? No. Have you done shows anywhere outside of Canada yet? Have you done the States at all? That's with us. Yeah. With us. Yeah. We're excited about that. It's going to be fun. Yeah, it's cool. Well, best of luck guys. And hopefully come by again every time you come through. Right here. For sure. So one tune to close us out. Obviously, got to be the single. Yeah. Contractual obligation. Oh, to your boss. Oh, to everyone's boss. May or may not be coming down the line someday. Thank you so much guys.

21:23Appreciate it. No thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. We'll see you.

22:52We'll see you there.

Part 2

0:00awesome so where are you and i think you can't back to kenya and and practice yet with practicing not like in the middle of recording like rehearsing some songs or if you are saying that where we we actually hit iraq so we need to find the break anyway the guitar for a phone call that nice good good what uh... what are the new songs sounding like i think that's what everyone's most curious about that is this will be like a a new record progress report kind of interview yeah no the uh... the new record ro super excited about it you know i think we're and the sort of the same thing as a blast record in the sense that you know we we're still suckers for you know kind of pop song like you know songs of courses and songs with catch-emelities and it's still the five of us playing

0:46and the instruments uh... probably the probably the difference uh... with the new song it's kind of the way we want to go but recording them in the last uh... last couple years we've had a chance to listen to so many kind of new bands that maybe we weren't familiar with before we were quite a jack and square so it's really exciting for us to you know get to think around with new sounds you know there's been a lot of the good records you know to keep up with the record you look into a ton that that sounds really good and you know the band like you know the national spoon who we really like uh... so is it more keyboard based kind of them uh... yet there might be a little little more since keyboard stuff going on maybe bad enough

1:31we we we we start next one day we start uh... recording next oh you haven't started okay now well that's cool then are the tunes written or you're gonna write them in the studio uh... now that they're there they are ready to go we're just kind of for it finishing touches uh... right now as we speak uh... on the on the teams but yeah they're all they're already going to be uh... pre-singing one on our own and uh... we're going to be recording and find right as to report after the traffic of the studio uh... just outside of kim st bath house nice when do you expect to have it done like i if they're all written you expect to just go in for like two weeks in finish up yet it was a little bit longer and we have some engagements that we have to you know take a little break from the studio for uh... we're flying to new flan for

2:18one show kind of the end of February uh... so you know probably tracking between three weeks in a and uh... three weeks in a month and then we'll have to go mix the record so hopefully you will have like music for you made you like a little bit bigger single for and then nice big summer tour maybe yeah i think we're gonna be uh... summer is really great for festivals in canada and we're gonna be making it out those neck of words at some point hopefully it'll be in the summer nice i'm excited uh... the title for the desk now we don't think that we can talk to a yet with names for the phone what's your favorite one what's your favorite song in the record uh... because i mean it's exciting press because they're all relatively new in some capacity and can depend on the day you know we we record ourselves to practice like with

3:06uh... with one microphone it would be anything that would make sense anybody else but we've been excited listening to we think back to practices the circle on paper which is which we've been playing live uh... fair amount of last door and uh... we're excited about that one uh... over time and all the songs were pretty excited about that you know i think the game is to make a strong record from front to back are you gonna road test any of the tunes in newton linder maybe this weekend yeah i mean uh... we have to think that we've have been a protesting probably seven of these songs over the last on a say year and a half like we were playing uh... the two called coffee or a little right now it's called coffee another two called country boy that we were playing you know you have to go probably so

3:53uh... i think with our band it takes takes a while trust to really set up the arrangements of the song and you have to get really feel comfortable with it which is great because you know we want to be prepared when we got to the studio yet we've got to go to the government and there's a maybe three or four that we have to get the baby will get around the materialized from you in an acoustic guitar or is it more in a group setting and just kind of jamming it out to work yeah i mean like i'm i may bring in a pretty happy idea all the ideas of pretty happy whoever's coming from and then were able to you know uh... uh... suggestions and you know that sort of long ends up paying out so but but the other thing our band that everybody's open to just in so

4:39can we'll have enough you know idea for you know where the guitar part should be and mike will suggest something of to love the drums and and and well and will tell me that the main melody suggestion so you know it's kind of coming for every angle that's good it's probably the best way to especially for self-producing because then you still it's not just one person signing on things yeah i know for sure it's uh... i think you know we're trying to figure out you know how we're gonna make this record and we we end up we're like you know we have such a good working relationship with each other and we're all generally on the same page but we we can question each other and you know feel really comfortable doing that so we said you know that sounds like we should just can i get a couple of sound clips from me of a couple of songs we play okay yeah uh... pulling punches

5:24pulling punches you know i think uh... you know a lot of the songwriting comes from uh... you know friend you know people that we know and pull a bunch of it is one of the songs that you know it's about you know someone who i really looked up to you and respected especially from uh... from where she came from and you know sort of the things that you had to overcome so it's just a song an admiration of uh... friend i think there's going to be a lot of fun in the new record that sort of have a sense of reflection a song on a completely different topic than his huge of his huge of his huge of his um... you know i think we're we're interested in you know telling stories about interested interesting people and he was a pretty captivating guy

6:10and pretty is pretty controversial guy but uh... story uh... you know chronicles a certain time is life it when he was in jail in the early nineteen ninety's and uh... i thought that was just kind of interesting perspective interesting take on on a guy who's in the news a lot now for different things and tell us a different different part of the life we're what brought you to him why him uh... reading his book yet i was reading the book actually but that is like kind of interesting cuba for some reason so you can kind of turn me on to latin american politics i guess and i know uh... bennett's wayla is uh... is in south america but uh... you know that's a pretty the pretty unique history when it comes to the politics and their leaders johnlin

6:55jonlin is more fun but uh... about kind of feel so you're very self when you're young and you know going out and with your friends and yet it's like a place in hamilton kind of around the past university where a few of the school and uh... the song has a lot of like you know characters a lot of kind of inside references uh... you know between our group of friends but it works for the masses to yeah now we've done this before but we'll do it again five quick questions one word answers rotor studio i wrote for sure lennener mccartney uh... and a little bit more badass but i will acknowledge that mccartney

7:41god damn genius uh... most important thing is on lyrics melody or rhythm a good one to thank you say melody song you've written your most proud of the question i mean there are all kind of our babies i'm a ghost one that the end of our on jack and square and it's uh... called the choir and that's all we didn't really play too much live when we were touring but i think it's uh... things pretty strong unique kind of song why would you play live is a little thing that like if we were hoping for a band we've we get seven or eight songs nine songs and we we kind of got a stick to the bankers other thing is like on jacks where there's a lot of big songs and it's i think

8:27it's easier to play those live and and acquire i don't know i don't know if we totally nailed it the way we recorded it so i think we're a little hesitant because it was one song i never got a lot of like fan feedback just like uh... but we are really like it and i think it uh... we we we played on the last or and we kind of rearrange it a little bit and it felt really great to play in a little here to kind of a different kind of song for us always find that fascinating the relationship between a band of the fans in in that way that there are some you know you guys are really proud of every single song and then not all of them work and you and you i guess you get to see that as a band on stage when people aren't grooving as much yeah i mean that i think that the hard thing about playing new song live especially like i've been to make and you know people are just unfamiliar with them so it's like i'll do we want to

9:14play new stuff or you want to play stuff that you know everyone knows already so we're excited to work that we can actually put the records people can learn the songs and then get excited we can play the mind what's more rewarding for you on stage with wanting to play the new songs and turn people on or having people dancing and digging it uh... they're both rewarding but in different ways when we play the the old stuff it's really cool you know to know that we've been able to show up in a in a random city and people you don't know and i have actually spent the time to learn the song and that is kind of a feeling that i don't think i've ever thought i'd be able to experience but that said now that we're at the point where we if we can play new songs and people respond to them and like on their first listen you can kind of tell you get a really good gauge from the audience like if they're if they're years per cup

10:02and that feeling is really cool and actually we kind of had an interesting experience summer week when we toured with uh... tokyo police club in america and in america we're not really well known at all right we were playing probably we thought eight songs a night and six would be from the actual square and we played two new songs and a lot of times after the show of fans said oh what that one phone called on paper and and so all the time that stuck out to them it was it was a new one which is kind of a really cool way to uh... to test out you know how the how the songs are coming along that's awesome back to the five questions in one word our kels our kels uh... spirited oh good i think he said badass last time so that's a much a maturation on your part