Said The Whale

Part 1

0:01Tyler, thank you. Yes, thanks for having me. My pleasure. It's been a while. It's been like two years since I seen you. So things have really progressed since then. Um, yeah. Yeah, I suppose you could say it in a relative scale. In a relative scale, yeah. Well, I mean, you put out new records in October and people knew where you were this time. Yeah, that is true. Right, so automatically you get those sales, you get the shows, and... Yeah, but do you notice that in a band? Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's such a difference between showing up on your very first tour of any of three people. And getting, you know, selling in modest values, but it's still an amazing feeling. And people have been very, very good to us. So we're lucky. Monastery, you're playing the Commodore in a couple of days. Oh, yeah, that's not a monastery. That to me is a big deal.

0:47If you played there once last year with Mud and Mud, and... Oh, really? Yeah, and it was an absolute pleasure to be able to play. Some of my favorite shows I've ever seen in the Commodore. Definitely that. And then I guess the next step would be the work for the hometown show. That would be nice. One day? Yeah, one day? Queen Theater maybe? Yeah, definitely. So how is this tour going, even on the road for what a couple of a week or two? Oh, no, it's six weeks. With plenty of... No, you were in some other stuff. No, you were in some other stuff. Yeah, we started out in Ontario with Graham Wright and the infant safety. And then headed up to the East Coast and did some shows with Colorado and then a couple of other just our own shows. And then had a week off in the P.E.I. where we just went to the house and set up our tour and did some writing. Oh, really? Cool. And then scooted back to Winnipeg and started with plants and had them all the time when we were done on the beginning of the day.

1:35How do you write? You're in the band right together. You write as a band or...? Totally, separately. And this was kind of the first time that we were kind of trying to write as a band. And it went okay. It went okay. So what does that mean? It went okay. Most of what came out of it was a result of me or Ben just in our individual rooms by ourselves. And they were really representing the songs. And then they kind of take a life of their own. It's very much like almost like two solo artists giving the songs to a band. Right. And then they always take a totally different shape. I'm sure they do. Well, you get along new players too in the band now that must bring things in different directions than they had before. Yeah, not really you anymore. No, but nuisance. Last time we talked. Yeah. Yeah.

2:20Crazy. What was it? What cut you into music? What were the records that got you into music? What were you listening to? Oh, God. Well, like when I was a kid I was just obsessed with Elvis. Elvis, yeah. Okay. And then came the Beatles. But it was mostly what I think the Beatles were first. It was Elvis in his first. I guess that's more up to your parents, isn't it? What they introduced you to? Or did you kind of go into their record collection? No idea. How I done in Elvis. Okay. No idea. I don't think either of my parents really care for Elvis. All right. And maybe they did when they were like teenagers or my mom maybe did. You know, and then I don't know if I just wanted to be in a band and play music. And I was always interested in songwriting and doing it since I was 12 or whatever. Yeah, I enjoyed a lot since.

3:07That's why. Oh, God. Good. As soon as it's not fun I don't think I'll do it anymore. No, Lynn, you shouldn't. Yeah, I think you shouldn't. A lot of short songs on this record. All your songs are like three minutes and under except for orienteering which I think the only one that's longer. Is that a conscious decision to try and get radio players? Oh, not at all. No, nothing to do with trying to get radio play. They just end up short. Yeah, we've always been short songwriters. And it's, I have no idea why. It's just you have a certain particular thing you need to say and then that's it. And I have no explanation. I'm sorry. Oh, and the show. And it's absolutely weird. I've got a couple of weird songs too.

3:53It's just like, well, this is kind of the vibing song. It's going to go this song. Boom, we've got a couple of older songs. We're like 30 seconds or a minute. And it's just fine because it's all I need to be. Really why stretch it? Yeah, and why purposely drag something out that's not meant to be. Interesting for sets though, because you think the sets at a concert would be a little shorter. Oh, well, you used to play more songs. Well, what did you do on that first go around when you were doing that? I really would play like 16 songs and that would be like a 40 minute set. And now like our songs are definitely getting like a little bit longer as we keep writing. And like, you know, they're now maybe like three to four minutes. But still like, you know, a 40 to 45 minute set for us, like 12 and 13 songs. But with most bands, it's like eight or nine songs.

4:39With the new word record, I'll say. Out now in the old record, a couple of years ago, there must be songs from that that just don't come up anymore. What are some songs that you'll just always play that you know at night and night out, always going to have to be the set? The light is you use one that we play every night. The juice commercial helped that big time. A little bit you put that yourself? Yeah, so like, you know, obviously you want to play the songs that people know. And it's kind of something that you, you know, I remember like a couple years ago thinking, oh, I never wanted to be one of those bands. Or to predict the set and what songs they can play. But then you kind of realize, well, people just really want to hear these people their songs that they know. And it's really fun playing songs for people when they're into it. So yeah, there's songs like that and Camila and I think now, I'm ready to success that that's had her.

5:24We'll play that song every night. I don't know how sweet play every night. BCR and you're tearing you by every night. You know, it's hard to choose that because you know we enjoy all of our songs and it's a tough call. Definitely. You read a lot about, and this seems more like a road record. First one was a lot about Vancouver and I'm sure you talked a lot about this over the past one. Well, the second record is always a road record. Yeah, I guess. And it wasn't any sort of conscious decision. It's just that both their inputs by our surroundings and always have been. And that's kind of like thematically something that we have in Colorado and Salt Miners. And so whereas with our first record, the themes were very thankful for Central and EC and stuff.

6:12Just because we had been most of what was written in Vancouver. And then with that record, we toured eight times across the country in two years. And it was six or seven. Anyways. You still quite a bit for one record. Eight total now. This would be an eighth time across the country. So just having spent so much time on the road, that's just where a lot of new inspiration came from. There's still the Homer teams, the Vancouver teams, but they got a lot of it outside. And Nature too, I know. There's a lot of other people orienteering for example. Yeah, that would definitely be the most nature you can tune on the record for sure. Well, it's funny because indie rock talks a lot more about nature compared to Lady Gaga, who will mention telephones and cell phones. The pop music goes into the technology. Although ironically in BC or in

7:07just Rome is about technology. But you're just staying for it. Yeah, or my guilt for being addicted to it. Are you on your phone all the time? Well, especially when you're in a band all the time, what else are you going to do? Yeah, and also it's really how we've been able to kind of keep up with everything and just get your email to your phone and you're able to set up interviews like this. And then you set up, you know, you have another one coming up and saying something. So yeah, it's the way of the future and keeping in touch with friends and girlfriends and stuff. Yeah, for sure. Was it you? I was doing some research for this. That was working with Jeremy Fisher on online marketing. Yeah. Tell me about that and how you got into that and what young bands can do to help themselves.

7:56Well, that was just a company that I started interning for and then got hired. And I was just doing their online promotions and basically just taking artists that they worked with and setting up like an online presence for them, I guess. And you know, I was really just like experimenting at the time and ended up getting his video on the front page of YouTube, which at the time really mattered. And so it was like kind of like a six month two year window where like a video on the front page of YouTube would get like a million to two million views just like that. And that doesn't happen like that anymore. Sometimes you can personalize everything now. And like the genius bar kind of thing where it like knows what you like.

8:42And so yeah, that's actually how we met our manager who is also our label guy. Because he was managing Jeremy and then talked to him about our band. Well, can you suggest for a band that wants to start? And it is. That's all good. Most bands do a really great job. And you know, on Twitter, which is awesome. Facebook with fan page, you got their minds face things set up and they got a website. And then a YouTube channel like our photos. Like it's people using like those main things like that's a really, really good way for people just to kind of keep it streamlined to like the photosite, the video site, the Twitter site for like your instant information, Facebook for connecting the fans.

9:28You know, there's like a big list of like six major websites you should probably be involved with. And it's a daunting task for sure. I think it's more work nowadays for a band than it was 50 years ago. Probably. Yeah. But it's funny because every band usually has one guy that's just in charge of that. And it's funny. You can tell which guy that is. He's got the iPhone and your Blackberry and he's on it all the time. Like, you know, keeping things going on. Yeah, yeah. It's weird because like some bands will kind of take the stance where they'd like to maintain that sort of like rock star mystique a little thing. And that's cool, I guess. That's definitely not who we are.

10:13And I think people, there's totally a valid point to like wanting to, you know, kind of keep your own personal life happening. And just, you know, only keeping things very scarce in terms of information about your man. But at the same time, there's just so much, you got to keep up with everybody else. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. And I think it's cool. I think Twitter is a really great way to stay in touch with people and, you know, keep people informed. And it's also, as a fan, like I, you know, I follow a lot of bands that I love and respect on Twitter. And I'm always very interested to see what they're having for breakfast or what they thought they'd be awarded to. What cereal they'd have to be awarded to, like, whatever. What are they having for breakfast?

10:58Oh, I don't know. That's just 90, you know. Sorry. Like, for me, like, I'm so much more interested in people who are going to make a tweet about what they have for breakfast rather than like, hey, check out this review of my band. Yeah, fair enough. But, you know, to each his own, whatever. Exactly. It's a good thing. What are your plans for the summer? You guys going back on the road or? We are, but in an interesting way. It's us, Jeremy Fisher, who we were talking about before. Our friend Hannah Georges, who was on the cover of the explainer. Right. She'll actually be on the show in a few weeks. Yeah, cool. And then, eight at night, a good friend of ours from Victoria. And we are forming a bike game, a bicycle, a human powered bicycle. And we're going to do a 500 kilometer, seven or eight show tour of BC and the Gulf Islands by bicycle.

11:46Wow. Yeah. See, for Jeremy, it's one person. Hannah's one person. You guys are what? Five pieces? It's five of us. So all of you are going to be on bikes. Yeah, and then, eight, it's just one person as well. So we're all going to be on bikes. We're going to have one support vehicle. I was going to say, how are you going to carry the kit? Yeah, so that'll mean support vehicle. I think we'll have backpacks with the personal stuff and instruments, hopefully in the van. And a trailer or something. Yeah. So yeah, it's going to be great. We're forming a supergroup. It's called a supergroup. Say that. A BC supergroup. A BC supergroup. There you go. It's called the Malahat Review. Okay. And yeah, coming to a small town in BC near you via bicycle. That's awesome. Well, it's all cottage country there. It's good. Yeah. Small towns aren't really small towns. Well, I think we'll play Victoria. We'll play like Duncan.

12:31That means anything. You know, Porto, Brane. I think like Salt Spring Island. I think it's going to be a show. Yeah. And I'm oh. So yeah. Nothing like two spread apart. I think maybe the worst biking day is maybe like 80 kilometers before a show. We're going to be sore. Yeah. It's going to be quite taxing. But yeah, but that's awesome. It's going to be incredible. Yeah. And it's things like that that'll get your band more pressed probably than anything else you can do. Sure. Yeah. We're just here for fun. Well, there you go. Nice man. Well, hopefully we'll see you soon. Yeah, yeah. Right. Okay. Well, thanks for having me on the show.

Part 2

0:00So, yeah, why don't we start with the Juneos then? So, what I mean, I'll turn it out amazing, congratulations on that, but the album artwork when I think is kind of cool, because people don't buy records anymore, but to really experience the little mountain artwork, you need to actually feel the record, pick up the record. So do you want to kind of talk about that?

1:45And we've kind of talked about the record, I mean, a few times now, but how did you choose the photos to reflect a song? How did that work within the book? Cool. So the States, so how is LA been the past few days? Yes, it is, especially around the whiskey.

2:38You know, I've been to the whiskey a few times, but obviously not played the whiskey, now that you guys have played the whiskey, is there something to that room that brings back those memories, or not memories for you, but like, I don't know, there was such a vibe in that room in the 60s, did anything like that happen for you guys while you were there?

3:47Well, you think that backstage would have to be cleaned pretty, scrubbed pretty thoroughly after all the debauchery, it's gone a bit on back there. Yeah. So, you know, I know I ask you guys this every time, but I think because you put out a documentary called Winning America, I think I'm going to ask it every time, how are things progressing? How, I mean, obviously the Star's Tour is going to help out a lot, but how is this run? And since last time we spoke, last summer helped.

4:40Yeah, amazing. And the Star's Tour, like I said, I'm sure going to help, and I'm just wondering, are you playing... Yeah, well, that's good. Yeah, for sure. Are you playing any of the songs that you wrote testing this new material I keep reading about?

5:25That's interesting, because I would think you'd want to play the hits because those are the songs that have worked up here, so maybe they'll work down there. Now, obviously you want to play the new songs because that's what's fresh in your mind, that's what you're digging right now. But I find that interesting... Yeah, yeah, well, it works.

6:38I was reading an article that exclaimed wrote recently about working on the new songs. They said you and Ben went to a... Or maybe some of the other guys from the band too, I don't know, went to do songwriting sessions in Banff. So what is so special about Banff and why there, and why did you feel the need to get away to write? Well, we did, right?

8:06So it's safe to say that the record is done being written? Yeah, sure. Amazing. So I don't want to do five questions because we've done it so many times, so I thought I'd switch it up because I know you guys are big campers, and why don't we do three pieces of indispensable camping gear, besides like a tent and a flashlight and the usable stuff, but stuff that you guys know of that most people wouldn't. Okay.

9:16Okay, I like that. Something like along the lines is bacon toast, but not, you know what I mean? That's perfect, that kind of shit. Yes, love it. Okay. Okay. That was my fault.

10:07Yeah, all right. Well, I got to be able to... Putting indispensable was the wrong word. I just figured you guys would be like purest campers. No, I know. I think it's just gonna be things, right? Yeah. I like both. I just, three things. I like, so far we got gasoline in this wood stove, and I like the way the wood stove thing is going. One more. If you can, if not, this is a stupid idea and whatever. I won't print it, but I thought it'd be fun.

10:58I like that, that's good.