Shamble on

I sat down with Bryan Webb of the Constantines a couple hours before their excellent show at the Exchange last night...

[I would have written a much more inspired introduction, but it's nearing 6am, I've not slept yet, and I've got to make it to Saskatoon for today's show, and proceed to fly to Houston on Saturday for my forthcoming Tom Waits excursion. The Cons played a surprising amount of older songs and covered "Street Fighting Man". Please excuse spelling and punctual mistakes, I'll make revisions when I'm back in a few weeks time.]

Shamble On: Okay, so we'll start off quick. How's the tour going? I've noticed you've got a bus out there this time.

Bryan Webb: Yeah, it's very luxurious...this tour. We sort of feel like that any moment the, the joke, you know, somebody's gonna pop out and tells us it’s a joke.

SO: It's all over, pull the bus away.

BW: Yeah. Drop off the van. You know? Yeah, it's great. Arts & Crafts hooked it up and it's been amazing. We slept really well. We're just beginning but you know we brought our bikes and skateboards. We're just kind of able to see some of the cities that we're stopping at which is amazing. Going to barbecues. We've had - this will be the third barbecue and we've only been one tour for half a week.

SO: Sounds like home. How's the new stuff sounding on the road?

BW: Good.

SO: Last time around I know you were playing new stuff.

BW: Good, good. It's coming along nicely. We did a bit of tour, New York to Chicago. Just maybe two months ago, or a month and a half ago and that was the beginning of touring on this record and it well.

SO: Steve broke his hand before right?

BW: It was actually the beginning of February. It was right when we were about to go. We did South by Southwest and Steve had a cast on his arm, which was pretty badass. Looked pretty tough.

SO: Tough Canadian guys down in Texas?

BW: Yeah, yeah.

SO: So you've brought Ladyhawk around again, you brought them last time.

BW: Mmhmm.

SO: You've also toured a few times with the Tragically Hip.

BW: Mmhmm.

SO: And John Samson penned that nice little write-up about Kensington Heights. Are there any other Canadian bands that you feel a kinship with?

BW: Sure, yeah. There's a bunch of stuff in Toronto that's amazing right now. A community of people that are all really friendly and great. Like Jennifer Castle - who we did a few shows in Ontario with - is amazing. And Shotgun and Jaybird from Sacville, New Brunswick. And like Julie Doiron who now tours with Fred from Shotgun & Jaybird as, I think they're called Slow Down its Monday. Or something like that. And they're amazing. $100 - from Toronto, are amazing. They're playing my wedding, actually. In about a month.

SO: Congratulations.

BW: Thank you. Yeah, we're lucky to be surrounded by really amazing, talented people. Smart, creative people.

So: Kensington Heights is obviously the first one for Arts & Crafts. Was that the logical next step after Three Gut Dissolved?

BW: Sort of. We were completely free agents after Tournament of Hearts, cause our Sub Pop contract was fulfilled. We had a good relationship with them, but they were just too far for us and we wanted to be closer to the people who were doing the business thing. And yeah, Arts & Crafts is a smaller roster like Three Gut and they just have a few more people working there and they're a bit more business minded. Like Three Gut Records was great, cause it was, uh...

SO: More of a family atmosphere?

BW: Yeah. It was very small and very, you know? Sort of a family run kind of business and we're all just friends. We would hang out with each other all the time. That was part of it - wanting to be close to the people doing the label again. It takes about five minutes to walk from our practice space to the label - the Arts & Crafts headquarters, which is great. It's nice to be able to have a social connection with those people.

SO: See who's signing the cheques. You worked with Jeff McMurrich once again?

BW: Yep.

SO: Was the studio process any different this time then it was for Tournament of Hearts?

BW: The biggest difference was that we just had a lot more time, which was amazing. I tend to get really uncomfortable for the first week of recording and I find it to be a little too clinical, generally. This time I was able to go through that and then get comfortable and relax a bit and then just enjoy the process, which was amazing. And yeah Jeff, we worked with on the last record. And how the studio we recorded this at was the same as the last record. A lot more comfort in the process, so that was a big difference. I think we just wrote more songs to be played live, where as Tournament is a little bit of a studio album.

SO: Yeah, "Trans Canada" sounds like the perfect capture of you guys live, I think.

BW: Cool.

SO: Bigger sound.

BW: Yeah, just a big, organic sound.

SO: More of a live record?

BW: Yeah. We definitely pulled apart things, and re-arranged things, and overdubbed things. The end goal was to make it sound like a live performance.

SO: I think you did it wonderfully, and I think it shows.

BW: Thanks. That's good to hear.

SO: How did Boyd Deveraux end up playing the Hammond [on "Time Can Be Overcome"]?

BW: The first time we encountered him we were playing in Detroit, this place called the Lager House, I think, where we used to play all the time. It's just kind of a great dive venue. We came off stage and there was like a note on a napkin thing - Enjoyed the show. If you guys ever wanna come see a game look me up. Then his phone number, and signed Boyd Deveraux. He was playing for the Red Wings at the time, got traded to Toronto so he's been in and around Toronto for the last few years. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a poser when it comes to hockey. I don't follow hockey very closely, but the other guys in the band do and they came to develop a really great friendship with him. I think he's an amazing guy. Really sweet person. So yeah, he was just was hanging out...He came down cause they had a night off, or something when we were recording and he came down to hang out and see the studio, cause he was curious. He came in and we pretty much forced him to play one note on the Hammond organ just so we could get him in the credits of the record.

SO: I like how you went from curling to hockey in one album.

BW: Oh yeah. Sports - they're a great parallel to music.

SO: You know The Weakerthans did beat you though; they did them both on the newest album.

BW: I know! But John Samson has a more legitimate connection to curling. More of a right to writing about curling, just cause he put us to shame when we were on tour with them the last time. It was in Winnipeg and we stopped there in the middle of the tour, it was John's birthday. So Stephen Carroll from The Weakerthans rented out a curling lane and we all just went and tried to curl. And John had curled in high school so he was grace on the ice. The rest of us were just jokers.

SO: You guys have been together for almost a decade now, closing in on there. Do you somewhat feel the need to re-invent yourselves with each album a little bit, or do you prefer to let that unfold a bit more naturally as a band?

BW: It's just each song, more than each record. We just try and write a different song each time we try and write a song. So each record ends up being different because each time we try and write a song we try and say something a little different. Hopefully we're not repeating ourselves that much. We don't have a real system for writing music; we just take each song as it comes to us. It's a nice way to work. It's a little stressful at times when things aren't coming, but that's part of the process.

SO: Part of almost any process I guess.

BW: Sure.

SO: I've been reading a couple interviews and you've talked about your fondness of regionalism in art. The album, and a couple songs were dedicated to specific people. Is that something that gives you a bit more of a payoff for you, putting something like that into a song?

BW: Yeah, sure it does. To me it's probably just a great place to start writing a song. I find the hardest thing about writing is beginning, finding a place or a reason to start. If there's somebody in your life, or some place in your life that's worthy of celebrating, or worthy of paying tribute to, then that's a great place to start. There's a song - "I Will Not Sing a Hateful Song" - on this record, that's sort of the most outright statement of intent that I could've written. The idea behind that is at this point of my life I'm finding that songs that are written out of anger kind of have a far shorter...

SO: Shelf-life?

BW: Shelf-life yeah. The impact, or the resonance, or whatever isn't as lasting as something written out of love, or in tribute, or with some kind of hope behind it.

SO: Easier to sing a song that's not pointing your guns at someone then.

BW: Right. I mean, anger's just often a really fleeting emotional response to something. And love is, I think, a much more complicated and lasting, hopefully, you know...

SO: You are working on another project, am I right - The Harbour Coats?

BW: Yep.

SO: How's that coming along?

BW: Good, good. It's moving slowly, but that's how I like it. Its kind of a mellower, weirder band. I live in Montreal now and it's all guys that I know in Montreal that are playing in the band, which is fun. It's great; we have a nice little practice space. Songs that I've been accumulating for the last five years, they wouldn't work as Cons songs, for one reason or another. We started recording but it's going to be a long process and I'm not sure when it will come out, or who will put it out, but it's nice to have that to balance the really loud music.

SO: How do the other projects that you all have influence the Cons, if at all?

BW: I think it's just, it's better to be creative in some form all the time, then it is to come at it like OK, we've got to write a song, we've got to make a record. If everybody's just making art, or making some creative effort, then that energy is around, you know? Which is a good reason to surround yourself in art and just to immerse yourself in music and art, you know go to a museum every once in a while. To have that energy around you, it's a good thing. That's sort of our attitude now is the more creativity in the band, whether or not it's for this band, the better. It's still going to be a good thing.

SO: You mentioned you're in Montreal now... One of my favourite Tom Waits lines happens to be - "Never saw my hometown till I stayed away too long" - does that kind of sum up your perspective with Montreal? Does living in Montreal give you a different outlook when you're living away from your jamspace, etc.?

BW: I think that's why Kensington Heights seemed like a good title for this record and why there are so many little references to that part of the world, just cause I moved away two years ago and I've just been kind of looking at it from a bit of a distance now. Being able to look at that time objectively. The time that I lived there, and the people that I know still, and what I go to when I'm there, what I love about it. It's helped the band, too. My relationship with the band is the same. We were just so close, in such physical close quarters for such a long time that you start to lose a sense of objectivity. It's all subjective and you just lose a sense of what it is that you're doing. You don't understand how other people see it anymore at all. So getting to away, getting to Montreal, having a home life there, the quieter kind of life there has helped me understand what the role of the band is in my life, and what I like about doing that.

SO: You're playing a couple festivals in the summer, any plans after that?

BW: We're going to Europe in September. We'll maybe play a few shows around the east at the end of November, December. I think we are going to go back to Europe in January just for a quick trip over there. And there's talk of going to Australia and Japan, which would be amazing. I've never been, so that would be a dream come true. We'll see what happens. We may do another trip out with The Weakerthans, but we're just starting to talk about that again. It'd be nice to it again. It's a good family road trip kind of feeling.

SO: Last of all, will we ever see the return of Horsey Craze?

BW: Horsey Craze lives on. I don't know if we'll ever retire it cause it's so fun to do. It's just sort of one of those things that we do it when the right person asks us, or when the most fun opportunity presents itself. It's just for pure fun to do that. We've had some great nights because of that. It's like when we start to take this band too seriously, we have that to take completely not seriously at all. That's what it's for. It'll happen again. When we have time and when the right opportunity presents itself.

Hot on the heels of the new album from Ontario’s Constantines comes my first venture into the blogosphere. What does an early twenties mannish boy with no journalism or musical background living two hours from the province’s capital have to offer to the world of MP3 blogging? Probably not very much, but that’s not about to stop me from putting some enthusiasm into my little corner of the internet here. Enthusiasm that’s too often absent on more prevalent music sites.

I’m hoping to post something here weekly. While I’m not entirely sure just yet, that something is likely to be some sort of music news, interviews, or half-hearted reviews (Hey, that’s what the header says!). Ramblings would likely be a more accurate description. I’m hoping to keep Shamble On predominately Canadian, with a spotlight on deserving Saskatchewan talent. There should also be an MP3 or two available for download with each post – I’m using FileDen until someone more technologically inclined leads me elsewhere.

So without further adieu, I present from their 2005 release Tournament of Hearts, “You Are a Conductor” by the Consantines. Not quite my favourite Cons song, it is one of the album's best and happens to feature the line from which I gathered this blog's title. Enjoy.

Download:
Constantines :: You Are a Conductor

Shop:
Constantines :: Tournament of Hearts

Shamble on

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

2008 Regina Folk Festival

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Sadies :: Regina

Friday, June 20, 2008

Bryan Webb (Constantines) :: Interview

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Zombies :: Saskatoon & Regina

Friday, April 25, 2008

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