Mother Mother relives success of O My Heart at series of small venues
Mother Mother started in small clubs and, for the band’s current tour, it’s back to the clubs they go.
The Vancouver-based fivepiece long ago graduated to theatres and larger venues on the back of hit records like 2014’s Very Good Bad Thing and last year’s No Culture, but for the 10th anniversary of their second release, O My Heart, the indie rockers have decided to return to their roots, playing a set dedicated to the album that initially broke them nationwide.
“We wanted to honour the record,” explains frontman Ryan Guldemond. “It’s a bit of a nostalgia trip, but it seemed like the right thing to do, to get back to these smaller venues.”
Since Mother Mother is a much more popular band now than when they released O My Heart in 2008, this means they needed to book multiple nights in several cities. As of this writing they’ve sold out three shows at the Starlite Room here in Edmonton, with a small number of tickets available for the Wednesday night performance. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone considering the band’s growing success, but Guldemond refuses to be complacent.
“Just to remain active is a huge success,” he wryly notes. “I mean, God, it’s weird. I never lose sight of how privileged we are that anyone wants to come see us, let alone enough people to sell out a venue, big or small.”
The celebration tour for O My Heart takes the band across Canada, with residencies in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, plus several one-off stops along the way. We spoke with Guldemond about the tour, which makes its way to Edmonton on Wednesday night.
Q: Any time a band gets to celebrate a significant early release it must feel surreal, like as though they’re stepping back rather than forward. Do you have any special feelings for 2008 and the release of O My Heart?
A: I hold those memories in a fond place in my heart, maybe because they’re emblematic of gaining a foothold in a music industry that I never thought would accept us. It was an exciting time for that reason. A new life, and a career that always lived in the realm of fanciful dreams.
Q: You probably still play songs from that album in your normal set list, but what was it like relearning the cuts that you just never played live?
A: There were a lot of songs on that album that were hard to play live so we didn’t. The vocal range was too high, there were too many bridges, they were too fast. It’s kind of comical and sweet,
thinking back to the songwriting brain I had, which was doing all of these athletic things. I guess it speaks to a bravery borne of naiveté. The ones that survived in our normal set list are the songs that catalyzed the eras to come.
Q: That’s generally how it goes with young bands.
A: Or a young craftsperson of any medium. Early work often takes more chances, and that levels out as time goes on.
There were a lot of songs on that album that were hard to play live so we didn’t. The vocal range was too high ... they were too fast.
Q: You had your kickoff show in Vancouver the other night. Were there any deep cut songs you played that got a surprising reaction from the crowd?
A: The song Wisdom got a big one, and I find that one to be the most obnoxious to play. (Laughs.) Lots of people seem to connect to that song. Maybe because the plea for greater knowledge is a relatable theme.
Q: Are you playing the album in sequence?
A: We play it front to back, and then we do a long encore with a bunch of old songs — we call it a “longcore.” It’s different from our other shows, with more talking and more anecdotes. There’s less pressure to thread everything together in an orchestrated, flashy way, which is how we usually do things. There’s nothing to hide against in this show, which is a bit scary but also freeing and human. The rock talk is off-the-cuff and unrehearsed, so it feels a bit like a conversation or a family reunion.
Q: Whenever I go to a show and I hear a musician quite obviously saying scripted things that they say in every other town, I always feel a bit ripped off.
A: I feel like this is a huge reason why people come to shows, otherwise why not just stay home and listen to the record? It’s the facet of performance I hold in the highest esteem. If I make a thousand mistakes on guitar in a given performance, it doesn’t rock me as much as if I feel I didn’t connect effectively when talking between songs.
Q: You’ve got a number of days to kill in between shows at the Starlite. Any plans to check out the city in depth?
A: No, I’m trying to keep to a regimen. We’ll be setting up shop and practising, doing some music production, working on the new record. I’m trying to move on to a more spartan-style existence, so I’m going to use these shows as an opportunity to focus on work.