Said The Whale swimming along with three
To quote the song “Mother” (from 2013 release “Hawaiii”) — things have changed “100 degrees” for whimsical Vancouver-based Juno-winning indie rockers Said The Whale who are now a trifecta.
“It has been an experience and a wild ride to say the least,” notes vocalist/guitarist Ben Worcester, referring to the departure of former members drummer Spencer Schoening, and bassist Nathan Shaw.
Current Whale lineup is now Worcester, vocalist/guitarist Tyler Bancroft, and Jaycelyn Brown on vocals and keys.
Worcester says STW’s latest album is very much in line with what he and longtime band-mate Bancroft have always written.
Fifth studio album “As Long As Your Eyes Are Wide” was produced by the band’s good pal Cayne McKenzie (We Are The City) on Hidden Pony Records (Hannah Georgas, Elephant Stone, Danko Jones).
“Tyler and I always wrote our own personal stories separately,” says Worcester, “And then we tend to bring the lyrics and the skeleton of the song together and form something with everybody. For this record Tyler had a very clear vision of what he wanted,” adds Worcester. “He had made quite succinct demos himself on his own time in his recording space. He had created these songs and as the writing process went on we were collecting songs. We thought these are amazing songs. Why don’t we fit them into the record and give life to them? Some of them started from scratch during the writing process and some were ideas that had been carried on for a while that we got to work and flesh out,” he notes.
“But not having five people there for the recording process was interesting,” adds Worcester. “It allowed a lot of creativity and flow between Tyler, Jaycelyn, and I with our producer Cayne McKenzie. He is a great friend of ours and we all really respect his art and music choices.
It is great to have him there actually helping to influence us when we got stuck on something, rather than Tyler and I bouncing back between each other. With Cayne we would be immediately pulled forward again. And the momentum
moved so the whole writing process felt varied across the board between our personal writing time that we had and then working together as a group. I feel like this is our most collaborative album yet,” he says.
Said The Whale began in 2007, the brainchild of high school pals Worcester and Bancroft.
Worcester says the band name comes from wanting to represent the west coast — a bear or whale. Through several weeks of brainstorming Bancroft thought of “said the whale.”
“We looked at college radio stations charts and all of the names on the list — 30, 40 or 50 them were “the” somethings,” recalls Worcester. “So “said the whale” stood out against everything else. I like to say that the “said” stands for — “struggling artists in debt” — and the “whale” is the debt that we carry with us,” he adds with a chuckle.
The band’s album catalog includes “Howe Sounds/Taking Abalonia” (2008), “Islands Disappear” (2009), “Little Mountain” (2012), and “Hawaiii” (2013) with hit-song “I Love You.” In 2011, STW won the Juno for New Group of the Year which led to a lot of touring from Austin Texas’ South By Southwest Festival (SXSW) to Washington’s Sasquatch Music Festival.
Said The Whale has been together for 10 years, and Worcester laughs at the notion of a band marriage between him and Bancroft.
“Luckily it just keeps getting better aside from obviously our dear friends departing from the band,” he says wistfully. “I feel like we are all in the best place we have been so far — in our personal lives, in our home status, everything. I feel nothing but positivity looking forward. Even with the boys leaving the band, it gave us an opportunity to start fresh. And that is like a breath of fresh air.”
“As Long As Your Eyes Are Wide” has Said The Whale’s rich signature harmonies and some choruses but it is a definitive departure for the band who are now exploring more of a shimmering ambient electro-synth-and-beat vibe through producer Cayne McKenzie’s musical insights.
Long time fans will immediately notice the song content is also much darker than past Said The Whale songs like “Loveless,” “Mother,” “Camilo (The Musician),” “The Light is You” and “Lines” — a clever tribute to the “Enchantment Under the Sea Dance” from the 1985 sci-fi comedy classic “Back to the Future” and the timeless Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) mimics Chuck Berry scene.
Album opener “Step Into The Darkness” is a break-up song with a happy ending based on Worcester’s life. “Confidence” has a sensual synth beats and R&B sound; “Miscarriage” is a heart-rending pseudo-psychedelic harmony about a couple’s profound loss, while “Emily Rose” with its soaring chorus delves into the fragile psyche of a young girl who is lost and alone. Be it “More than Ever” or “Heaven” (Worcester’s eulogy to his late neighbour) or “Realize Real Eyes,” every track waxes with a luxuriant lyrical melancholy.
“Lyrics are my favourite thing,” admits Worcester. “I love word play and that is why I have always had a hard time with choruses,” he admits. “I like to just not repeat words but keep going in a linear fashion. I learned a lot from Tyler. In high school, we’d perform songs in the basement, teaching ourselves how to record. Then we would put them on a website and everyone seemed to enjoy that. We got to a point where we decided to make a real album, form a band, do everything for real. And then that became the career — and now I could not imagine myself anywhere else.”