SAID THE WHALE TAKES ROAD LIFE IN STRIDE
Trio on tour to promote sixth album, Cascadia, with stop at Artesian
Twelve years into its career,
Said the Whale has released its sixth album. Cascadia finds the band’s core trio of Tyler Bancroft (vocals/guitar), Ben Worcester (vocals/guitar) and Jaycelyn Brown (keyboards) expanding on the mix of indie rock and
West Coast folk-pop they began exploring in 2007. With the Juno award-winning band in the midst of a tour, we talked to Bancroft about icy mountain roads and life as a Canadian musician.
Q You’re doing a second tour leg in December. Isn’t that a bad time to be touring Canada?
A It can’t possibly be worse than what we did in February with Mother Mother. That was really treacherous.
Q What were some of the more harrowing moments?
A The routing was laid out in such a way that we zigzagged B.C., from Cranbrook to Kelowna and then back to Nelson and then back to Kamloops. We were driving 40 kilometres an hour through those mountains with ice and snow. Not my idea of a great time. But it’s all part of the job. Q Even after all these years.
A And it’s a surprisingly huge part of the job. You sit in a van often for eight hours a day and then play between 30 and 90 minutes of music, depending on if you’re opening or headlining. You’re just surviving for those moments on stage.
Q You’ve built a good-sized audience here. What’s it like playing smaller venues in the U.S.?
A Humbling, maybe? We’re also used to it. We haven’t put the same level of effort into the U.S. as we have in Canada. There’s so much infrastructure in place for bands to find success in this country, and we’re extremely grateful for that, and I think that’s played a huge role in our success here. In the States, we’re outsiders and we often play to rooms full of expats. It’s fine, it’s nice to break new ground and explore new places and play for new people. And who doesn’t love a trip down the West Coast of California when the weather’s starting to turn in Canada?
Q Do bands starting out now have it better than you did?
A The challenges are different. One of the things that was a really big kick-start for us was CBC Radio 3, and the community that surrounded it. That no longer exists. In its place is more access to recording. More bands are extremely proficient in producing their own music. When we started, that was never something we even considered. We did our own demos, but we never thought we could actually record our own stuff. And now we do.