Friday 31 May 2013

Ketch Harbour Wolves Q&A

Your name:
Jonathan Tyrrell

Where are you from?
Toronto, Canada.

Name of band:
Ketch Harbour Wolves.

Who else is in your band?
Liam Brown
Brian Urbanik
Scott Winter

How would you describe yourselves?
I've come to be quite fond of 'Baroque Indie Rock'. 'Baroque' because it's fairly dense and lavish while hopefully stopping just short of being completely indulgent. It's also unapologetically emotional, much like the Baroque. 'Indie Rock' is a fairly nebulous term but we use it in reference to the raw energetic rhythms and melodies of bands like Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, or Besnard Lakes.  

Who are your main influences musically?
This is always tough.  To name a few though: Radiohead, The National, Austra, Kate Bush, Wintersleep, Tool, Nick Drake, Beach House, and I'm going to get a little pretentious by also mentioning Philip Glass and Steve Reich because I've been listening to them a lot lately.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
We hope to write songs that people listen to because it makes them feel a certain way.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
It's not a very glamorous answer but I would have to say recording our latest album, "Queen City: Volume One".  We recorded the whole thing in our newly renovated studio in Toronto.  We've also gotten to the point where we can achieve quite good sound quality on our own meaning that we don't have to deal with the pressure and expense of a commercial studio.  We spent a solid week just immersed in the material, trying out different options, recorded acoustic versions and just really trying to deliver the best possible record.  To me that's a pretty amazing experience!  As a back-up answer it was two weeks ago when Kiefer Sutherland was at our show and refused to leave the bar in drunken protest.  We like to think that it was because of our set but there's a chance he didn't even register that we were playing.  Still a highlight!

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
Well, not that I want to forget it but we played a show a couple of years ago at The Steam Whistle Brewery in Toronto. The venue and hosts were excellent but on stage everything seemed to go wrong that could. At least two of my patch cables cut out, the power supply for my keyboard failed and there were several guitar amp issues. It's that kind of moment where the house of cards that is electronically produced music comes crashing down in front of you and you fully understand the image of Pete Seeger with axe in hand threatening to chop the power cables at Dylan's Newport festival performance. Needless to say we have now acquired even more gear and the house of cards grows ever taller!

If you could choose just one of your songs to represent your music, what
would it be and why?
At the moment I might say "Pulled From The Wreckage". I'm really happy with the way it turned out ....there are some big moments at the end but overall there is a restraint to the song that I feel we might not have had a few years ago.  I'm also really happy with how the lyrics turned out. They're still very ambiguous but they also speak specifically to one of the most interesting places in Toronto, the Leslie Spit which is a synthetic landscape made from construction waste that has undergone a radical renaturalization over the last 50 years.    

Where can we listen to it?
http://ketchharbourwolves.bandcamp.com/

Where can we find out more about your music?
www.ketchharbourwolves.ca
https://www.facebook.com/ketchharbourwolves
http://ketchharbourwolves.bandcamp.com/
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/queen-city-volume-one/id643546095

Anything else you’d like to say about your band that I forgot to ask?
We're releasing 3 albums within the next year (as I mentioned the first is called "Queen City: Volume One").  The thematic content focuses on our hometown of Toronto.  The lyrics combine some of the history and mythology of the city with my own semi-delirious ramblings and fragmented narratives.  All songs pertain to specific sites within the city, creating what we hope will be a kind of 'map of songs'.

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