WOODHANDS

M—So, when you came together, did you know where you wanted to go sound-wise?

D—Not really, I knew for so long that I wanted to play with someone who played drums.  Beyond that, I don’t think that I had a sense of what really it was going to sound like.

M—What’s a jam session like with you guys? Do you create through the jam sessions or do you do the writing first?

D—We basically make songs any way that we possibly can.

P—Yeah, a lot of “Heart Attack”, Dan already had songs that existed in his previous incarnation, but in a very different form. And those songs, through jamming, were changed, adapted and turned into something resembling a 3-minute pop song.

M—I just listened to your new album on the way here, it’s amazing.

P—Cool, I’m glad you guys liked it.

M—Yeah, I really like it. I found it a bit more produced, a bit more put together, whereas the older one feels a bit grittier, or dirtier. Both I love for different reasons, but it shows a bit of an evolution.

D—It’s definitely an evolution I would say.

P—I mean, we wrote this album pretty much in the studio, and on the road, but we’ve had a lot of freedom to just get in there and try things out, and see what sounded cool.  We have an awesome producer, named Roger Levinson, who has a kick-ass studio in Toronto.  He has a million toys that we can play with in there too; it’s just really fun.

M—Do you guys write your lyrics together?

P—That’s all Dan’s work.

D—That’s all me.  Although I would say that I come with lyrics, but I would never presume that they were finalized until Paul hears them, and Roger hears them. I definitely can say pretty dumb shit sometimes and not know it, so it’s really good to have a few other people to be like: “No, you can’t say that.”

But, I would say that often the lyrics come after the song. There are a few songs, actually one song that didn’t make the album. The lyrics started before the song.  I don’t know if that’s why it didn’t make the album.

M—I like that. So the lyrics kind of flow organically out of the music in that sense?

D—I mean, I’m not an incredible singer, so I basically try to enhance what’s already happening in a song.  I’d like to think of it this way.  I’m a piano player and I started playing piano percussively originally, like that’s the kind of shit that gets me excited, and I kind of see the vocalizing as an extension of that. It’s almost percussive for me a lot of the time. In a way, when the vocals get put on, they’re often pretty staccato. I usually come with really staccato melody lines and they‘ll get smoothed out in the studio. I see it as another synth – like the lead synth perhaps. In this band, vocals are like an expression of joy. I feel in a live context, I see my role as vocalizing the joy that the audience is feeling.  And if I can do that effectively then everyone feels better.

M—How’s touring for you guys? Love or hate?

P—We love it.  It’s really easy for us. Because there’s only two of us and we can fly around if we have to, or we can drive in a tiny vehicle, and have all our gear with us, and…

D—Extra people. If we want.

P—Yeah, we can take people with us if we want to.  Loading in is so easy for us, ‘cause we have so little, like, tonight I’m playing this giant drum set that we borrowed, but my usual kit is this touring drum set, all the shells are thin, and I can pick up the whole thing in one hand.  So I mean, we try to make it as easy on ourselves as possible. Also we’ve discovered the joy of Priceline, which has meant we’ve stayed at some of the nicest hotels I think I’ve ever stayed at in my life.

D—We’ve stayed at crazy nice hotels.

M—Oh that’s so smart.

P—It’s so awesome.

D—This recession is awesome for us.

P— Yeah, it’s great.

D—We’ve toured through the Midwest, and the south, and it’s like, no one is fucking touring, or being a tourist, in the Midwest and the south right now.  It’s us in four-star hotels and no one else around. It’s pretty awesome.

M—That’s amazing – just you two in a hot tub together.

D—Yeah. Just rocking the hot tub.

M—You just got back from tour with Junior Boys, how was that?

D—It was great.  Yeah, we started in New Orleans with them, and toured through Florida, and through the south.

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