{"id":3756,"date":"2012-02-19T10:14:42","date_gmt":"2012-02-19T16:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=3756"},"modified":"2012-02-19T10:14:42","modified_gmt":"2012-02-19T16:14:42","slug":"royal-canoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/02\/19\/royal-canoe\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Canoe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Nicholas Van Doeselaar<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pulling their name from a news headline, Royal Canoe has been a Winnipeg synth-pop band of choice for over a year now. What used to be a recording project for Matt Peters (Waking Eyes<\/a>), the band has been filled out with members of the Liptonians and Tele and together they embrace the old, wooden, and royal sound their name gives off, yet still adventuring headfirst into electro territory as a means of complimenting their sick hooks. Matt Peters and Bucky Driedger were kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions about where the band has been and their upcoming<\/em> Extended Play.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Stylus: When did you come up with the idea of Royal Canoe and how did you know it could be something?
\nMatt Peters: <\/strong>There are two phases that we went through in the beginning. The first phase being me on my own recording songs for fun with friends that weren\u2019t really anything. After 10 to 11 songs, I figured that it could pass for a record. I then gathered some friend musicians to help me out with polishing the songs and playing parts for the recordings and then made up a name. After about two years of doing nothing with it, other than giving it to my friends to listen to, I thought that maybe we should do some live shows, so I called up Bucky Driedger and Matt Shellenberg (from the Liptonians<\/a>) who I know as good musicians. We didn\u2019t know if it was going to be just playing a few songs and a few gigs or having a CD release party if I ever got around to burning the CDs. But then we got around to writing more songs as a group and that formed this new shape which is Phase Two, which is happening right now with being a band, not just a solo project or side project, but an actual band. This was about a year and a half ago and since then we have been going through the stages of asking ourselves questions like \u201cWhat is Royal Canoe? What do we do? And what are we sound wise?\u201d or \u201cWhat do we look like?\u201d All the stupid shit bands think about, even if our name was good enough.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Where did the name come from?
\nMP: <\/strong>I was at a coffee shop and my friend who works there saw me struggling to find a name and she pointed to a headline saying Royal Canoe, and that\u2019s pretty much how it happened.
\nBucky Drieger:<\/strong> I guess that name goes better with us now as a grand thing, us being more of a body on stage and being a good way to portray our sound and story as a \u201croyal\u201d thing.
\nMP:<\/strong> I like the feeling of the name as being a Lodge or pretty much how the Lo Pub here looks with the fire place and wooden supports and warm feel. When we were making the cover for the album, I wanted a wood paneling background so on Google images I typed \u201cWood Paneling\u201d and the first image that came up is our album cover. Sometimes when you listen to your sound, you have an image that comes with it and at that time it was wood paneling, not too sure if that\u2019s us now so much, we are sort of coming out of the closet with our ideas.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Do you guys have a certain look and sound that you want to grow on?
\nBD:<\/strong> We like the think of our sound as very visual, there\u2019s a lot of different textures and tones going on. We did that \u201cNight Crawling\u201d<\/a> video, which I think really showed what our sound is and what we kind of want our \u201clook\u201d to be. When we watch it, it\u2019s a very energized experience and us as a band are really into it. I think it all blends really well.
\nMP: <\/strong>We have a long ways to go yet but we do have ambition to create the \u201clook\u201d so we were very focused on the music part of things. I think now we are going to work on getting our sound and look at the same level. It\u2019s so frustrating when you see a band and their look doesn\u2019t match their sound at all. Not saying you need to go to a stylist, but sound like you look and look like you sound.
\nBD: <\/strong>If you saw tUnE-YaRdS<\/a>, you notice that they all have a bit of paint across their faces, and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s crazy how well that tied the band\u2019s sound and look together to make a complete package. It truly enhances the experience.<\/p>\n

Stylus: What inspires everything that is to do with Royal Canoe?
\nMP:<\/strong> Just creating an album and having that accomplishment. That makes you wonder what\u2019s next? What am I gonna do now? It\u2019s always going to be different and pushing on what you\u2019ve done before and strive to make it better and different and new. Hearing and seeing reactions from the crowds and fans really helps motivate us to say \u201cWow, we have done something great, lets keep going.\u201d You always gotta be fresh with what you do. As of now we are a very strong band and we work very well together. That is the most important thing you can have in a band is a strong attachment as band mates. We try and capture in our sound who we really are and what we mean to be, what our interests are and how we live day to day and having that goal is really exciting, to try and make something that we love to listen to and hopefully others as well. Not saying that it hasn\u2019t been like that for me in the past, but I\u2019ve just matured over the four years working on Royal Canoe. I\u2019m not joking on how long it took. We still have aside two-plus records worth of songs sitting dead on a computer that we worked on over the years, trying to make something of it, and after four years we finally got it.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Anything good that you would want to work on in the future?
\nMP:<\/strong> I think there is some really good stuff on there and I think if we wanted to go into a different direction, we could have hopped on one of those trips.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Is it a different style of music?
\nMP:<\/strong> It\u2019s not that different, it\u2019s not country or anything, but it is different. I think right now what we are doing is exactly what we want to do and we have all bought into it. \u00a0What we are doing is pretty contemporary and if you\u2019re going to do that, you don\u2019t wanna sound exactly like someone else. If you\u2019re doing something that\u2019s a little more retro, it\u2019s easy to say \u201cOk, we\u2019re going to a do a Beatles sounding song or a little Rolling Stones, and a little of this.\u201d If you\u2019re trying to come up with something original, it\u2019s much harder because its something you have to articulate, but you can\u2019t because you haven\u2019t heard it before.<\/p>\n

Stylus: What specific bands influence your sound?
\nMP:<\/strong> I guess you could say Outcast, and Andre 3000 for what they do for the production mainly. And Beck, I guess if you want to call them mainstream influences, we aren\u2019t really shy about that. There are songs off the album Midnight Vultures by Beck, and there are many tracks where it\u2019s exactly what I want my music to sound like.
\nBD:<\/strong> Everyone that was a teenager in the year 2000 will have Radiohead as an influence, even if you don\u2019t like them, you wont be able to avoid it. It\u2019s hard to name bands but more little pieces of things that you like about them. I like lots of percussion and guitar things that TV on the Radio do. You just take little snippets of everything, which then becomes your own.
\nMP: <\/strong>For instance Fever Ray and The Knife, we might have some same sounds as them but we have different ways of putting it together. We have finally gotten over the phobia of being too scatter brained and not staying on a straight track, which was the trouble we had for four years. Now I think we have it under control.<\/p>\n

Stylus: When I listen to Co-op Mode<\/em>, every song is very \u201cRoyal Canoe.\u201d It has a very distinct sound to it, and when I listen to some of your new stuff, it too is very Royal Canoe, but so different at the same time. What are changes that you are making from the last album to the next?
\nMP: <\/strong>What holds true from the first to the second album is the appreciation of certain grooves and styles that we\u2019ve grown to love. We do a lot of 16th note pushes that are very technical but we just all appreciate deep grooves.
\nBD:<\/strong> When the new record is done, Co-op Mode<\/em> is going to be very different from it, but there will be very many elements that stay true that drew us to love our music. Now we have two drummers, one analog and one acoustic, and that\u2019s a big change from Co-op Mode. <\/em>Lots more keyboards, \u00a0falsetto vocals and octave vocals and a lot of bass. There is also a very different lyrical style from the last record.
\nMP: <\/strong>Co-op Mode<\/em>, all the songs were hanging off contrasts between comedic and tragic elements, all about characters pretty much. It\u2019s an easy way to make a quick song. Say, just a painting at value village, let\u2019s make a song about it, there is a story in there. Everything from the last record is from an external position of us being the observer. Nothing is directly connected to us or about us. Every song on the new record is personal and connected to Matt, Bucky and I, who are the main lyric writers in the band. All the songs are much more serious? Not sure if that\u2019s the right word to use but on those same lines.<\/p>\n

Stylus: There\u2019s a new song of your album talking about Bathtubs in a Hallway. That\u2019s pretty wacky, what does that mean?
\nMP: <\/strong>Not everyone would know about that unless you have been to our practice space. We\u2019ve been in that space for a long time and in someway it\u2019s a nice reference to our space and connected to us. \u00a0\u201cNight Crawlin\u201d would be the only one that is in the least connected to us. It was about the second song for the new record that we made and it was built mainly from out old Co-op Mode<\/em> style.<\/p>\n

Stylus: I noticed that all of your videos are pretty much taken off of the Internet. Why is that?
\nMP: <\/strong>Back in the beginning we just wanted to have content up. \u201cOh we need more things for people to see!\u201d It just helped get people to notice what\u2019s going on with us, but right now we are trying to get a little more focused on what we put up. Things that have meaning. We aren\u2019t trying to just be more serious, but we do want to take more time in everything. \u201cNight crawling\u201d is a video that is still up and that took a lot of time and thought and we are proud of it, and we are currently working on a new video and other interview stuff that will go up that\u2019s more recent, which is more connected to where we are at right now as a band.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Why are you releasing an EP rather than just releasing an album right away?
\nMP:<\/strong> For the album, we had about 14 songs that we wanted to have on it, but some of them were a little bit longer and we didn\u2019t want to have a long, slow album, not a double album or anything. The good thing about an EP is that you tell people, \u201cOk here we are, this is what we are doing\u201d and then you go from that into the record. \u00a0There will be some crossover tracks from the EP to the record, but we don\u2019t know for sure which ones yet.
\nBD: <\/strong> Here in Canada, whatever we release will be what the people hear first, so instead of having a long 75 min album that people have a hard time grasping, it\u2019s nicer to give them a taste of what\u2019s going down and to stay tuned if interested. It\u2019s also easier for someone who hasn\u2019t heard of us before to not be overwhelmed but have a good idea of what we are. A lot of people I know listen to full records, but a bigger percentage of people don\u2019t, they listen to select tracks and buy singles, and whatnot so an EP is really best for everyone.
\nMP:<\/strong> Like we said earlier, we are making a new video for the song \u201cHold on to the Metal.\u201d The director, Mike, who produced the video for \u201cNight Crawlin\u201d is doing this next video as well and we are starting that in a few weeks. Our flow right now is going to be video, EP, album and not sure what will be in-between.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Are you going to be touring after the EP is released?
\nBD: <\/strong>The EP is coming out sometime in February and after that we will tour Canada and the US after that until the album comes out.
\nMP: <\/strong>That\u2019s how far in the future we know exactly, but we are open to \u00a0be able to play a lot of show sand do whatever we can.<\/p>\n

Stylus: What are you future dreams as a band?
\nMP: <\/strong>I think mainly I want to be a band that is consistent with bringing out new material on a regular basis and not one of those bands who only releases something every three to four years. \u00a0We love the idea of EPs, where the public is always having something new to listen to and keeps them interested. \u00a0We also want to have things released close to the time that it was actually created. Kind of like South Park and how every episode is made a week before it comes out and often they will reference things in culture and the news that happened that week. \u00a0We hope to have lots of courage and not worry too much about anything.<\/p>\n

Stylus: OK, to end this off, what would you tell or have someone read about Royal Canoe if they have never herd of it before?
\nMP: <\/strong>That is a very hard thing to say, maybe after we are done the record we could tell you more about it, it\u2019s not like \u201cOh try our Hot wings, Why? Because there hot!\u201d there is just nothing to that.
\nBD: <\/strong>Basically we took a lot of time and care to this music and we made it the best we can and the music style and progressions were made from everything we had and to have someone give it try would be amazing.
\nMP: <\/strong>How about \u201cWE ARE NOT BLUES ROCK\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nicholas Van Doeselaar Pulling their name from a news headline, Royal Canoe has been a Winnipeg synth-pop band of choice for over a year now. What used to be a recording project for Matt Peters (Waking Eyes), the band has been filled out with members of the Liptonians and Tele and together they embrace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[553,563,822,1077],"class_list":["post-3756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-liptonians","tag-local","tag-royal-canoe","tag-waking-eyes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}