{"id":9111,"date":"2014-06-26T14:57:47","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9111"},"modified":"2014-06-26T14:57:47","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:57:47","slug":"hearing-trees-a-marriage-of-poetry-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/06\/26\/hearing-trees-a-marriage-of-poetry-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing Trees :: A marriage of poetry &#038; rock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/2014\/06\/26\/hearing-trees-a-marriage-of-poetry-rock\/hearing-trees-cover-art\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9163\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9163\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/Hearing-Trees-Cover-Art.jpg\" alt=\"Hearing Trees Cover Art\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>by Broose Tulloch<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/playlists\/34183902&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Five years ago Graham Hnatiuk was a well-respected Winnipeg blogger attending university when he had the epiphany to drop out and rock on. But first he would have to overcome a crippling (and at the time, untreated) depression.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would lie down on the street, listening to music and convince myself this was out of reach, that I could never create magic like the people I was listening to were,\u201d Hnatiuk recalled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 2009, I actually left school to do this,\u201d Hnatiuk told <i>Stylus<\/i>. \u201cI had extreme anxiety about about it, but somehow I was able to drop out, cash my tuition cheque and buy an electric guitar and Vox AC15 from Long &amp; McQuade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the next couple of years, Hnatiuk immersed himself in his new art, learning how to play guitar, figuring out how to sing and \u201cwriting several notebooks of bad poetry.\u201d He emerged with a number of songs he was willing to share, and began performing solo at open mics while recruiting members to form a band that would become Hearing Trees.<\/p>\n<p>He met drummer Kyle Kunkel and bassist Joel Heidinger through ads on Kijiji. Ava Glendinning was a jazz guitarist looking to switch to rock, and as fate would have it, Hearing Trees\u2019 guitarist had just left the band to pursue jazz.<\/p>\n<p>That was mid-June. \u00a0The quartet played their first show a week later at Ozzy\u2019s as part of Manitoba Music\u2019s New Music Wednesday series.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe quickly developed what was the beginning of an identity,&#8221; said Hnatiuk. \u201cAnd probably more importantly, we liked each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>14 shows and six months later, they found themselves on The Uniter Fiver, an annual list of five new artists to watch for, and playing to a near-capacity crowd at the Park Theatre.<\/p>\n<p>By this time they were already planning their first recording session, with Les Jupes\u2019 Mike Falk producing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the best idea to try recording ourselves,\u201d explained Hnatiuk. \u201cI happened on Les Jupes\u2019 <i>Negative Space<\/i> EP and loved the vibe. So I contacted Rusty [Matyas of Imaginary Cities], who produced it who, in turn, suggested we work directly with Mike Falk [Les Jupes guitarist\/vocalist].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite a busy schedule running \u00a0Head In The Sand records, and recording with his own band, Mike Falk found the time to produce Hearing Trees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFalk made us a better band fifty-fold and it started showing right away, a few days later when we played the Uniter Fiver show.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s been a good match,\u201d Falk told <i>Stylus<\/i>. \u201c[Graham]\u2019s a strong lyricist and the band is hard working. I like their marriage of good lyrics with creative rock songs. They are trying to forge their own sound and be challenged to become a better band. It\u2019s always great when a band comes in with that attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The band describes their sound as \u201cpoetry over instrumentals\u201d rather than songs.<\/p>\n<p>Hnatiuk explains the difference, \u201cWith poetic songs, there is still a semblance of structure. [With poetry], things need to fit in a certain way, a pattern, a cadence. With poetry over music, it is unhinged and raw. Poetry over music can also change, whereas lyrics you get locked into. There\u2019s nothing quite like poetry fresh in the moment of recent memory, and I find that drives a great performance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite being the driving force and primary lyricist, Hnatiuk is quick to assert that this is a band project.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t have a backup group. I\u2019m not that good,\u201d admitted Hnatiuk. \u201cI can\u2019t tell people what to do. I can\u2019t write all the parts. I\u2019m not a great guitar player by any stretch. I\u2019m not musically trained, I can\u2019t tell you what scale or even what key Ava might be playing in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do everything by feel and emotion, what sounds good to my ear, what feels right. But nobody else in the band is like that. Adding Ava and Joel bring an intricate melding of guitars; Ava listens so carefully and thoughtfully to the chord progression and Joel is a great songwriter in his own right and we turn to him to iron out dumb things. Kyle adds a beat and a creativity that doesn&#8217;t come from just keeping time. These guys don\u2019t just add input, they are the input.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore than anything these three people have become my best friends,\u201d Hnatiuk added. \u201cThis music and album really is the crowning achievement of many years of struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Hearing Trees release their debut EP<\/i>, October <i>on Saturday, June 28 at the Park Theatre. For complete details, please visit Hearing Trees online at <\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/hearingtreesmusic.com\/\"><i>hearingtreesmusic.com<\/i><\/a><i> and <\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/HearingTrees\"><i>facebook.com\/HearingTrees<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Broose Tulloch Five years ago Graham Hnatiuk was a well-respected Winnipeg blogger attending university when he had the epiphany to drop out and rock on. But first he would have to overcome a crippling (and at the time, untreated) depression.<\/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":[563],"class_list":["post-9111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111","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=9111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}