I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

iheartthemusic was caught up with the foursome that make up We Are The Take – Erik, Craig, Andrew, and Kevin – when they played a recent gig at Tattoo. They continually amaze us with their pop-rock sound, so, if you haven’t yet, be sure to be amazed when they return to Tattoo this Saturday (April 18^th) when they will be bringing down the house with Thriving Ivory. In the meantime, check out our chat with WATT’s Kevin and Andrew.

iheartthemusic: Since we saw you last, you guys have been playing quite a few shows!

Kevin: Yah, a couple of weeks ago we were at Mod Club and last week we were at the El Mocambo. That was a lot of fun and was for another charity as well.

Andrew: We’ve had the fortunate habit of playing a few charity shows as of late and it’s been hard to keep track.

iheartthemusic: So how important is it for you to be a part of these events?

Kevin: We have a number of reasons for coming on board; I mean, we obviously support the charity. Morgan from Birds of Wales asked us to do the one tonight and we’ve known him for a while now. We are always happy to play and to play for a good cause is a bonus. Everyone has a great vibe about them tonight.

Andrew: That’s always the thing about charity gigs, you find that there are a lot of people with like minds in the room, which is always a plus. Everyone is here for the same reason and it’s nice to get them all in the same room and for us to be able to do what we do.

iheartthemusic: Your sound appears to have a bit of a Brit pop influence to it, is that right?

Kevin: We don’t generally fit into the Canadiana roots rock thing. We are all fans of that but that’s not what we are doing. We are a pop band that has been influenced by everything under the sun. We just want it to look good and we want to look clean.

Andrew: I think we are electric!

Kevin: We’re electric!

iheartthemusic: Any musical influences?

Andrew: Tons! The Beatles, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, The Tragically Hip.

Kevin: We love a lot of British bands like Kasabian and Coldplay, anything with good melody. I went to jazz school so [for me] it was pretty much everything that had a good melody and grooved and made people want to dance and feel good. That’s sort of what we want to do.

Andrew: We’ve been fortunate as of late to play with some good Canadian bands. We just played with the Arkells and The Waking Eyes. Once you’ve played with a band a few times you get kind of caught up in it and you aren’t as concerned with checking them out when they are playing because you are more worried about your performance, but after playing with them I am now a huge fan of both. I even bought both records and have been listening to them like crazy! So it’s nice to kind of pull things away from the bands you are playing with and take little pieces as you go along; that’s something that’s fun and helps with learning and growing.

Kevin: And stealing!!

Andrew: And stealing!

Kevin: I think Einstein said, well I’m not going to quote Einstein, but it was something like the best thing to do is to hide your influences.

Andrew: I think what you meant to say was that E=MC2.

iheartthemusic: [laughs] There you go! Speaking of playing with these two great acts, do you find that there is a real sense of community amongst Toronto bands?

Kevin: It’s been rather difficult for us. I mean, we have played with a lot of really great acts, but we haven’t found the same sort of fit. Recently, with the Arkells and The Waking Eyes, we felt that that was great. We are doing different things but it was great to play with bands that were kind of similar. In terms of a community, we have played with a bunch of nice people that are really successful at what they are doing. Like Lights, we played shows with her a few months ago. I mean, talk about way different types of music. At the end of the day we just aren’t picky, whoever will listen.

iheartthemusic: Any touring coming up for you guys in the near future?

Kevin: We’ve just been Ontario-based with the exception of Montreal and we really want to change that. We were lucky enough to have one of our songs get on a TV show that aired across the States. There was a lot of beautiful response from people all over the country and we haven’t been able to get there. We haven’t even been to B.C. or the East Coast. Erik speaks French and we would love to go to France. I mean, there is so much we want to do, but we are trying to be patient and get our live thing together. You only get one chance to make an impression.

iheartthemusic: I also know you aren’t a signed band. Do you have reservations to being signed at all?

Andrew: It’s been a personal choice and has a lot to do with what’s going on in the industry right now. We’ve seen a lot of close friends get major label deals and get their album shelved for a while and then get dropped. We’re not shying away from signing with an indie label or a major label, but we have to work towards what we want and what our personal plan is because we have been working hard for this.

Kevin: We’re focused right now on building it on a really grassroots level. We are just trying to do it ourselves from the bottom up. It’s been a blessing and a curse. A big part of us wants to sign to a label and get a video and exposure, but at the same time we lose a lot of control and right now that’s one thing we can use to our advantage.

Andrew: It’s all we have at the moment. I mean, we play everyday together as a group, writing and practicing, and everything we put out there is exactly what we want and that’s kind of nice. It’s all internal right now.

iheartthemusic: Tonight it appeared that “Montreal Love Song” was a song that everyone was pumped to hear. Do you think that that is indicative of the industry and how the single is taking over the album?

Kevin: I think it is really difficult to write singles and smash hits and it’s difficult to say, but I think writing, for us as a group, is an organic thing.

Andrew: No one knows what a single is.

Kevin: There have been a lot of surprises too.

Andrew: We have a five song EP out now, but we have recorded 12 songs, and when we did they were 12 similar but different sounding songs; not because we had any intention of the single, but because we are growing as a group and each song is a testament to that.

Kevin: The single always helps your casual listener get into you, though. You need that and if it’s “Montreal Love Song” that people need to listen to to see what we do, then who cares.

iheartthemusic: So Kevin, you have a jazz background, but does the rest of the band have some kind of musical backing?

Kevin: I think we all just said let’s pick up an instrument and play and impress the girls. That’s what you do when you are a 13-year-old boy.

Andrew: We all have different stories. For me personally, my mom sort of forced me into playing piano when I was little. That was the foundation of it and then I stopped and then picked up the bass at around 12 or 13.

iheartthemusic: When did the trumpet come in for you?

Andrew: I played the trumpet all through high school. I put it down as of grade 13thirteen and thought I was never going to be playing that instrument again. It’s back though, but I’m still working on it.

iheartthemusic: So what’s the next step for We Are The Take?

Andrew: We’ve done the festivals and we are hoping to get invited back to Virgin Festival again. It’s all about just getting our show tighter and tighter and hopefully get on a tour some time soon.

Kevin: We would love to go coast to coast. That’s a huge, huge goal for us soon. We would love to get on the radio, but that’s hard to do without a video. We shot a video but it’s having trouble getting finished and if it gets finished I think that it is going to be amazing. It’s for the song “Dreams”. In the meantime, we are going to just keep doing what we are doing and let the song writing and the music be first.

photography provided by Carl Heindl

When it comes to music that supports a great cause, iheartthemusic is a huge advocate! So when we saw that STAND Canada – an organization made up of students who got together to raise awareness and champion for Darfur – were throwing a benefit concert at Tattoo, we knew we had to be there. The event took place on April 2^nd and had two incredible bands playing in support of this charity, We Are The Take and Birds of Wales, with all tickets sales going towards the charity.

The night started off with a band that are no strangers to iheartthemusic as we were introduced to them back in February when they opened for the Arkells and The Waking Eyes. We are talking about We Are The Take who played an incredible set that night. These guys never fail to amaze us,  however, it did take the audience some time to warm up to them as the floor was virtually empty until the end of their performance. They played all the songs off of their debut EP, such as “Dreams” and “Tenterhooks”, and they even introduced a new one, “Fire”, which was sung almost entirely by Craig with Kevin coming out from behind his drum kit to sing along (they also had bassist Andrew play some trumpet, which I am told he hasn’t done since high school!) A crowd favourite had to have been “Montreal Love Song”, which vocalist Erik said was pretty self-explanatory and is about falling in love with a girl from Montreal (I wonder who that may be…). This is one of the tightest bands we have seen perform live, and they are getting better each time we see them.

Next on the bill were the four guys from Birds of Wales. Lead vocalist Morgan sang incredibly well and was able to get people on the floor dancing to groove along with their country-rock tunes. Though Morgan had played an acoustic set previously that day at a MySpace secret show, he was still happy and excited to be playing for the second time that evening. They played all the hits, including “Cinderella (has nothing on you)” and a few love songs that were dedicated to various female audience members. The only rather disappointing thing was that the crowd appeared to filter out. We weren’t sure if that was due to the fact that it was a Thursday night and people had to work the next day, or that they were only there to see We Are The Take, either way it was their loss as Birds know how to rock.

Birds of Wales are a band that garnered much hype a few years ago and have since been touring the UK with such heavy hitters as Xavier Rudd. When we sat down and spoke with Morgan he explained to us that they have already recorded their album and are just waiting to release it. Well, after seeing them live we are certainly hoping that that will be very soon!

photography provided by Carl Heindl

Question: What happens when musically-minded students serendipitously find each other at McMaster Univeristy and proceed to form a kickass band? Answer: the Arkells. In 2006 Max Kerman (lead vocals/guitar) found himself a froshman with the desire to be in a band and – whether through the hand of Fortuna or Max’s gift to pick out musicians – he stumbled upon Nick Dika (bass), Mike DeAngelis (guitar/vocals), Tim Oxford (drums) and Dan Griffin (keyboard/guitar/vocals). Since their inception they’ve ridden to success at a rapid rate. Despite the swift route to renown, the boys are still down to earth (and even have day jobs!). While on the Toronto leg of the cross-country tour, which they’re co-headlining with The Waking Eyes, iheartthemusic had a chance to sit and chat with Max at the Horseshoe Tavern.

iheartthemusic: Your first full length album, Jackson Square, was just released in October of last year, have you started to put thought into the next album yet?

Max: We are always writing stuff. We have a great label and management and they’re taking care of the logistics so all we [have to do] is try to write good songs. Naturally our inclination is to write songs, but it’s a long process of how they get put together, but whether we were on a label or not we would still be trying to write music.

iheartthemusic: How have you guys stayed so level headed amidst what seems like instant success?

Max: We’re all friends and we know this is a really great opportunity that other bands don’t have so we always remember that. I remember when we played with Matt Mays at The Commodore in Vancouver. What was great about that place was that they have a really cool backstage room. Most of the places we play at are just dumps, the backstage room is like a closet or something, but The Commodore was great. Before the show we said to each other, “you know, six months ago we would have come to this show and said ‘man that fucking opening band, we should be them’.“ And now we get to do it. But we always try to keep things in perspective because it’s been a really positive [experience] so far.

iheartthemusic: And you guys haven’t been doing this for very long, that’s amazing!

Max: Yah, its great. We all still work day jobs though. Like we played last night in St Catharines and I had to be back at work for 9am in Hamilton. It’s just an office job filing shit, but I definitely hated the fact that I had to work the next day. Lately we’ve been getting a lot of coverage, you know, doing interviews and people mentioning our name in different places and it’s flattering, but we also know that we have to be at work at 9am. But now we are going on tour and get a few weeks off of work and hopefully we won’t get fired when we get back.

iheartthemusic: What’s next on the horizon for you guys?

Max: We’d love to go do shows in the UK or the US. That seems to always be the logical next step for a band and since we’ve been playing in Canada for a while. Its great, you know, because we’re young we don’t really have a jaded perspective on it yet so all these opportunities that come our way we are like, “we get to go see places!” So on top of playing shows we are getting to see the country… I think that the next step is to just keep playing and getting the gospel out of the Arkells.

iheartthemusic: Well that is definitely something that I am sure the rest of Canada would hope for! If you haven’t checked them out yet then get on their MySpace and look out for them in your town!

www.myspace.com/arkellsmusic

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