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

Canadians are talented people. Yes, I may be somewhat bias saying this, however having travelled quite extensively in my lifetime I can assure you that we aren’t the only people that think this. Ask anyone in the world and they will tell you that we excel in many areas (citing hockey legend Wayne Gretzky as a notable figure). One area that I believe we are particularly adept to “excelling” in is in the music department. Oftentimes it is the heavy hitters such as Celine Dion that have music fans from around the world stirring, however there is another group that appear to be creating quite a buzz south of the boarder recently. Great Lake Swimmers are not a new band, but it is their fourth album, Lost Channels, that have garnered them the most attention on the international circuit. Having recently returned from a plethora of tour dates around the world, the boys are finally coming home to bring the tunes back to (eager) Canadian ears! In anticipation of their sold out show this Saturday at Trinity St.Paul’s Church, iheartthemusic caught up with Tony Dekker and Erik Arnesen of Great Lake Swimmers where they shared with us just a little bit of the inspiration behind their Polaris Music Prize nominated album Lost Channels.

iheartthemusic: You guys recorded this album in a rather unique setting. Can you explain what that was like?

Tony: We recorded on location, most of it in the Thousand Islands where we were able to really get into some unique spaces. There was a castle just over the border on the American side called “Singer Castle” which sits on Dark Island; which is the kind of thing that sounds like it could be fiction but its not, it is real. There was a number of other locations too like a church and a place in Brockville, Ontario called The Brockville Arts Centre which is a theatre that has been maintained by the community for over a hundred years and been beautifully restored.

iheartthemusic: That’s amazing! How did you hear about this place?

Tony: The offer came in from a friend of ours who is sort of a story collector and a photographer in the region. He was the one that invited us to come and check it out. When it came time to record the album, I brainstormed to try and find different locations that would be suitable for us to record and that place just seemed perfect. It [location] has become a really big part of the creative process for us I think. I mean, to be in these places that are charged with the kind of energy that draws your best possible performance, it is really important for us. This one [Thousand Islands] in particular was special because to be in that area and be really inspired meant digging deep-creatively.

Erik: Part of the adventure is getting there too, and figuring out how to work in the space.

iheartthemusic: Were there any sounds that were incorporated into the album that came from your surroundings?

Tony: No, we don’t have any bizarre noises on the album. We are pretty straight up.

Erik: We recorded the bells in the castle.

Tony: That’s true.

Erik: That was kind of just a happy accident. Those bells almost interrupted our recording process and then we decided on our last day to document them and then use it in the record.

If you weren’t lucky enough to get your tickets to this one, don’t worry the boys will be back and hopefully with a new album in hand!

photography provided by Sara Collaton