TPL: Wild Rivers Tour Diary

Featuring coverage from:

Sept 7 @ 9:30 Club - Washington, DC - Sarah Peter

Sept 20 @ Aladdin Theater - Portland, OR - Christina Hall

Sept 24 @ El Rey Theatre - Los Angeles, CA - Hailey Eglen

Sept 27 @ The Heights Theater - Houston, TX - Violeta Alvarez

Sep 30 @ Brooklyn Bowl - Nashville, TN - Kelsey Runge

Oct 4 @ Brooklyn Steel - Brooklyn, NY - Marcella Desharnais

Oct 5 @ Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA - Carolyn Lederach

You originally took songs that had been written acoustically and built them out in the studio, step by step, but you now approach recording differently. What has that evolution been like for you?

Devan: We kind of approach recording from all angles. We often still start with an acoustic song and build it out, because one of our songwriting rules is that the song has to be able to stand alone without production. However, it can be really fun and inspiring to write to a piece of music, a cool sound we find, or a beat. Both approaches can lead to great songs, so we don’t rule anything out. We also love collaborating with other writers and producers. Every avenue leads to unique ideas and it’s fun to switch it up. 

You recently kicked off your US tour! What are you most excited about and how have the shows been? What do you enjoy about touring the US and what song have you been most excited to perform for everyone?  

Devan: This US tour has been our favourite to date. We’ve been on tour almost all year, so the live set is feeling really strong and the crowds have been amazing. It’s our first time on a tour bus, too, so we’re all living in close quarters and there have been lots of hilarious moments. It’s also given us more time to sleep and explore the cities we’re playing in before the shows, so it’s allowed us to be more present than ever. It’s been great to perform the new album songs now that it’s out, and ‘Thinking Bout Love’ has been a fun sing-along at the end of the show every night. 

Khalid and Devan- The two of you met in college and decided to start the band, even though neither of you was studying music. What inspired you to start the band and how did Andrew come to join? What were those early days of the band like and what was the catalyst that led you from not planning to take music seriously to signing your first record deal out of college?

Devan: Both Khal and I had been doing music as a hobby for a long time before college, and when we got there we wanted to find people to collaborate with. Our college wasn’t really a music school, but both of us had done a few open mics and casual performances. We got introduced by a mutual friend and ended up meeting at a party and planning to find time to play together. We were really aligned on our musical tastes and there was really easy chemistry the first time we sang together. We ended up getting a residency on campus every Sunday, where we’d play covers for 3 hours and all our friends would come out and support us. Eventually, our crowds grew bigger and we started to mix in the original material. Our college audience was so supportive that it gave us the confidence to take it more seriously and go into a studio to record for the first time. A song from our first duo EP ended up getting some Canadian radio play, and by the time we graduated we decided to give a music career a real shot. When it was time to record our first album, we wanted to find a band to build out our sound. We met Andrew through our original bandmate Ben, and the first day we met we were all just like “Ok, I guess we’re a band now. Let’s do this.”

Earlier this year, you released your sophomore album Sidelines, and rented an old house in Echo Park, LA in 2019 in order to write the songs for the album. What can you tell me about your songwriting process for the album and the ways in which the new surroundings inspired the album, as well as the album's overarching theme? In living together as a band for the first time, outside of touring, what was that experience like for you?

Andrew: Living in Echo Park was a fantastic time for the band. I think we all grew up romanticizing California and its music scene, especially during our Canadian winters. We were inspired by the adventure of it all, and by attempting to be a part of the lineage of the many artists we love there. Living together away from home also allowed us to be fully immersed in the songwriting process, and not halt the momentum with day-to-day life. We set up all the instruments in the living room and would work on songs every day. We’d go see concerts, like Lief Vollebekk or Your Smith at the Troubadour and come home and work on music. We’d sit in the living room at night drinking wine and chatting about life and would accidentally land upon a song idea. It was our first time really slowing down and reflecting together after years of traveling, and we talked a lot about how tough it is to stay present, and not be looking forwards or backward. This idea of perspective became a central theme of the record, especially in songs like Weatherman and More or Less.

 You've grown a dedicated live following thanks to your captivating stage presence. How would you say your live show has developed over the years, and what do you love most about performing live? 

Devan: Since the band started, the live performance aspect was always a big focus for us. We kind of took the old-school approach of touring a lot before we had many fans, and that allowed us to cut our teeth and get lots of experience playing together on a stage and getting comfortable performing to crowds of varying sizes. There were many tough years where we’d go on money-losing tours to try and find out where people were listening to the music, and Spotify data helped us route our own tours early on. But we learned so much during that time. Since we put in those years of roughing it, it makes the shows we’ve been playing this year so rewarding, now that people are selling out the shows and singing along. It’s the best feeling. We’re also lucky to have such an amazing touring team. We have Julian Psihoigos on drums and Abby David on bass. We also have a wonderful sound tech, Paul Mack, and a great light tech, Josh Gulley. They’re all such pros and it’s really elevated the live show. 

What can you tell me about driving to Connecticut in 2020 to record the album with Peter Katis? What was the transition like for you to have to finish recording the album yourselves back home in Canada when covid hit and how did you work through the challenges?

Andrew: Heading to Connecticut was a very exciting time. We had all been fans of Peter’s work for a while and had been eager to get to work on our second album. It had been years since the first. We spent 2 weeks in the Connecticut studio, which was housed in an old Victorian mansion with every piece of music gear you could ever want. We got deep into the recording process, with Peter guiding us and pushing us to experiment with arrangements and sounds. Then COVID hit and there was talk of closing the border so we hightailed it back home to Canada. We spent the next few months recording the album remotely from each of our apartments, a cabin, and a cottage, and then did a short stint at The Bathhouse studios in Kingston. The process went from a month in 1 studio to 6 months in many places. It was not very streamlined but it allowed us the breathing room to listen back and be sure of our choices. I think it gave the album a subtle complexity that wouldn’t have occurred without the logistical challenges.

Sidelines was released 6 years after your self-titled debut album. In what ways did you grow, both personally and as a band, during those 6 years that led you to where you are now and how do you feel that growth is reflected in the album? 

Andrew: We had an incalculable amount of experiences together in the 6 years between the albums. We played hundreds of shows, traveled to new cities, recorded singles and eps, and grew up a bit. Our musical tastes and palettes had expanded throughout that time. We all became interested in production and new instrumentation. While the first album was primarily acoustic and live-sounding instruments, Sidelines utilized many new textures and sonic while still being focused on the songwriting. The album was definitely influenced by playing our live shows, as we were craving to play some more upbeat, rocking moments, like Bedrock.

 Who's an artist whose sound is different from yours that you would most love to collaborate with? 

Khalid: Drake, the 6 god. We would become Toronto royalty. And in all seriousness, we think he’s one of the greatest artists of our generation. 

What do you find pushes you to keep growing and improving creatively?

Andrew: Finding great new music, collaborating with new artists, or trying a new instrument or software always reinvigorates the drive to learn and try new techniques. The band all has an innate desire to keep growing artistically and an obsession with creating new music. I think we often inspire and push each other to keep improving.

What can you tell me about your singles "Amsterdam" and "Safe Flight" and what inspired the recent acoustic versions? Do you plan to release acoustic versions of other songs? How did the Kidswaste remix of "Amsterdam" come about?

Khalid: I think the best songs can stand alone with minimal instrumentation so that’s always what we strive for when we’re writing. Does this work around the campfire? These ones in particular were written on acoustic guitar and sung live in the room, so there’s a certain honesty in performing them this way. We wanted to feature the intimate versions of the songs as if you were in the room with us. 

Kidswaste we got connected to through our label, and they’re an artist we’d been fans of from a distance. It was cool to flip the song on its head and do something totally out of the genre. We love this version and are keen to try more stuff like this. 

What's next for you? 

Khalid: We’ve been touring this record for the past year and will be wrapping up in a few weeks. We’re planning to take a few months to recharge our batteries and figure out what we want to do next, musically. We’ve got a couple of songs floating around and some alternate versions of our album songs. But another record is in our sight lines and bigger and better shows, more international touring and festivals, all the good stuff! And when we do come back and make a record we want it to be our best yet.

What inspired you to start a dating website and launch 'Love From The Sidelines' to celebrate the release of your new album? What can you tell me about the idea and what was the response like?

Devan: We get lots of messages about how our music has brought people together romantically or helped people through breakups, and it’s all really special to hear. A lot of our songs are about love, and we thought it would be fun to create a platform to connect our fans with each other. We ended up getting over 2000 applications and they were all so much fun to comb through and pick the people we thought would get along. We chose 8 couples and zoomed in with them and explained why we thought they were compatible, and then gave them tickets to our show in their city for a date night. I think a few of the couples we chose are still in touch, but we let them take it from there. Hoping we created a romantic success story!