ARKELLS INTERVIEW

By Kim
Toronto, ON
July 17, 2009

This is the third time we’re interviewing you guys. It’s funny because I was online, on your website, and I have to read you this. Have you read your biography?
Dan: We’ve seen a few of those so let’s see what you got…

Ok my favourite one was, “sharing a love for the kind of raw, soulful Springsteen-esque rock that inspires teens to pick up the guitar and start a bad.” Do you identify with this “Springsteen-esque” sound?
Dan: Totally.

For those who don’t understand your sound, how would you describe it?
Dan and Mike: Just Bruce Springsteen.
Dan: Let’s see, Springsteen… and in the 70s. Like when he sounded exactly like Van Morrison. But that was also when Van Morrison sounded exactly like Bob Dylan. So I guess we sound a lot like Bob Dylan?
Mike: It always works your way back.

How did you guys form the band? How long have you been together?
Mike: About two and half years.

All from Hamilton?
Mike: Actually, none of us grew up in Hamilton. But that’s where the band found each other.

That’s a random place.
Dan: That is such a romantic place.
Mike: I thought it was romantic place Dan.
Dan: That’s where started playing for a bit and that’s where it got real. We started playing in 2006. We started playing in local places like the Kazbah and The Pepper Jack Cafe. We started opening for bands there and we were at school at the time. We eventually started playing in Southern Ontario for a bit, then we put out the EP and then we went on tour forever and now we’re still on tour.
Mike: It’s going to be the never-ending tour.

Hamilton is such a random place. Most bands say Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver… But Hamilton?
Dan: Well we’re making our way eventually to Toronto. One day.
Mike: One day we’ll be able to afford apartments in Toronto.
Dan: Relax, we’ll get there. Toronto, it’s a lot of pressure.
Mike: Well, we’re in Toronto right now…
Dan: Sort of. We’re on the beaches.

Well it’s Lakeshore, close enough.
Dan: Cherry Street?
Mike: Near Molson Pier.
Dan: I heard stuff went down on Cherry Street.
Mike: Back in the day.
Dan: Mobs used to take people and teach them a lesson.

So the Arkells are getting their street cred as well. Dine Alone Records, how did you sign with them? Did you get other offers?
Dan: Nooo, we didn’t. No one else was interested.
Mike: It was getting really dire.
Dan: Joel, he’s actually right here. You can’t see him but… Joel responded to one of our e-mails, we’ve been sending them e-mails for years.
Joel: Did I really respond to that?
Mike: No, he never responded. But then he got us on our Lava Life account, our collective account. That was a much better way to get us!
Dan: We said it [email] was obviously not working so we got a craigslist account, Lava Life, Jay Date… all of those things and then we found him since he was single at the time as well. It really worked out well. Nate was also under all those accounts too.

For those who don’t know, Dine Alone Records has Alexisonfire, Bedouin SoundClash, Attack in Black. Did you guys ever get the chance to jam with them?
Dan: It’s actually kind of nice because we’re back here at the Sound Academy and we played one of our first shows, our first Dine Alone Show, and we played with Alexisonfire. We were in this dressing room — no, they were in this dressing room… we were in the small one.
Mike: We were in this dressing room stealing their food.
Dan: And now we are in this room, eating our food, legitimately.

No one stealing it?
Dan: We are very open people. They can eat our cheese all they like.

So you guys have been on the road for a while, when do you plan on getting some down time and how are you planning to relax?
Dan: The problem with the downtime is that when you get downtime, you realize it’s crazy what you are doing. So you have to not have as much downtime as possible.
Mike: Yeah, because you start to think about it and gets to your head.
Dan: You start to think, “Oh my god, am I going to be on the road for the rest of my life? What am I doing out here?” and then “Who are these guys?”
Mike: It gets really intense, it’s a psychological thing. But it’s nice! It’s nice to get a couple of days here and there. But we don’t get any more then that these days.
Dan: And we miss each other when where not playing. For sure.

You do spend a lot of time together so how does it feel you are apart?
Dan: It feels weird.
Mike: My bed is cold.
Dan: Me and mike are bed-mates.

So sharing this couch we’re on is no big deal?
Mike: This is great! I feel like I’m on my own.

We actually spoke about having [free] time go to your head, has the success gone to your head so far?
Dan: No. We get these great opportunities but we’re still, very much, a young band. We’re still hustling and trying to do our thing in Canada. We just finally went to America for the first time for South by South West and we played our first shows down there and it was scary. We got a feel for how big the world is-
Mike: And how small we are.
Dan: So we got a long, long way to go but we’re happy to be getting the opportunity and we’re having an awesome time.

Plans for the band. Would you guys be happy to be staying in the indie scene or would you, you know, wouldn’t mind playing at the bigger venues eventually?
Dan: We’ve been e-mailing Bono from U2 and were sorta…
Mike: …going right to the top.
Dan: Lets see if he has a Lava Life account!
Mike: It was a success in the past, let’s see if we can re-create the magic – with Bono.
Dan: I don’t know, we love so many bands that do have record deals, that don’t have records deals, that are small Canadian bands, or huge British bands; so we don’t really discriminate great bands.

Speaking of the Canadian music scene, has there been anyone else out there you’re really interested in or really want to work with (aside from those from Dine Alone)?
Dan: Right now it’s a hell of a lot of Phoenix, Ra Ra Riot and Grizzly Bear. We’ve just been listening to their stuff non-stop so if we can play or tour with any of them.
Mike: Give us a call.
Dan: Or KISS.
Mike: We played for KISS last week and I think our show just aesthetically melded really well.
Dan: We read a review in the Ottawa Citizen said that we were almost successful in winning over KISS Army fans because of how serious KISS Army fans are. So if we can even come close to winning part of their audience, which is billions, at this point we can probably work out a little niche and make a pretty good living. Just riding on the coat-tails of KISS.
Mike: We’re going to have to get over the initial face paint expenses.
Dan: I heard that started with shoe polish.
Mike: Really?
Dan: I heard it started out as a joke with shoe polish and then here it is. Thirty, forty years later.
Mike: With pyrotechnics.

Did you get a chance to talk to KISS?
Dan and Mike: No.
Dan: You don’t actually get to talk to Gene Simmons ever. He has an assistant and you can to talk to him over the internet. And that’s how you talk to Gene Simmons.

That’s the closest you got?
Dan: We saw their show from…
Mike: Really far away.
Dan: And it was still crazy. And we also got to play with The National which is one of our favourite bands. Although they did not have fire works.
Mike: No they did not have fireworks. They were great.

Growing up did you always know this is what you wanted to do? Or did you go to school and said, “I’ll try this on the side?”
Dan: We were in school, it was ridiculous, in our last third and fourth year. We were in McMaster, we were just playing shows all over the place and we were writing essays on the road.
Mike: Like six to eight shows a month, recording and writing essays at the same time.
Dan: We shouldn’t have been in school at that point, we should have dropped out.
Mike: Yeah, but we didn’t. It wasn’t a plan in the beginning, [music] was just something that… we did.
Dan: If you heard us three years ago, you would have understood why it wasn’t a plan, music.

How was the sound [back then]?
Dan: It was awesome. No, it was terrible.
Mike: We had a lot of fun and that’s why we did it.

So when did you guys realize this was serious and pursue this as our career?
Dan: I guess it’s when we hooked up with the Dine Alone guys. We said, “Now we got to put out a record, and we get a real chance to put something out, we get a great opportunity.” We’ve never been shy of stepping it up when there’s an opportunity like a bigger show we otherwise wouldn’t have access to. We love those things.

So how did it feel to release you first full length album?
Mike: It was cool. I found it first in Edmonton, no wait… Calgary! I remember going into a store in Calgary.
Dan: Oh, I remember getting shipment.
Mike: Or right we got the shipment! We were in Kamloops. It was a good sense of accomplishment. Other then going to school, which was something we sort of just did because we thought we were suppose to.
Dan: When I got my degree, it didn’t matter half as much as when I got that album.
Mike: Yeah, it was a good sense of, “Wow. This is the first thing I’ve done that I’m really proud of, for doing myself”.

Did you buy your own record?
Dan: Yeah, we all bought it on iTunes, we bought it physically, when the vinyl came out we bought it.
Mike: Just to get the numbers up.
Dan: Every now and then we like to buy it, our parents bought it… twice. So that was our first week of record sales -was mostly us. But then we got onto to the road and people started hearing it and it was great.

Do you find yourself still grounded?
Dan: If anything that will ground you, like I said, sleeping in the same room with five other guys in forty nights…
Mike: And in between in a minivan with the same five guys, and then playing the show with the same five guys. So it makes you feel on the ground. Sometimes you’re actually sleeping on the ground.
Dan: You’re literally on the ground, grounded.

So how does that affect the music making process? You’re so close, will that effect your sound in the future?
Dan: Its nice to make music with your friends because in the end of the day we got into this originally had a good time playing music with each other. Once that stops we’ll probably stop playing because that’s what it’s all about.

What’s the future now? After you guys tour are you guys planning to release a new album?
Dan: 2015 is the new album (laughs).
Mike: Yeah we’re gonna crank out a song every year until then.
Dan: No! It’s gonna be edits, it going to be hip hop remixes.
Mike: Hip hop remixes mixed with electro. We’re just gonna milk it pretty much.

Drive it to the ground.
Dan: We’re going to kill this record until no one wants to here it… including us. No, we’re working on stuff. We got a few tunes tonight we’re going to play.

How’s the fan base and how are they treating you?
Dan: We were standing out there absolutely no one knew who we were, but when I was out there a couple of people were like, “Dan!” and I was, “Oh some buddies.” But I never met these people, they just knew my name. It was awkward for a minute because I was going in for a hug. ‘Cause when you know someone you, but you’re not sure you remember their name, but you give them a hug anyway because you’re like, “We were probably introduced anyway and this awkward”.

How is that for you? People know your name, people know how you look, they know your sound? Isn’t that weird?
Dan: It’s not nearly as great as you make it sound. It sounds really good.
Mike: It doesn’t affect your day to day life in any real way.
Dan: But we’re happy there are people coming.

Alright, thank you guys so much. I’m Kim from CFRE.
Dan and Mike: We’re the Arkells.

They are going to be on stage tonight!
Dan: We’ll be back, Mississauga.