THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN’S MAIN CAMPUS IS SITUATED ON TREATY 6 TERRITORY AND THE HOMELAND OF THE MÉTIS.
THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN’S MAIN CAMPUS IS SITUATED ON TREATY 6 TERRITORY AND THE HOMELAND OF THE MÉTIS.
LAURA ALFORD
Arts Writer
There’s a certain mythology surrounding the latest album from The Weakerthans.
Titled The Falcon Lake Incident — a reference both to the recording location and a famous UFO sighting that occurred there in the late ’60s — the album is a collaboration between the Winnipeg band and Ottawa-based singer-songwriter Jim Bryson.
The collaboration was hatched over a drunken lunch between Weakerthans guitarist Stephen Carroll and Bryson when Bryson was in Winnipeg on tour with the Tragically Hip. Within three months, the band had relocated an entire recording studio to a remote cabin at Falcon Lake, Manitoba. And by the end of a cold week in January, they had made a record.
Though Bryson had structured the songs before they all met in the studio, the songs morphed as The Weakerthans interpreted them.
“We took what he offered us,” said Carroll. “We tried to find our way to it and to make it our own.”
The resulting album is a true collaboration, blending Bryson’s mellow singer-songwriter vibe with The Weakerthans’ always-hyphenated mix of punk, folk, rock and pop.
“We helped in the studio, arranging, testing the songs to see what we could draw out of them with our energy and our ideas,” said Carroll.
No doubt the setting also influenced the sound and feel of the record. Falcon Lake is located in the Whiteshell Provincial Park, on the Manitoba-Ontario border.
“It was so cold. It was wonderful,” said Carroll. “It was exactly what you’d look for in a romantic Manitoba winter. Blistering cold, clear skies, unbelievably starry nights and giant, giant bonfires.”
The setting also made for a unique recording process. Rather than going back and forth from home to the studio, both places merged for the week. Work on the record began before breakfast and continued into the wee hours of the morning. Carroll admits it was an intense process but for him it was also “loose.”
“There were no clocks,” he explained. “The clock was off so that we were just there, that’s what we were doing. We lived and breathed it for a week straight.”
The 10-track album was released in October. Now, Jim Bryson and The Weakerthans are touring across this fine land to promote the record.
So far, the band has played several shows in Ontario and one in Montreal. When I talked with Carroll, he was at his home in Winnipeg on a short break from the tour. With Bryson in the mix, he said, The Weakerthans are playing different venues with a different vibe.
Things got interesting when I asked Carroll if his guitar style changes under a different songwriter.
“It does a little bit,” he answered hesitantly, “but I try and not make it change.” Jokingly, he added, “I try and make him change. I definitely push it to go towards the rock side and I make it happen. I have to play to the band but I definitely am probably pulling more than anybody else to make it rock.”
The push-pull between different styles gives the album depth and should make the live concert a dynamic event. On the album, the poles might be represented by the punky, guitar-heaviness of “Up All Night” and the reflective “Freeways in the Frontyard” with its beautiful harmonies and steel guitar. Somewhere in the middle are tracks like “Kissing Cousins” and “Fell off the Dock,” where the songs move ahead while leaving room for a guitar riff or horn line to complement Bryson’s clever but always down-to-earth lyrics.
“It’s a good push-pull that’s the fun part of it all,” said Carroll.
“We kinda mix it up. There’s really stark acoustic moments where Jim will just do a song by himself sometimes,” he said, describing the live concert. He added, “We have a lot of punk rock heritage. I like the fact that we’re interjecting that periodically in these songs.”
I ended the interview asking what is next for The Weakerthans. Carroll said the band will focus on writing for its next record after John K. Samson releases the third in his series of solo 7-inches later this year.
Not a band to rush the songwriting process, Carroll explained, “We’re constantly working on something. There’s constant communication every day. Our lives are intertwined in ways I don’t think we at all expected when we started the band.”
The thought of the band’s earliest days closed the interview with a nice realization.
“Wait. What day is it today?” he asked as though he hadn’t thought of it until then. “The 23rd?!” The Weakerthans have been making great Canadian music for 14 years.