Fools they are not

By Mick Coté, Arts contributor

Adam White, vocalist and front man for Hamilton-based band, The Reason, once compared his last album, Things Couldn’t Be Better, to a university degree. White and his band have graduated with honours.

Reflecting on the band’s new album, out Aug. 24, White says that “Fools is the job we’ve always wanted, I guess. We’ve waited a long time and we finally get to do our job and it’s the career that we always wanted.”

The Reason have received a fair bit of criticism from fans over the years. Their sound has drastically changed since their  first album in 2005, moving from a hardcore alternative to a rock vibe that “should be more timeless.”

While Fools is significantly more organic and raw, White admits that things did not always come easy. “I can’t even listen to (Things Couldn’t Be Easier) sometimes,” he says. “It seems like a computer is playing our songs for us. This one, it sounds like a rock band.”

Evidently, the musical transition did not happen freely. They have had to alter much of their surroundings in order to accomplish something different. From a change in management, to signing with Warner Brothers Canada, the band reconstructed itself from the bottom up.

After teaming up with producer Steve Haigler, whose work includes albums such as Muse’s Arcana and Brand New’sDeja Entendu, The Reason migrated to North Carolina for a month and got down to business.

The band left the confined studios of Toronto’s industrial parks and shook the walls of Echo Mountain, a 1920s church-turned-state-of-the-art-studio in Asheville.

“(Haigler) seemed to get it right away what we were doing. He was so confident in his suggestions. He never thought twice and we really needed someone with that confidence. We were confident in the songs but having someone there, it was nice,” says White. “He was as passionate, if not more than we were.”

Within a month the band recorded 11 new songs and were ready for takeoff.

“Little did we know it wouldn’t come out till August 2010,” says White, tired of sitting on a pile of hard work. “It’s been a really slow build. We finished the album about a year and a half ago so we’ve just been waiting and waiting and waiting. So it kinda just feels anti-climatic for us.”

The five guys plan on touring with their new material, but they will also do the tour differently this time around.

In 2007 The Reason toured Canada three times within the span of two months. This subsequently affected the popularity of their shows.

“We did all this touring and we never got to go to the U.S. The album didn’t come out anywhere other than Australia a year and a half later. By that time we had no money and couldn’t afford to get there,” says White. “We’ve learned a lot and we’re not going to make the same mistakes again.”

“I know it sounds bad, I talk about it all the time, but it just feels like things are starting to happen.”