By Peter de Vries, Staff Contributor
It has already been a long, gruelling tour for Wintersleep. The band has been playing, travelling, and writing tirelessly through Europe, the U.S., and Canada since May, with only a couple of short breaks.
When they’re not playing their own shows, they’ve been opening for well- established indie rock acts like the Hold Steady and City and Colour. They’ve also been practicing new material for their next album during sound checks, even though New Inheritors, their most recent album, only came out last June.
Jon Samuel, Wintersleep’s keyboardist and a Dartmouth native, says playing shows and writing new material regularly is helping keep them all in “good band shape.”
“We just like touring a lot. We’re trying to not be complacent and put our best foot forward.”
Wintersleep’s show at the New Palace this Thursday will be the second time they’ve played Halifax this year. Samuel says he hopes they’ll be back in the studio again to record sooner rather than later.
The band wrote all the songs on New Inheritors and most of 2007’s Welcome to the Night Sky on the road, and Samuel says that trend is likely to continue with the next album.
“We have a lot of ideas and we’re just trying to work through them. It seemed to work on the last record, and we’ve continued just doing that.”
Despite his excitement at the prospect of recording, Samuel says the band’s new material isn’t anywhere near 100 per cent polished, and fans shouldn’t expect them to play any of it at the upcoming performance.
What fans can expect is a tighter live show. Samuel says the band has started to use an in-air monitor system that helps them hear each other more clearly on stage. He thinks it might help them play some of their more epic numbers, like “Miasmal Smoke and the Yellow-Bellied Freaks,” more smoothly.
“(The monitor system is) a big change, but we’re all for it, and it’s pretty awesome.”
Wintersleep have had some watershed moments in Halifax, even before this tour began. Samuel remembers the thrill of opening for Paul McCartney’s show at the Commons with Joel Plaskett in July, 2009.
“It was something we never thought we would get to do, and it was amazing. Some of us are pretty big Beatles fans.”
Samuel vividly remembers when he felt a hand tapping him on the shoulder that day. He turned around, and there was McCartney standing right in front of him. Samuel was frozen in awe, completely speechless, but he remembers his brief encounter with the ex-Beatle being very pleasant.
“He’s just really charming and very sweet. Very much the Paul McCartney you see in interviews.”
The five members of Wintersleep were once just a bunch of students out of high school from Halifax’s surrounding areas.
Samuel and Tim D’Eon (who play guitar and keyboards) were in the crowd at TKO, a now-defunct skate park in Halifax, when Mike Bigelow (bass) and Loel Campbell (drums) were playing a show with Contrived, a band they still sometimes play in. These four would eventually form the current line-up of Wintersleep with Paul Murphy (vocals and guitar).
“I saw those guys playing and really liked what they did, and then it went from there,” says Samuel. “We’re looking forward to playing Halifax, and it’s going to be fun.”
Wintersleep play the New Palace with the Besnard Lakes and Rah Rah on Nov. 4.
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