It’s not a riddle it’s a stepping stone

I first heard Half Moon Run’s 21 Gun Salute and the intensely dramatic beginning to that song with lead vocals by Devon Portielje on the CBC at a live show, just a couple of months ago. It was meditative even ambient – and I was entranced –instantly inspired – including other songs like Full Circle.

Although I had not heard of them before, I felt it was a new mission of mine to share the gift of music with my family (including my preschool age children on some certain tracks (Call me in the afternoon even by one by one [x2 ]is sung around the hosue like a Christmas Carol substituting some words in for the obvious) and all my friends and social network so they too could enjoy this gift. That being said there was something sacred in hearing them for the first time. It was so different yet modern but there was a comfort in it that seemed to be missing in most modern music, and not felt by me personally, since artists like Bob Dylan, and Ballads from Simon & Garfunkel, I was introduced to in my youth.

That same day after discovering and enjoying the first album on iTunes (Dark Eyes Released June 2013) My musical journey with HMR led me to discover the second album which coincidentally was released that same day!

Sun Leads Me, Released Oct 23, 2015

It was a groovier sound and a more uplifting album than the first. It assisted in my creativity and put me in a greater mindset, having just emerged from the writing depths, after 10 years and creating again myself personally.

In researching the journey of the band, from recording in the desert (Texas) to California (For some seaside inspiration, leading up to the Second Album, and living in a dome shaped Oceanside house fit just right for a inspirational surf all day and late night magic sessions ) To experimenting in Europe in what appears to be a bit of a Rave Scene – road testing songs like Trust - it all lines up triumphantly.

I was lucky enough to experience this live set of troubadours on Dec 7th, 2015 at Sugar Nightclub in Victoria BC to a sold out show where some fans paid 9 x the door price just to get in. After staying late and meeting the eclectic mix of supporters, including a High School French Teacher and his wife who also thought their sound was as transcendent and made the journey to support them from up Island (Where most of the band hails from in Comox), to the sprawl of young woman who clearly were there for the "act" to the Lead Vocalist Devon Portielje who you could say in my excitement of après show and with my slight nerves "When a sip of gin saved an hour of speech - Nerve " I didn’t quite get the interview I thought I would - instead Briefly – you could say I found speaking with Devon clearly exhaustive from his end.

This band tours and plays almost nightly I would have asked him who "stole his Sunny Day" – but I could tell he was wiped. I asked him if the band would emerge on the Island again soon (Returning to play Rifflandia in 2016 like in 2014 but he didn’t commit to that.)

I spoke to his interests and would he get a chance to Surf the Jordan River on his visit to the Island but he said they only had 8 hours in the city and then off to Vancouver for the next nights sold out show at the Imperial.

This Band works hard – you forget sometimes when you haven’t seen an emerging act for awhile ( My last show was UB40 in the summer at the Commodore in Vancouver ) that to really put yourself forward you have to put in the hours (years ) on Tour (They actually toured Dark Eyes for three years !)

Just the fact that the Lead from the opening act for that nights show (Nick
Vallee from Folly & The Hunter) was assisting behind the counter at the merchandise booth after a long night and travel… well that’s a team of working mans bands.

More on the Music, there is huge variety in sounds on the current album, Sun Leads me – with the gritty Narrow Margins - There is a hint of Flamingo music that quickly folds into a somewhat Hip Hop beat – the sound not found anywhere else on the album, speaks like a story its very cool and soulful. It wasn’t played in the show, as I had anticipated – it’s a story of sorts that sounds very introspective.

Highlighting the further talents of Connor Molander (Harmonica being my favorite) one can find a cover done of the modern, Chvrches –The Mother we Share on the BBC Radio 1 (01/2014) then found again in the finale to the current live show touring with the Cover to Bob Dylan’s , Shall be released – seeing it live is spectacular - it was clever and mirrored the original art but with a tang of HMR.

There are confessional tones and a little sadness on both albums – and stories of what appears to be glimpse into the world of addiction – Music is a challenging business for anyone who has had this in their lives – this band however appears to live clean and is into a very healthy lifestyle from surfing to organic gardening mentioned to me by a family friend at the show about Issac’s Symonds (Mandolin extraordinaire and haunting vocalist) wishes for at organic landscaping book for Christmas.

I have heard Dylan Philips (Drummer – who has a great timing and a soulful sound as a professionally trained pianist – and always rocks the keyboard) said in other interviews that in terms of personal struggles that they have had the music guide them as a group – I noticed words formed around the struggle with being saved and loss of faith - perhaps even a loss of hope there – I hope they will continue to explore some further element of faith and that this translates to even more extraordinary music from this talented group, I am proud to call Canadian and will continue to share as their talents that will be sure to surprise us with further gifts in the future.

I clicked the you tube link on HMR’s website and watched some videos they had favored and found: TORA : and now I feel like the gifts just keep giving.

In the next feature story coming in January 2016:

　

Artist Profile: Half Moon Run

Singer Devon Portielje on vocals, guitar and percussion;

Conner Molander on vocals, guitar and keyboard;

Dylan Phillips on vocals, drums and keyboard;

Isaac Symonds on vocals, percussions, mandolin, keyboard and guitar.

Transcending Individualism

06/2019 P.Tinham

Mounties revealed their sophomore album earlier this summer, titled Heavy Meta, via Light Organ Records.

Mounties are a Canadian indie rock supergroup, consisting of singer-songwriter Hawksley Workman, Steve Bays of Hot Hot Heat and Ryan Dahle of The Age of Electric/Limblifter. Heavy Meta delivers the eclectic vocal harmonies, retro synth and staccato guitar elements" that fascinated audiences since the Canadian Rock Super Group started jamming and writing songs together in 2012.

The ARTists collaborated on Heavy Meta fragmented over time and across the country, abroad and a sheltered cabin in the middle of nowhere. All three band members shared engineering and mixing responsibilities.

SLM caught up with Ryan Dahle at the start of summer and dive into the new album and the history of the group.

Heavy Meta

Mounties are a Canadian indie rock supergroup, consisting of singer-songwriter Hawksley Workman, Steve Bays of Hot Hot Heat and Ryan Dahle of The Age of Electric/Limblifter.

SLM: Tell us a little bit about the throwback. I know there's like a Devo reference in there or there's some influence there, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Ryan: For 'De-Evolve Again', we were using different methodologies of writing songs, because we've searched different ways of doing things and we've done a lot of writing by just jamming. So when we were in Hawksley's studio, we were making songs in a different way. It was more traditional, where we make a progression and then we'll write bright layers over it and then make another progression, then grab some of the lyrics that we've made and try to make something over top of that. We were doing it a little bit more traditional in the way of getting together and writing songs. We were using Hawksley's piano and a lot of that song was written on acoustic, with us just kind of sitting around.

SLM: "No XTC", a great summer jam. I love this one, and "Canoe Song", the video is a mix of some really odd clips. It's pretty cool, though. Where did Canoe Song come from?

Ryan: No XTC and Canoe Song are both hardcore jam songs anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, we will be in the studio just making things up on the spot, and then we kind of piece things together and write vocals over top of parts that inspire us.  A lot of bands in the '70s would do that, and it's a really good method because you don't think as much about what's happening as far as the music. When you're writing the lyrics, it even goes quicker then, because the background's already there and you can paint over top of it, with lyrics and melody. Its a really nice method that we've sort of mostly done since the first record because, with that many minds trying to think of ideas, it's a good way of doing things so that your brain is shut off. It only works usually when you only have two melodic instruments. Any more than two it gets a little difficult to know who's on what page. Usually, it'll be Steve on keyboards, me on guitar or bass, and then Hawksley playing drums. It comes together quite quickly, and is an instant songwriting method, in some ways. 

SLM: Well, I love the next tracks, too, "Longplay" , and "One Way Mirror". This one feels like it has a lot of textures. Is that sort of a reflection on selfishness, One Way Mirror?

Ryan: I think so. I don't know. I can't quite figure it out. I love it, though. Longplay is such an anomaly. Both of those songs sound like they existed before, and I love that. They have such specific sounds to them. Again, those come from long jams in the middle of them, and all of a sudden there are these gems. You're writing so quickly and you're throwing in lyrics and melodies so quickly that it's hard to determine what's going on. I think your subconscious works harder than your conscious, and you end up with things that really work well together when you think about them, but you couldn't have imagined how. happened so fast. I believe that our unconscious mind is a lot better at creating than our conscious. Trying to develop things is a lot more difficult. We like to use both, but we definitely like to use subconscious the most.  

SLM: You could really feel that in a lot of your tracks, as well. "Burning Money", this feels like a track about excess in society. Probably Vancouver is probably the perfect example of that. But also what we're doing to society in general. I thought that was really interesting. There's a theme of that through your album, especially in De-Evolve.

Ryan: We're not trying to complain about our culture. We're just complaining about our ourselves as individuals and how that trickled down into being negative for the whole group of us, the whole species. The record altogether is a pretty good representation of what's in our minds, and I think in most of everyone's minds. Of course, there are love song aspects to things once in a while, but that's not what's on people's minds anymore. We're all thinking about the planet and how f..Kd we are, and how to be better. I think a lot of people are kind of obsessed with and overwhelmed by how we're going to get ourselves out of the messes that we've got into. We definitely are observing where it all comes from, and feel like within our lifetimes it's what has developed within our lifespan. This selfishness has come up, "What can I get out of life?"  idea. I think a lot of the songs and themes kind of point towards that.

SLM: As you move towards the end of the album, "You Were Right",  and "Dark Heart Softening" are very strong bookends Tell us a little bit about these tracks.

Ryan: "You Were Right" was the only song that came from the first record. It was actually an excerpt from the same jam as the last song on the first record. It was always going to be the last song, but it didn't end up being, we kind of lost the plot there. "Dark Heart Softening", was such a beautiful ending. There's something about that song. We've been on this tip of making sure that we put a very powerful strong song at the end of the record. Digitally, when you load up a record or if you put an old school CD into your machine and load the record up, sometimes it loads backwards.

We really wanted to have a song that was kind of speaking to a lot of the people listening to the record before it came out. We love the sentiment of that song. I think all these songs are kind of self-aware in who we are. 

 

Ryan played Jazz Fest in Victoria, with Donny McCaslin. He's an incredible musician as well.(Having collaborated on Bowie’s final album), 

Here are some current projects this fall and some new releases and tour dates of the individual ARTists, cannot wait for the next album from this collaborative team, Mounties.

SLM: Congrats again on the new album, Heavy Meta ( Light Organ Records). You've seen and experienced so much in the Vancouver music scene over the last 20 years, and in the city itself. Has the city inspired or contributed to Heavy Meta and the music?

Ryan: I think if you ask Hawksley, his visiting here really inspires him, being that he's an Ontario guy. Steve Bays, who's actually from Victoria originally, but he's lived in Vancouver for years, as well. When we go to Ontario it inspires us, and him coming here inspires Hawksley. I think for this record we kind of took on a couple of different new environments in order to create.... We also used the same two studios that we did before. Steve and I both have studios in Vancouver, and then we also went to Bryan Adams' studio, which is a big studio. 

Then we went to Ontario, too. Hawksley had a beautiful studio in a beautiful, bucolic setting, just North of Huntsville in Ontario. So we enjoyed staying there. On the first record, we rehearsed there quite a bit and spent a couple of weeks here and there. So this time, it was nice to spend time there and record. Being able to create in different environments, because we do write in the studio, it definitely adds to it having more dimensions.

SLM:  The artwork, is amazing. Can you share who the artist is and the idea behind the cover for the album?

Ryan: His name is Randy Grskovic and he did the first album, as well (Thrash Rock Legacy (2014) (right). Everything he does, we look at it online and stare at everything he does, and it just goes with the music,.

He recycles all the images mixes them and makes them new images, which is a lot like what we do with music, in that you're using old ideas and making them new again. There is something about his artwork that we could look at every single piece of his work and think, "Well, that could be an album cover." So he's just the perfect match for us. We're hoping that he's going to continue to do artwork on future records, just because it seems to be a good mix and a good fit.


 

SLM:  I've read you say that you guys have achieved a lot,  more than you want to as individuals and that your music "transcends individualism". I love that. I think that might be the title for our feature (and it is) .

On this album, you've been so successful working creatively together, and in the past, of course. I know Hawksley said that The Mounties does so much for his soul. What does being part of Mounties do for you, as an artist?

Ryan: Well, it removes the individual so that you're not thinking about your voice or what you have to say. It's this odd thing that happens that makes it very collective and makes it feel like it came out of nowhere.

So for me, it puts my trust in other musicians again, or other artists, and songwriters.  I think with all of our past projects, we're all used to being the main driving force creatively. So when you're the sole songwriter, you certainly have that pressure on you to make sure you find the right next thing, and with Mounties, it kind of turns your brain off a little bit.

For me, it trained me to just trust in what happens naturally. More and more I 've gone towards that direction anyway, to try to shut your brain off and just make music and stop thinking too much.

SLM: Getting into some of the tracks on the album, the intro, "Skymall" I love that it feels like a theatrical sort of intro and it just sort of feeds into the title track, Heavy Meta. I have a question, who is Nancy and Heavy Meta, and what is Heavy Meta?

Ryan: Well that's a lyric from Hawksley's brain that just came out of nowhere. Sometimes things will just pop out of him that are excerpts from a past play or something. You kind of just go with it and you try to add to it and try pile on top of the ideas. Everything happens so quickly that you're just trying to help out in any way. Sometimes helping is just staying out of the way or taking on another role, like recording what's happening, or just being supportive, or all of a sudden trying to add a line when one person runs out of gas. So, I don't know. You'd have to ask him, but he probably wouldn't answer you. I think it's Sally, too. 

SLM: Oh, is it? (It was in fact, "Sally")

Ryan: It's funny, because I have a guitar named Nancy, and it has a big piece of tape on it that says Nancy. It's the guitar I got when I was 15 years old.

SLM: Oh, that's cool. Well, I love the adventure that you go on in the song. It's a longer song, and I love the transition towards the end. It's really cool.

Ryan: It started out as about a 15-minute song I think it's six minutes now and it's because we were writing in a way where they're compound songs. Sometimes we'll jam for 45 minutes and those jams will sort of form into bits and pieces of a song. So that song got kind of cut down over the years of finalizing the record. We just kept on cutting parts out that were a little bit excessive.  I don't necessarily look at it as a long song as much as I look at it as a compound song.

SLM: "Modesty Pays", I love the line that, "Sometimes the messy moments of sadness show me your realness." I thought that was a really cool track. Tell us a little about this one.

Ryan: You know, that line is Steve, and again, I was just astounded by what they come up with. They'll come up with these completely poignant, perfectly appropriate lines at the strangest times. So it's kind of a mindblower to be around those guys. But Modesty Pays, I don't know what else to say about it. I do love that song.

SLM: Hitchin' Man. I love the video. It looked like a lot of fun to make.

Ryan: It was. It's completely just us. Steve and I started doing some experimental shots before. Over the years, we've slowly bought all this camera gear, because he's an excellent editor. When Steve started in music, he also started making these little mini-movies. As a kid, he sort of developed these video-making skills. He took a break from it when he was solely working on music, but he's now completely reignited that. You know, with technology being what it is, it's so easy to make your own videos and edit. So he's gotten really good at editing. One of the first album videos, I would say most of them, are just him editing things together that we all kind of collectively shot, except for a couple of videos I took this summer. It was a great video by someone else, but a lot of the stuff that we've done is him editing, and he's fantastic at it.

Steve and I got together a couple of days in advance of making the video and of Hawksley arriving to shoot the video with a full band. We just started doing experimental footage and started projecting that onto different things and we started editing the video before we started shooting it, in some ways, which kind of gave us this weird thing. It was a different kind of method of shooting, in that we kind of put these long shots down underneath and then we just started piling on top of it. By the time we started shooting the video, we already had a basis for it, which was an interesting method, I think.

SLM:  "Python Status", such a pretty track, and "Flags Of Convenience", that  I love the video with those kittens.

Ryan:  That's just Steve and I going to Eric who played drums on that. Hawksley plays drums on all of our material since the beginning, but our drummer in Limblifter, Eric Breitenbach, he played on that song. It was a song that Eric and I had kind of started putting together, Steve was there and Hawksley heard it and loved it and said, "That should be a song." So, that's how that kind of started. Eric is such an exciting drummer and it's such a cool drum part that we just start shooting him and then we've got this is the video. Then we thought, "What would go nicely with that?" And of course kittens around the house, you know? Anything with kittens is better. Those are Steve's cats at his house.

Watch the colourful video for "De-Evolve Again." The video was shot in the Valley of Fire in Nevada by Canadian film director and screenwriter Kevin Funk, with additional editing and creation by Mounties' very own Steve Bays. In a statement, the band say of the song, "Lyrically, it hints at some kind of global awakening... as if all 7 billion broken individuals stood up and accepted a shared responsibility of what might be going wrong on the planet."

Pre-order Limblifter Bellaclava vinyl!

Hawksley on Tour this Fall http://www.ticketfly.com

stevebays.com

Most recent project SLM featured 

Said The Whale - Cascadia - is the Vancouver trio's sixth album, and it tracked with Steve Bays. http://stevebays.com/