A few months back I got together with the Wilderness of Manitoba to discuss life, the universe and everything surrounding the making of folk music relevant in the 21st century. Now, half a year later, they've made a killer record and are currently touring Canada with slated dates in both Europe and the United States. It's all a crazy business.

Their new album When You Left the Fire was released officially on the 22^nd of June, though their party was on the 25^th. The Friday marking the commencement of the G20 blunders holds a heavy spot in the minds and heart of a lot of people, but for me it will always represent a magnificent juxtaposition in the universe. There’s something about walking through a militarized downtown core in the heat towards a quiet folk show in a cool church that’s enough to make a heathen like myself plead sanctuary.

A week before the release party we got together for a follow up to our original discussion. In the backyard of the glorious and infamous Delaware House, we sat around drinking beer and discussing the fact that this band, formed scarcely a year before, are now booked for the better part of this year on the road at home and abroad, playing a new set of more sonically diverse songs about loneliness and growth.

What follows is very close to being a straight transcription of the actual interview. Present are Scott Bouwmeester, Stefan Banjevic, Will Whitwham and Sean Lancaric. Conspicuously absent is Melissa Dalton, the one factor that would have kept this interview from being a massive bro-down. Alas, bro-downery ensues. Also, note how the band is constantly completing each other’s thoughts and sentences.

Pat: First of all, you guys are done the fucking record.

Will: Finally.

Pat: How does that feel, you know, other than amazing?

Sean: I think it’s awesome. I’ve played on other records before, but this felt like it was the most I’ve ever contributed. I felt that I was learning here.

Will: It’s nice because we took our time and followed up something really sparse (2009’s Hymns of Love and Spirits) with something really dense. Dense… like, 13 tracks long, way more percussion and layering.

Scott: This album was a much bigger project than the previous one. There were way more people involved.

Will: And a greater diversity of song writing.

Scott: It’s great to have something that maybe seems so overwhelming to begin actually completed.

Will: We’re ready for number 3! Well… maybe not in terms of writing, but in terms of feeling.

Sean laughs maniacally for the first of many times. If I noted how often, there would probably be about 1000 words of the interview that just repeat “Sean laughs maniacally.” Just assume that it’s happening all the time.

Pat: Well, if you’re ready for number 3, how does it feel now to look at these songs and say “I have to play these for the next year” or however long you’re touring?

Will: Oh, well we’re okay to play all of those, but we’ll just keep adding things into it slowly. It’s true, you have to focus on the new material, but set lists always change.

Stefan: It’s like with the EP. We released that and played the shit out of it and started writing all of these new songs… we started recording them and the sound of the band had changed a little. Then the EP started getting attention… and so we were like, “holy shit, we just put this out as a kind of first thing and now we have to play those songs again.” But having to play them again led me to reinterpret them and want to reinterpret them. I have a feeling that it’ll be the same with this record. I find I get a second kick from any set of songs.

Will: We’ve been playing a lot of these new songs for most of a year already anyways, so it doesn’t feel like the biggest change.

Pat: How did you guys settle on When You Left the Fire as the album title? I know that’s a fairly basic question, and that it’s the first line of “Hermit,” but what made you settle on it?

Will: And the last line! Anyways, I woke up one morning and… we had had all these ideas of naming the album and none of them were working. I was mixing the last song, the instrumental with the fire track at the end (“Reveries En Couleurs”), and it occurred to me that so many of these songs had fire imagery recurring through them… so why wasn’t the album titled “When You Left the Fire?”

Pat: It’s pretty cool that it thematized itself in advance.

Will: Yeah, the name of the album was the last thing that came.

Pat: So with everything burning, what do you think that means in your song writing?

Will: That we’ll have to move away from fire imagery!

Everyone laughs. There is much jocularity.

Will: It was coincidental that everyone centred around that even though there’s such a wintery feel to the songs.

Scott: I know at least for me that candles and bonfires burning were a really big part of my last summer when all of these songs were being written. They must have worked their way into the songs.

Will: Yeah, it’s what we do in the yard here too. Either Scott’s lighting stuff in the back or there’s candles burning everywhere, in the barn, all over the place.

Stefan: I always think of it as a bonfire. I find that I’ll sit around bonfires with small groups of people that I know really well. I find for the most part they happen when I’m up somewhere with friends. It evokes a certain nostalgia and the feeling of being close with people and with nature. When you live in the city and you’ve lived in the city your whole life, going out to nature is special. It’s something. For me it’s always been one of the nicest things to be around. But then, When You Left the Fire, the leaving turns that on it’s head, it turns it upside down.

Will: Speaking of the bonfire thing… anyone who’s been to a few fires knows what it’s like to be last man or last woman standing at a bonfire. It’s pretty lonely. I think that’s what we were trying to do with the last song on the album… there’s something about that loneliness that permeates through. Even down to Sean's drumming, those rivets ringing out… it’s all very lonely sounding and empty.

……….

Pat: Well, you guys aren’t lonely. You’re going overseas and shit. How does it feel to become international in scope? Before, playing the Garrison was a big show, now you’re playing in London (England, I might add).

Stefan: It’s really something because we’ve all been playing in bands before, for years, and you’re used to a certain kind of thing around Toronto. It’s nice to feel like this has some steam to it. We work hard, yeah, but it isn’t hard. It just feels like it’s going.

Scott: It’s kind of weird to think that people in Italy and the UK or wherever pay attention to what we do in our basement. Those shows at the Garrison are still a big deal because… yeah, we’re playing in London, but it’s still starting over again in a new city. We played some awesome shows but it’s all relative. It’s like playing for the first time here. It’s nice to have people over there helping us to play shows. We’re all in the same headspace that we’ll go anywhere and play if people want us to go.

Stefan: Another funny thing is that the people who come to the shows over there are the people who really like us already.

Will: A lot of people came to film for people who couldn’t come with them.

Scott: We had people coming to multiple shows too! One guy came to 3 shows…

Will: Four.

Scott: One guy came to four shows!

Will: And wrote about all of them!

Scott: Or we had someone come to a show from Birmingham, two hours outside of London, because someone in London had told him to go see us play. Two hours out of his way!

Will: Also, over there, travelling two hours is a lot because it’s basically across the country. Here it’s like…

Pat: Going to work?

Will: Yeah! People there seem a little more centred around where they live. Travelling long distances isn’t as normal.

Stefan: But yeah, the shows here are still interesting… there are more people and stuff.

Scott: We’ll definitely be in a way better position there when we go back in September.

Will: But most of the shows had like, 40 people. We’ve played much smaller shows in Toronto. I mean, we didn’t play any Phoenix sized shows there, but it was still incredible.

Stefan: But every show we played in London was probably bigger than any out of town show we’ve ever played in Canada, which is interesting. You can cross the ocean and have more people come out than in Montreal.

Pat: Why the decision to go to Europe before going to the States?

Will: We got into the Camden Crawl, which is a festival that happens in Camden Town. It’s really nice. We got into a festival, so we went.

Stefan: Also, there’s more press in Europe, more business people interesting in hearing us and supporting us. We could have gone to SXSW if we really wanted to, but we decided this wasn’t the year because everything seemed to be going in another direction. It didn’t make any sense.

Scott: I think because End of the Road happens so early that it gave us a place to focus. We already knew we were going back in September like 10 months in advance.

Will: End of the Road is how we got into the Campden Crawl, it’s another festival. End of the Road opened up a whole Pandora’s box.

Scott: So why the UK over the US? Because the UK was the first to book us.

Will: And we’re the only Canadian band.

Stefan and Will in unison: …with Wilco, Mountain Goats, A.A. Bondy… and us.

Will: The only Canadian band. And I think if people are checking back on updates in the festival, they keep seeing our name because we were lined up early. And our name kind of sounds like a weird short story. Maybe not weird…

Pat: Well, weirdish. Weirder if you’re not from Canada, probably.

Will: Yeah, probably.

Pat: Your CD release is officially on the 25^th of June. That’s the same weekend as the G20, and you’re playing relatively peaceful music at a potentially violent time. How do you feel about that?

Will: Well, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows what to anticipate and we’re leaving for the tour the next day. Hopefully some protesters might come into the show or something.

Scott: Yeah, my parents really don’t want to come into Toronto because of it. They think people getting teargassed is what happens here all the time anyways, so if it actually happens to them I’ll never hear the end of it!

As before, their myspace.

When You Left the Fire is available pretty much everywhere albums are sold. It’s also on listening posts at every HMV.

The End of the Road Festival schedule and line-up is here, though they’re no longer the only Canadian band.

Dig it, babies, dig it.