#dnamedia

Six months of being filed away in the confines of a Bloor West Village basement produced a lot of personal growth for me. I didn’t know anyone in the neighborhood, was busted flat and surrounded by some of the nicest boutique shops in the country. I reveled in being a loner. It was a compelling time spent reading about studio techniques, songwriting and recording. Creativity without distraction.

Making music in that basement was as much a miracle as walking on water. Finishing up Dangerous Eyes was easy enough. It’s a record I recorded in Sarnia and Toronto with four-time Juno winner Jeff Wolpert. I had the pleasure of working with huge Toronto players like Lou Pomanti, Mark Kelso and members of the TSO. It was a very big shiny record. But then I started writing smaller acoustic songs that I wanted to put towards a separate E.P. There was hardly enough room for the drum-set, couch, television and computer desk in that apartment. My landlord was a Sicilian salsa dancer. He tolerated my drums and amps and I scheduled my recordings around his dance rehearsals.

What I ended up with was demos for my album Playing House, and a few oddball orphans that never got released until now. Suicide Kings is the song we resurrected for our latest little film. It’s a time lapse of the song’s subject matter. Before moving to Toronto I was spending too much time with the creative intelligentsia at my favorite bar. It’s still my favorite bar. How more leftwing can you get? I romantically call anyone who has been ostracized for embracing the aesthetic life an art-fag. We were art-fags in a bar whose Union pride and humble décor was a perfect match those of us who felt forgotten or who wanted to forget.

There is beauty in everything. What I hope we accomplish with Suicide Kings is to show that even the most unassuming places can be a warm community. I’ve never been more comfortable than I am at “my local.”

Suicide Kings is also the first record I made without other musicians. My friend Adam Coe and I borrowed Joe Hayashi’s drum kit and we set it up in a glorified closet. Joe was one of the very first drummer’s I had ever played with and his old kit was the only one we could snag in the GTA that summer. I mixed it on the same speakers I’ve been lugging around since the late 90’s, the speakers I mix on today.

Today I have clients, a building to maintain and many other wonderful projects that fill my cup. I remember fondly the time in my life where there was very little going on and I was afforded the opportunity to follow muse wherever she led me.