| Page 1 2 Talkers: In Conversation with Entire Cities by Adam M. Anklewicz After the successful launch of their new album, Deep River, Entire Cities are on a high. The eight-song record features an eclectic mix of rock, country and folk that puts the six-plus piece band to good use. An ever-changing roster, which may or may not include banjo, flute, accordion, violin, singing-saw, keyboards, guitar, bass or drum, makes Entire Cities a band to get a complete perspective of with one show. Sitting on the floor of the band’s practice space, eating homemade muffins, I talked with three of the band members.Being There: Why don’t we start with introductions? Tamara Lindeman: I’m Tamara. Simon Borer: And what do you do, Tamara? TL: I play the banjo, I sing backup, and hopefully at some point I’ll be playing the Elka; I’ll play whatever is needed. SB: I’m Simon, I play the guitar and write the songs. TL: He sings too. SB: And I sing the songs. Ruhee Dewji: I’m Ruhee, I play flute and sometimes saxophone, tambourine and whatever else is needed. BT: How long ago was the EP recorded and how has the band progressed since then? TL: We’ve progressed a lot since Centralia. It was recorded by our friend Jack [Donovan] before we were really quite sure who we were. We were very much kind of half-folk. Since then we’ve become a little bit more of a rock and roll band. We had Brendan [Howlett] come on and sort of change the band and make it louder and tighter and sort of bigger. RD: He does that.  SB: We put a couple of tours under our belt, and have got to play with a couple of big bands. We’ve played with Rock Plaza Central and We Are Scientists. We’ve played festivals, Skeleton Park, North by Northeast...TL: We became a band since Centralia, which is why it was so necessary to record again. SB: Centralia was us thinking, “ahhh, we’re gonna be a band.” BT: And Deep River is… RD: “Hey, we are a band!” BT: Why did you choose to re-record some of the songs that appeared originally on Centralia? SB: They’re good songs and we wanted to give them the professional treatment that they needed. TL: They wouldn’t really resemble the Centralia version and we only really sold one or two hundred copies of Centralia, if that. We stopped selling it a couple months before we recorded again. I was arguing for this the whole time, “if only a hundred people heard it, why should we not record it again?” BT: Why did you choose those eight songs for the record, when you’ve got quite a large collection that you’ve been playing live? SB: To give us something to fight about, I guess. TL: There was definitely some fighting about which songs. I think those were the most interesting songs, at the time. We didn’t record a couple of our country numbers which are a main-stay in our live set, but aren’t really as exciting, stuff like “Accountant’s Dream” and “Talkers” are more interesting. SB: We definitely had a few songs that were still growing up at that point. Our songs tend to have a six-month gestation period. “Chain Link Fence,” for example, has a long section that has never been the same twice; to put out a definitive version of it, I wouldn’t know how to do that, it’s always different, and that’s very deliberate. BT: And this time, you got to record with Dale Morningstar. How was the experience recording on the island with Dale? TL: *satisfied sigh* SB: It was so wonderful, I can’t tell you. Dale himself, that guy’s a fuckin’ Jedi, he’s got this total laid back, stoner demeanor. He’s so chilled out. He and Don Kerr [Rheostatics/Ron Sexsmith] built the studio, so he just knows that that kind of amp goes in that corner, on that angle, and that’s the type of microphone you use, and there’s no question about it. It was so nice, walk out the back door and you’re on the beach. TL: The fact that we recorded that album in two days; that’s mind-boggling; that speaks to how amazing Dale is. It’s a really special space, and you can tell someone put their heart and soul into it. It’s right on the beach, you’re close to the lake and it feels really good. BT: It’s more of a journey, I’d imagine. TL: Yeah, it’s a very immersive experience. You all go, you’re there all day, you’re sleeping there. SB: You have to cross a body of water on a boat to be there. BT: Why did you guys opt to self-release, as opposed to trying to find a label? SB: I think it was a mutual ambivalence between us and the record labels. We weren’t all that interested in them, and they don’t seem to be all that interested in us. TL: Well, you do hate “the man.” SB: I do hate “the man.” I wanted to know how to put out an album, we’re very D.I.Y. If nobody’s begging to do it for us, we’re not waiting around for them, we’re just gonna do it. RD: When we have an idea of what we want to do, we just do it. SB: There’s really no waiting around for someone else. RD: If we can do it just as well ourselves, we might as well. BT: Without much outside help, you need to stand apart, what do you think makes Entire Cities stand apart from the rest of Toronto’s music scene? SB: I think it’s in our mission statement, our business model, which is very democratic anarchism. We let people come and go, one thing that’s always amazed me is that if one person misses a show, we sound totally different. If only two or three people show up for a rehearsal, it’ll sound like something, and it’ll sound really interesting, but it’ll sound totally different. We’re very open to one-another and it’s our business model of gleeful chaos. RD: If only two or three people show up for rehearsal or someone misses a show, it sounds totally different, but it still sounds like Entire Cities. TL: Yeah, but it’s different every time. RD: We still have something that keeps us the same. Even this year we’ve gone through so many different… TL: I also think that Simon’s lyrics set us apart, though it’s not as if anybody’s really heard them. SB: I posted them on the Facebook page; they’re way down at the bottom, there’s a tiny, tiny link. TL: Simon’s lyrics are really amazing, and most people don’t expect that from a rock band. SB: What’s different between us and other bands in Toronto, we have a soul.  TL: And we’re very inconsistent.SB: We’re really happy to [be a part of] the Toronto music scene. It’s a pretty incredible time to be making music in Toronto. BT: Why is there such a constant flux in the band members? TL: Some people moved away, they had other stuff going on. Dwight [Schenk] is in several bands, that’s why he ended up leaving just as Dave [Missio] reappeared. We haven’t changed that much, have we? SB: Since the album, Ruhee and Dwight joined. TL: Then Dave came back from Halifax and Dwight left. SB: Our keyboard player Paul McCrady has decided to focus on his school work. BT: What are the pros and cons of having such a large band? SB: Well we’re only a six-piece right now. BT: That’s pretty big, and on stage on Friday there were well more than six people. TL: It’s funny touring with the Rural Alberta Advantage, who are a great band, but they’re so small (Nils Edenloff, Amy Cole and Paul Banwatt) and I think their smallness makes them really, really consistent and really, really tight. Whereas you never really know what’s going to happen when we get on stage, there’s so many of us that sometimes it’s magic and sometimes it’s chaos. RD: In certain parts of songs, jams will go on longer because someone starts doing something cool you didn’t expect them to, or there was the one time Tamara and I started acting like zombies. There’s more freedom to do things. SB: For me, the pros and the cons are all these idea flying around all the time, everybody’s really talented and has a lot of different ideas. Sometimes it’s easier to differ and other times it’s less easy to differ. I don’t act like a dictator, as much as I should sometimes. Like I said, we’re very democratic. TL: To a fault. SB: I just couldn’t imagine having a tiny band; [Entire Cities] feels like a big sprawling entity. RD: Aptly named. TL: The size gives it a life of its own beyond us. Sometimes you feel like you’re dragging along a band, and sometimes you feel like the band is dragging you along. That will always be the case for Entire Cities; “OH! It’s happening! AHH!” BT: At what point does a band get too big to be effectively managed? TL: I think we’ve been there before. SB: I don’t think we’ve ever been effectively managed. It all depends on the people and how they’re willing to work together and listen to each other. Ever watch Nashville, the Robert Altman movie? All the bands have twenty people in them. BT: Though the cast has about a hundred. SB: Yeah, but, four has not always been the standard. RD: It’s the style you’re playing, too, if we were a power-pop band, then six would be a huge band, with flute and fiddle and other things, it makes sense. Page 1 2 |  |
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