Hey everyone!
Closing out the week and the official end of summer with an all new artist interview. Today for you guys, I have an exclusive sit down chat with frontman Ewan Currie and bassist Ryan Gullen of the Canadian band The Sheepdogs. You may remember the band as they were a past Artist Spotlight artist earlier in the summer and the band recently released their self-titled, major label debut on Atlantic Records that was reviewed here on the blog earlier this month. The members were nice enough to invite me on their tour bus just before their show the other night at The Middle East Downstairs to do this interview and we caught up on the band's beginnings and what they like to do on the road for fun. Here is the transcript from that interview:
How does it feel to play in Boston, I understand you guys played here a few years ago?
Ewan: Yeah it was terrible, this should be alot better because there will be more than 0 people. (Laughter)
How did you guys all meet and when did the band form?
Ewan: Ryan and I went to high school together, Sam we knew through a mutual friend and we started a band because we were sick of going to college and then met Leot a couple of years later and hit the road and didn't make any money for years.
How easy or difficult was it to initially get noticed in a remote part of Canada near where you live?
Ryan: It was very difficult, Saskatchewan is in the middle of nowhere and in order to do anything you have to travel 20-30 hours. Toronto is kind of the epicenter of music in Canada at least, so you're kind of always traveling, hustling to get people to notice you, it was a long road for us. Over 6 years of touring basically we're putting in somewhere.
What bands and/or genres does your music draw influence from?
Ewan: A lot of people say classic rock, it could be anything from The Beatles to soul music like Sly and The Family Stone or Curtis Mayfield or The Band, any music that sounds good,. We're not trying to be The Rolling Stones necessarily, we're just trying to throw a bunch of styles, licks, and harmonies, things that we like all together.
Where do you feel your music is best experienced: in the studio as you're recording it or live in front of hundreds of fans?
Ewan: There's two sides, it's really awesome for a live show, we feel we put on a good, sweaty rock show that's a lot of fun to have a beer and come out to, but also I think the album is fun to listen to in your car or a pair of headphones on in various altered states.
How has music helped shape or enrich your lives up until this point?
Ewan: I think we all care deeply about music, not to get like too deep but it's sort of a spiritual thing, it feels great to listen to and we all feel real passionate about it and it's obviously what we centered our lives around creating. Hopefully, the fans can feel as passionate about music as we did when we listened to records.
Ryan: Something we're so passionate about that we lived basically broke for many years in order to be able to do it.
Take us behind the making of your self-titled, major label debut and how you hooked up with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys to produce it?
Ewan: It was a blind date. (Laughter) We met in New York and we just threw the question at him and he agreed to do it. It was no rocket science, it was just dudes who like rock n' roll music, trying to make a record that was going to be exciting, timely, and just good to pump up loud.
How cool was it to shoot the baseball themed music video for "The Way It Is"? Can you take us behind that?
Ryan: It was cool. Friends of ours, The Sklar Brothers are comedians from L.A., we cut through out there over beers, asked if they would shoot our music video, and they accepted it, coming up on that idea right away. It was alot of fun, you know I think alot of times people take music videos too seriously and we like funny videos, we like any funny videos on the Internet so it's cool to make one of our own and it's really fun to go down to L.A. and knock some kids around playing baseball as opposed to doing a typical performance video which is kind of an uncreative music video, it was cool doing something to make our own. Also, Ewan and Sam are big sports fans specifically, it was cool to show that side of us as well.
Ewan: There's nothing worse in a music video that's just a band performing intercut with actors acting out some melodrama, that's the worst video. We wanted to stay far away from that as we could.
What do you guys like to do for fun when you're out on the road or back at home?
Ewan: On the road, we watch movies and play video games. I hit the YMCA today, we played basketball that could be my new go-to I think, it's a good way to get a workout.
Ryan: Especially when we're traveling around to other places outside Canada, we like to check out food and stuff, trying to go to different restaurants, record stores, when we were in Australia we rented some scooters and drove around, that was pretty fun.
What do you guys have coming up next after you wrap up your current tour?
Ewan: It pretty much goes right into a Canadian tour which will take us until the end of the year. The future is pretty much keep on the move, keep on playing, keep introducing people to the music and just do everything we can to keep the ball rolling cause the last thing we want to do is anything that isn't this.
Thanks once again to Ewan and Ryan from The Sheepdogs, who were super nice and humble guys and just love to play music and as you have gathered from the interview, have made it their livelihoods traveling around the country exposing different people to their blend of music. If you would like more information on The Sheepdogs, visit their official website here, check out their Facebook page here, and follow them on Twitter here. Their self-titled debut album is now available in fine record stores, iTunes, and Spotify as well!
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