After a six-year break, BC-born/Montreal-bred indie rockers Wolf Parade are returning to Victoria. For drummer Arlen Thompson (who was in the University Transfer program at Camosun in 1999, when he also penned some Nexus articles), proximity and timing played a large part in the band reuniting, recording new material, and touring again after the release of their fourth self-titled EP in early 2016 (yes: fourth self-titled EP).
“For quite a while everyone in the band was kind of spread over the four corners of the earth,” says Thompson, who currently lives in Nanaimo. “Spencer [Krug, keyboardist/vocalist] lived in Finland and Dan [Boeckner, vocalist/guitarist] lived in San Jose. Spencer moved back to the island, so now with three of us on the island it made sense that if we were going to do it, this would be a good time. Dan came out from Montreal and we just jammed a little bit and talked about a few things, and if we could do it again what we’d want to change. Then we started making music again and it felt good so we decided to get back into it.”
While the band members began playing in different bands in Victoria, it wasn’t until they met in Montreal that their friendships and musical careers took off. After forming in 2003 in Montreal, Wolf Parade released a couple of EPs on their own before their first album, Apologies to the Queen Mary, was released by Sub Pop Records in 2005.
“Victoria is a great city to woodshed, to develop your thing,” says Thompson, “but it’s a really hard place to develop your career because you have to take the ferry every time you want to leave the island to play somewhere. Montreal is great because you’ve got so many big cities close by: Toronto, New York, Boston, Philadelphia. In Montreal, when I first showed up, the city wasn’t really happening. We had friends, the Arcade Fire, and we were playing shows with them and watched them really blow up. It was pretty amazing, and we watched that whole city transform in a lot of ways. We were in the right place at the right time.”
Wolf Parade have put in years of hard work to make their new record, which they’re looking to release this summer. They’re also working with producer John Goodmanson, whose previous production credits include albums by Hot Hot Heat, Sleater Kinney, and Pavement in the past.
“We’re a lot more grown-up from when we started, a lot more experienced,” says Thompson. “I think everyone’s a lot more confident in what we’re doing. We kind of found a process for songwriting that worked really nicely. I think we were really able to put together a really great group of songs.”
With back-to-back shows this month—including three nights in Vancouver, followed by two here in Victoria—and plenty of side projects for all band members, including Thompson’s two-man project Anunnaki, Thompson and the other members of Wolf Parade have no intentions of slowing down.
“We have some festival shows through the spring, we’re finishing off the record, we’re doing some touring this summer, we’re doing the Vancouver and Victoria shows,” says Thompson. “We realized that when we came back together again, we needed to give the west coast some love. It’s going to be a lot of fun playing Sugar for old friends and family.”
Wolf Parade
Saturday, February 25 (sold out)
Sunday, February 26
$29.50, Sugar Nightclub
sugarnightclub.ca