Toronto-based musician Mattie Leon was sitting by the water in Halifax, soaking up the beauty of Nova Scotia, when he began to intertwine history with creativity. It was this combination that led to his EP Signal Hill. Leon, who is on a national tour in support of the EP, points to one of Signal Hill’s songs, “Vimy”—about the battle of Vimy Ridge in World War I—as an example of his interest in history.
“I’ve always been into history,” says Leon. “There’s a lot of really interesting history about Canada: the ties to the British and then becoming independent; the world wars. Although [‘Vimy’] is kind of about Vimy and World War I, it really kind of describes the whole propaganda thing in World War I, where all the people on the home front thought something adventurous was happening on the front lines and that’s where heroes were made.”
The headlines in the news at the time, says Leon, were positive, but he knows the soldiers’ realities were far from that.
“If someone was killed, it was valiant, but in reality it was propaganda; what was going on over there was just gruesome and horrible and kind of, at the end of the day, a waste of time,” he says. “It was just a big waste.”
But Leon knows Vimy Ridge was an integral part of Canadian history. He says it was a symbol of Canadians becoming independent in our own country, which he says was very important.
“And all the stuff that happened in the actual battle was really interesting,” he says. “I could go on forever about it, but overall the song is kind of about that propaganda and, like, what a waste, and kind of ‘How dare they?’ you know?”
Leon says war screwed up young people who were only lined up because they were trying to help.
“That’s what it sounds like it was for every war, in every decade, in any country,” he says, “somehow riling up people to go fight something that they don’t know about.”
But Leon writes about more than history; he also takes on issues of love, loss, and landscape, for example.
“On this new record, I’ve got lyrics about the Appalachians and then I’ve got lyrics about that turquoise blue water in the mountains just outside Calgary,” he says. “I guess when I exhaust all the Canadian stuff I can think of, I’ll move on, but it’s pretty good right now.”
Leon’s brother Mike plays drums on the EP and is touring with Leon. Leon writes the lyrics for his songs, and the two of them figure out the melodies.
“We get along really well,” says Leon. “We just work really well together. We don’t butt heads. We’ll work on music stuff together, but I have time to work on the lyrics.”
Leon says that getting the audience’s undivided attention during those quieter songs that focus on the lyrics is something an artist has to work their way up to.
“I find that you kind of have to earn those songs where you need everybody to be quiet and listen,” he says. “You can’t start out of the gate with those.”
Mattie Leon
1 pm Sunday, August 26
Free, Canoe Brewpub
canoebrewpub.com