Vancouver-based indie band Said the Whale are in the middle of a tour across Canada and the United States to promote their new album Cascadia. For guitarist/vocalist Tyler Bancroft, the tour finds the band—who formed in 2007—coming full circle.
“It is really our return to where it began,” says Bancroft, “appreciating the west coast and all that it has to offer.”
The group formed in 2007 and released an EP, Taking Abalonia, that same year. Bancroft says that they were much different people back then—younger and less experienced.
“I think that when we first started out we were more a quote-unquote band in the traditional sense in that we had band practices a couple times a week, and we jammed, and that was the vibe of the band,” he says.
Since then, the founders of Said the Whale no longer live in the same city, and they have personal responsibilities. The creation process has changed to reflect that, and Bancroft thinks it’s for the best.
“Ben [Worcester, guitarist/vocalist] and I are writing songs of our own and bringing them to the table, but it’s less bringing them to band practice every week and more bringing them to a studio setting where we flesh them out,” says Bancroft. “I think the result of that is that the recordings are actually a bit more spontaneous sounding, because we really haven’t worked on the songs that much when we bring them to the studio, so there’s a lot of initial-spark magic making its way into the recordings. There’s an argument to be made for both processes in terms of what yields the best result, but right now that’s what works for us.”
The band members all have their own taste in music, but they seem to share at least one inspiration—Bancroft says that one of the main influences for the members is other Canadian artists.
“We’ve got a lot of friends in the Canadian music scene,” he says, “and we definitely draw a lot of inspiration from what they are doing.”
Bancroft says that he enjoys playing any of Said the Whale’s songs live, but when they’re on stage he prefers to tailor the selection to the venue.
“It’s always nice to play the songs that are really popular, like ‘I Love You’ or ‘UnAmerican’ or something, because those get the room hyped and it’s exciting, but it’s also really fun to play more mellow songs like ‘Curse the Currents’ or ‘Level Best,’ or anything in between. It depends on what suits the room—there are times when the bangers don’t go over that well because you’re in a mellow theatre, and sometimes the mellow stuff is a waste of time because you’re in a loud club.”
Performing west-coast-inspired songs away from home can be an interesting experience for the band, says Bancroft.
“It’s nice to sing regional songs in a place that’s not your region,” he says. “It’s sort of like storytelling and bringing a little piece of our home into somebody else’s home, so that’s kind of a nice way of looking at things.”
But the tour doesn’t exist solely on stage, and the band tries to experience the places they stop in as well.
“It’s nice to experience different parts of our country and to pick up on the nuances of culture in different cities and towns,” says Bancroft. “As much as we do live in a sort of monoculture as a result of the internet and information travelling so quickly, there are still a lot of unique things about every place that we experience and try and learn a bit about before we move on to the next place.”
Said the Whale
Saturday, September 28
$28.50 and up, Capital Ballroom
thecapitalballroom.com