How were you recording music early on?
Sound Recorder was a little built-in PC app with a record button, and you could go for 30 seconds. In high school, I'd mess around with it and say swear words backwards. I was like, "Oh, I could record my own music with this, because we have a CD burner." I got Cool Edit Pro, a free version that had three tracks. I got my friend to make me an XLR-to-1/8-inch cable so that I could plug straight into the mic input.
So, you could put a real mic into the computer?
Yeah, a [Shure SM]58. It was three tracks, so I would record on the first one and the second one, bounce to the third, and keep moving that way. When I graduated high school, my parents bought me a Yamaha MG06; a little mixing board with four channels. I'd record that straight into my [computer's] sound card. I was figuring things out.
Were you recording drums and different instruments as well?
Yep. I would take my mic and point it roughly at the drum kit or piano. I had no idea what I was doing.
Your parents were musicians, right?
Yeah. When I was a kid, we ran a Radio Shack store and the distributor [carried] music gear too. We had lessons and they sold guitars. I had a drum set, a bass guitar, an electric guitar, and an acoustic guitar.
And the piano was there?
Yeah. It was great.
Had you studied different instruments when you were young?
I figured them out. I played drums when I was young. I took lessons eventually, for drums, in high school. But that was it.
Piano?
It's all just a bunch of buttons!
Have you gone back and listened to any of those recordings?
No. I have a friend who has a bunch of them on his iPod. There are people with those CDs. The summer before grade 12 I made a record at home that I sold to classmates all year. That was how I had any money to do anything.
A CD-R?
Yeah. I sold quite a few. It was great. Somebody's probably out there holding onto one. They're going to blackmail me with it later! [laughter] After that, [I recorded] Love and the Memories of It. That was around 2006; I would have been 19. I had a little setup in my parents' basement for a long time. It's a Yamaha mixer straight into the mic input on the sound card. For Grandpa Songs, I got this old Minerva guitar from my grandma. It was my grandpa's guitar from the Ô30s. It sounded crazy, and it was tuned way down to C because of the neck tension. You could only play at the bottom [of the neck]. I did that one in an apartment, or my parents' basement.
Were these still self-released?
Those I sold. For Love and the Memories of It and Grandpa Songs, I would burn the CD-Rs, fold a piece of paper, and staple it. I would have shows coming up, and I'd have to say, "Mom, I blew it. I have a show tomorrow, and I need to make 50 CDs." She would help me. There was a point where I was also sewing cases for the CDs, and that was a Mom job, for sure.
Do you see those around at all these days?
Someone sent me a picture on Instagram the other day of the paper case ones.
How were the songs evolving?
The Grandpa Songs one; those are the best songs I was writing in that period. I was making a concept record based around my grandpa's life, because I was using his guitar. I just used that guitar and some percussion sounds. It was all harmonies; every track had five voices on it. That was a big step for my writing process. It's a bunch of love songs; I have no idea [now] what I was basing anything off of. That one was like, "Okay, this is a different sound than trying to write emo love songs."
What was next?
Darker Days I did right after high school. The high school that I went to was attached to a bible college; they had a recording studio and a recording program – friends of mine were in that. I recorded with my friend, Mark McLeod. He was fresh out of that recording program. He did a good job and knew a lot more than me.
Did you guys do the mixing?
The guy who was the head of the recording department said, "I will mix and master it." I haven't listened to that record in a long time. I don't know if I ever paid him for that! Darker Days, that record... I can't even listen to that; it's embarrassing. I finished those two – Love and Memories of It and Grandpa Songs – and I took songs from both of those that I liked and redid them on Darker Days. After that record I had to reevaluate what I was doing. I was like, "I think I should maybe focus less on myself." I'd read how songs could be treated like short stories. I thought, "Maybe I'll try to write fiction and see where that goes." I signed to an American label [P Is for Panda] on Darker Days. They re-released it, and the sales of it were so bad that they wouldn't let me put out another record. I was doing EPs and touring. The tours were terrible; really badly promoted. There was a bunch of time between Darker Days and The Bearer of Bad News, where I wrote probably 100 songs. That helped me figure out what I actually wanted to do. Bearer of Bad News turned out to be an album that I actually liked.
When I saw you live with Low, you were touring The Bearer of Bad News. Were tours coming around like that that gave you better exposure?
Yeah. After signing with Tender Loving Empire, I ended up getting a really good booking agent. There were opportunities. I got to open for Low and I got to open for First Aid Kit.
With The Bearer of Bad News, what was the recording scenario?
I was out of money after all the American tours that were not going well. I had to move home, and my parents let me set up a studio in the basement. It was the first time that I had set up a serious space. It included a PreSonus 8-channel FirePod. That was huge for me, because I'd had a [Digidesign] Mbox for a long time, with two channels, and I was trying to record drums. I got that PreSonus and worked on that record for a year straight in my parents' basement. I started to figure out how to record things that sounded a little bit better.
How were you learning?
Trial and error. I was Googling things. YouTube was good. I was figuring out how to mic a piano in stereo on that album. There are probably so many problems with phase on the piano on that. I got someone else to mix. I assume they had a hellish time!
Who did the mixing for that?
Jonathan Anderson. Canada's a pretty small scene, especially in the west. He'd done records for my friends, Jordan Klassen and Aidan Knight. I sent it off with no idea of what to expect. My other records before that, other than Darker Days; I didn't mix anything or master anything – I'd just bounce it. I sent Jonathan the tracks and he'd send them back. I was like, "Oh, it sounds way better."
Did you have any back-and-forth revisions?
I think a few. I didn't even know what to ask for. "Less reverb?" I'd wanted to mix that record. I went through 40 rough mix versions where I was tweaking tiny things. I don't think I quite grasped EQ'ing. I was listening for what sounded bad, and then I'd take it out. Everything just ended up thin. Jonathan was using outboard gear, maintaining the signal, and making it sound more cohesive. I thought, "That's amazing."
You were EQ'ing out frequencies to try to clear out abrasive sounds?
My condensers at that point would have been Apex mics, where there's a harsh [frequency] bump at 7 kHz. I was using bad monitors that had a harsh bump too.
What other mics did you have for your home setup?
I had a [Shure SM]58 and two [Shure SM]57s.
After that, with recording The Party, there's a story of getting a grant and a trip to Germany.
