SINGLE ARTWORK FOR “ WHITE BUFFALO ” & “ THE ORACLE ” ( 2021 )
That ’ s evident in everything Crown Lands has put out , and more so than ever on these first two tracks from their upcoming White Buffalo EP , which is set for release on Sept . 16 th . The song , “ White Buffalo ,” is the third in a series on which Comeau and Bowles address Indigenous peoples ’ rights ; a follow up to “ Mountain ” and “ End of the Road ,” all of which are meant to present an inspiring message about “ bridging the past and future .”
“ I ’ ve been playing drums since I was a year old ,” Bowles says when asked about their musical background . “ My dad was a drummer . He ’ d play 2112 by Rush and , as a baby , I ’ d be watching him from the floor . I think I always knew I wanted to be a musician . He got me a kit and I loved it and ended up taking private lessons around age 12 . I was one of those kids who was into classic rock more than anything else and listened to Rush almost exclusively CROWN LANDS ’ SELF-TITLED LP ( 2020 ) up until high school . I wasn ’ t one of those cool kids who got invited to parties . I just had my music and played drums all day .”
Bowles went on to study West African , Guinean , and Afro Cuban drumming in university but didn ’ t start singing until Crown Lands formed .
CM : Were you aware of the vocal gymnastics you were capable of before that ?
Cody Bowles : Not at all . When I first started singing my voice was very low . I mean , my speaking voice is low , so that surprised me . We started playing and that voice came out and I ’ ve been developing it ever since .
CM : And your musical background , Kevin ?
Kevin Comeau : I was really into punk rock ; The Clash , Misfits , Green Day . They were really important to me . My parents bought me a bass when I was 11 and I learned how to play “ Hot Cross Buns ” and “ All Along the Watchtower ” on the same day . My life changed at that point . I didn ’ t discover Rush until I was 14 but everything changed ( again ) when I heard [ Rush ’ s 1977 album ] A Farewell to Kings – it felt like discovering magic . At that point , I was just a bass player but started playing keyboards and messing around with guitar when I was 16 . But I was always more into the bass . I studied classical music theory and composition at Western for a year , but I guess I read too much Jack Kerouac because I dropped out and hitchhiked to Los Angeles , joined a reggae band ( playing keyboards ), and toured California .
CM : How did you and Cody get together ?
Comeau : I came up to see my family one Christmas and a buddy of mine was auditioning for a band Cody was in . I heard they were big into Rush , so I crashed the audition , and Cody and I got along really well . I wasn ’ t much of a guitar player but they needed a guitarist and if I wanted to hang out with the best drummer I ’ d ever met I had to figure it out .
Bowles : And he was damn good from day one …
Comeau : Oh shucks . It ’ s funny , both of us spent our lives focused on one instrument , and in Crown Lands we ’ re playing other instruments …
Bowles : And learning new instruments as we go through this journey .
Comeau : You never stop being a student , right ?
As students , players , and songwriters , Crown Lands don ’ t do anything by half measure . Since founding in 2016 in Oshawa , ON , they ’ ve released three EPs — Mantra ( 2016 ), Rise Over Run ( 2017 ), Wayward Flyers Vol . 1 ( 2020 ) — and their self-titled debut LP in 2020 , which was nominated for the 2021 Juno Award for Rock Album of the Year ( that followed their 2020 Juno win for Breakthrough Artist ). The duo also released a four-song EP featuring both studio and live versions of “ Context : Fearless Pt . 1 ” and “ Right Way Back ,” both recorded and filmed at Toronto ’ s Revolution Recording .
Given how complex and demanding their songs are , watching them recreate them live is mindblowing …
CM : The mechanics of what you do – there ’ s so much going on . How do you drill down into that during writing and rehearsals to recreate it , as a two-piece , live ?
Comeau : We make sure the song works in the jam space before we track it . There are songs on the first record we got a little carried away arranging and rearranging . I ’ m so proud of that record , but when it came to touring , a few songs didn ’ t necessarily work . We ’ ve recognized that the most important thing to being a duo is being true to the arrangement . If we ’ re adding parts , we make sure we can pull them off live . There ’ s nothing worse than seeing a band play your favourite song and your favourite part is missing . It ’ s like , “ Where ’ s the mellotron ?” We have almost 30 inputs when we tour – no backing track or click . We might trigger some nature sounds / samples between songs on our upcoming tour , but that ’ s going to be triggered live . I ’ m not saying you have to have a live band if you ’ re doing a hip-hop set – there are different rules within different genres and art forms . But the form of music that we want to carry on is a movement of popular music that peaked in 1981-82 …
Just as most bands did back then , Crown Lands want to be the ones creating everything their audience hears from the stage , which required Comeau to tweak his live setup over time . “ I was adding more and more and it was just getting complicated . Then I switched to Moog Taurus 3 pedals , which changed everything . It became less about trying to fill in low end with synths and more about arranging parts properly . Sometimes bass players will say , ‘ You should get a bass player ,’ which is funny because I ’ m a bass player and it ’ s one of the most important things to me . So , sometimes the best bass is a keyboard . The bass player ’ s worst enemy is the keyboard player ’ s left hand , or , in this case , the guitar player ’ s right foot .”
CM : Cody , you don ’ t have a ridiculous large-scale kit but still have a lot going on . How are you becoming more ambitious as a musician and songwriter ?
Bowles : I ’ m looking to branch out into weirder and compound time signatures to learn how to sing over top of them , and into adding to the kit … I have some temple
CANADIAN MUSICIAN 41