King for Countrymen, a rising band based out of Hamilton, has recently made a name for itself. With a few band members being York students, an accessible sound, and pop familiarity evocative of bands like Blink-182, it’s no wonder why.
With the band’s EP, Sick and Tired, having dropped a few months ago and more noticeable buzz developing around them on and off campus, Excalibur sat down with frontman David Lindsay.
Excalibur: What was the inspiration behind the name of the band?
DL: It’s taken from a page of The Hobbit. What caught me about it was the ordering of the words; they just seem to fit together so well. I’m big into perspective writing and the way you read the name meaning different things depending on what perspective you’re reading it from.
[There’s] the perspective of the countrymen, where it’s the idea of rebellion, or the perspective of the king, where it’s the idea of the enthroned and dethroned. It’s always just fascinating to me, and these words stuck with me when reading the book.
E: How did the band come together, and what is it like working with each other?
DL: There’s always been the thing of a band growing up in high school; Kyle and I have been playing together for as long as I can remember. We definitely get along really well, and we’re at a point now where we can finish each other’s thoughts. Being around one another becomes a creative process.
E: So you released your EP titled Sick and Tired back in October last year. What was the thought process behind that album?
DL: It actually us took over a year to record that album in full, and before that, we rushed out our recording and wanted it to get recorded as fast as possible. This time, we went through the songs and picked the best ones. It took a long time to record and get everything sounding great. So, that’s the idea. The album is something we’re really proud of.
E: How does Sick and Tired differ from your first single album?
DL: We picked the songs to fit together really well. It’s a lot more in tune with our sound, but at the same time, it expresses the diversity of the styles of music that we’re interested in and that we play. I think it speaks for what the band really is more than the first album.
E: Which direction do you plan on taking with your music?
DL: We’re all finishing up university now, and we’re going at it full force, trying to get tours booked, get the record played on more radio stations, and just doing it as hard as we can.
E: Talk about some of the biggest milestones for No King for Countrymen so far.
DL: We’ve played at many different music festivals and places in Canada for shows. There’s also is this paintball DVD preview, and they used our music on multiple occasions.
E: Who in the music industry do you identify with, and how have they inspired you?
DL: We got together because we had some mutual interest in bands from the early 2000s, like Blink-182, Switchfoot, Jimmy Org. We’ve always loved those bands.
E: What can we expect from “No King for Countrymen” in 2014?
DL: For 2014, we’re working on a music video for our first single, and we have lyric videos for a couple of songs. We’d like to make a few music videos for all of the songs on the album, and I think we’re going to start touring once the summer hits and go to places we’ve never gone before in Canada and in the States, so it’s going to be a big year.
E: I understand that all of you are studying music in university, so how has professionally studying music impacted your view on the indie scene in the music industry?
DL: Studying music showed us what we really wanted to do and options of other things you can do with music—a lot more sophisticated things, like playing jazz; I know we all came here playing jazz, and I think we’re all leaving knowing exactly what we want to do – play in a band. It’s been an important growing process throughout the years.
E: Lastly, describe your music in five words or less.
DL: In your face – we’re not low-key background music, we like to control the room. Actually we’ve been described as angry Canadian pop.
Alice Wang
Contributor
