The Alternative Star.com

Sights & Sounds

At the Winnipeg stop of the Weight of the World tour, I had the chance to sit down with Andrew Neufeld from Sights & Sounds. The band just released Monolith on Tuesday so that dominates our discussion but we squeeze in some other topics as well.

First things first, you started the tour last week. What has been the most memorable experience so far?

Andrew: We started the tour in the Toronto area and we did 3 or 4 shows. Then we played a show one night, drove to the Toronto airport and took a flight at 5 in the morning to play in Seattle with my other band. [Comeback Kid] I did the show, went to a party after the show, then at 5 in the morning again, went to the Seattle airport and then went to Burlington, which is 45 minutes from the Toronto airport at 3:45 and we had to play at 5 o’clock. That was the craziest three days, I didn’t get any sleep!

Sounds pretty gruelling!

Yeah but it was a lot of fun! That was the most memorable thing in the last week I guess.

What is one thing you can’t leave for tour without?

My iPod!

What are you listening to now, any recommendations?

I’m in one of those weird phases right now where I kind of like everything. I like the Raveonettes and Our Broken Garden. Oh and Greg Dulli! I don’t know if anyone who is reading this will have heard of him but he sings with the Afghan Wigs and the Twilight Singers. He just put out a new record and its fucking phenomenal so if anyone gets the chance, check out Greg Dulli’s new record!

Cool! Moving on, you guys certainly aren’t as heavy as the other bands on this tour.

 Yeah! We’re friends with a lot of these bands; I’ve met them before through my other band. It’s kind of weird; we’re a really light band on a heavy tour. We’re still a pretty new band, we’ve been doing this touring thing for a year or two and now we’re getting more serious about it. We’re playing pretty early every night so there’s a couple over a 100 people every night and that’s more than we can ask for. People have been really nice so it’s cool.

What is the best tour you’ve ever seen?

I’m no good at favourites but I think I’d have to go with Foo Fighers at the Air Canada Center in Toronto with Against Me! That was really fucking good! I toured with my other band on some really cool tours, like with Madball. Pretty much every time I see them, it’s awesome. They’re just a great band.

Sights & Sounds apparently formed on New Year’s Eve back in 2006 and had an “instant musical rapport” so I’m wondering, what exactly did you bond over?

I knew that I wanted to start a band with my bro for a long time; my brother plays drums in another band. [Sick City] Me and our bass player Matt, we just kind of played acoustic guitar and sang to feel it out. Then me, my brother and Matt got together to record a song and Adrian who is now our guitar player, he flew in from Toronto. He was friends with Matt and he set up his Pro Tools here and then we had a practise space set up. We just started recording and sharing ideas. Everyone just sort of clicked and we all like each other. It’s just one of those things, in a band you need everyone to just click and not be a downer or anything, you know?

For sure. I was sent a copy of your EP and I thought the cover art was amazing. That’s of Winnipeg, right?

Yeah!

 I also noticed you re-recorded “Reconcile” and “Night Train” for Monolith. What made you pick those songs?

When we were doing that EP, it was kind of just done as a demo, just to get the songs down and see how they sound, you know?  When we were doing it, we’d be like ‘Oh, we should add this’ but then we’d just go ‘No, it’s OK. We’ll just save it for when we actually do it the next time.’ We knew we wanted to do songs from the EP but we weren’t really sure but “Night Train” and “Reconcile” were our favourites. “Reconcile” is a pretty important song for our band and one that we want to continue playing live because it’s one of the funner ones to play live. We figured we may as well have it on something people are going to hear too, you know? And to also do it up a little better.

What was it like working with Devin Townsend?

It was awesome! He’s extremely talented and he brought so many cool ideas to the table. Sometimes when we were recording, he’d be like ‘Hold on!’ and he’d fuck with something on the computer and bring a sample in and we’d hear this crazy Eastern choir. Going into this, we wanted to make a really big record with lots of layers and that’s really kind of his thing. Even though he usually does metal, he was really excited to do a more melodic band and so yeah. It was just a good click; we spent 6 weeks in the middle of the bush with him recording.

Did anything overly memorable happen while recording? I know you guys were in BC.

I saw a whole bunch of bears outside! We pretty much lived at the studio. It was in Gibsons and there was nothing really there and it wasn’t too exciting. There was one bar and one liquor store. One night Matt got really fucked up at some garage rave that we found in Gibsons. (Laughs) It was really weird and it went on until like 6 in the morning.

Where did a lot of your inspiration come from when you were writing lyrics for Sights & Sounds?

Travelling. I travel a lot and it just kind of comes from different countries that I’ve been to and experiences that I’ve had. Also just growing up and realizing that this world is a fucking hard place to make it in and that there’s a lot of people... I don’t know. It’s kind of like a sink or swim world. Some social issues, some personal issues...

Political issues too?

A little bit. I have a song about families that are split up because of the fucking stupid US border and their foreign policy. Like right now, my brother is split up from his family. He’s a Canadian but he works in the States and his kids are American, except his oldest kid, who is Canadian. The paper work isn’t proper so they’re all split up. Actually I wrote the song [Borderlines] about a friend of mine in Mexico. He had a kid and a wife in New York but he couldn’t be with them and it’s so fucked up because after that happened, the same thing happens to my brother. I don’t know, I think you can write social songs about the world and what’s going on, without making it sound too political but it is politics, you know what I mean? Just everyone dealing with whatever they’re dealing with.

How did you come up with the album title?

Adrian our guitar player thought it up. We just liked the meaning, which is this one big structure. This record and this band has kind of been a monolith in our lives for the last while. We’re really fixated with it and almost obsessed with it.

Which song is your favourite?

I’d have to go with the first track, “Sorrow.”

Any plans to bring it to the States?

Yes! Actually we just signed some record deals with different countries yesterday so we’re kind of ready to become a real band now. We’ll be on The Militia Group in the US.

Any plans for singles or music videos?

We’re going to try to make a music video for “Storm & the Sun.”

Lastly, this interview is supposed to be about Sights & Sounds but what is the status on Comeback Kid?

We’re going to Europe in July with Defeater and we’ll do a week with Biohazard so that should be pretty interesting.  I’ll just be bouncing back and forth between bands pretty much. We’ll start putting ideas together for a new record in a couple of months but right at this very moment, all my focus is on Sights & Sounds.

Interview conducted by: Deborah Remus