Photo Credit: Dave Meisner
It was Saturday night in Toronto. The city was more alive than usual. Thousands of people of all ages were walking around, teeming with obvious excitement. It was the fourth annual Nuit Blanche, and everyone was out and about, feasting their eyes on the many different art installations and exhibits that were open all night long.
Right in the middle of Zone C, along the western strip of Queen Street, is The Drake. Blurry words or sentences – perhaps even forming to tell a story – were being projected on the front of the building. There was also a giant, blue, sperm-shaped water fountain that makes music by the hotel patio. Apparently, it’s called a hydraulophone.
This is where I met up with Travis Stokl and Matthew Sweeney, collectively known as The Elwins. It’s the duo’s fourth time playing the Underground, the hip west-end basement venue. The Elwins have released their self-titled EP this past April, and they also recently rocked a two-night charity show in Newmarket over the summer with fellow York Region-natives, Ruby Coast and Tokyo Police Club.
I was definitely looking forward to getting to know these lads more. However, the all-night art revelry did not quite work out in our favour, much to my chagrin. For most of the interview, we ended up walking to and fro The Drake, which caused a lot of confusion for both parties. Unfortunately, the loud environment we were in did not help either. The boisterous merrymaking brought about by that night had drowned much of our conversation. The only thing I was able to make out from my not-so handy-dandy audio recorder was when Matt and Travis thought they saw a member of Sloan standing a few feet from us. I told them to say hi. They didn’t.
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Luckily, Matt and Travis did not hesitate to respond when I sent them the follow-up questions via e-mail:
The Singing Lamb: Who are you, and what do you do?
We are The Elwins. We write, record and preform jubilant gyrating jingles for the young and old alike.
What’s the story behind your band name?
It’s sort of a long story but we watched the movie Willow and ended up with our name.
How would you describe your music?
Lazy boy rock/jazz mixed with a bit of surf jolt. This is probably one of the hardest questions to answer for any band, but you get it…right?
How long have you known each other? How did you two meet?
We’ve known each other for almost six years now. We met in high school. Our first interaction took place outside of Ms.Carpenter’s english class. We spoke about and listened to The Flaming Lips. We didn’t start writing music until recently.
Who has the biggest influence on your sound?
We influence each others writing styles more than anyone else. However some popular artists we take influence from are Burt Bacharach, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and R.Stevie Moore .
When was the last time you purchased an album? What was it?
A few days ago Travis picked up the new album by Air.
What’s your favourite song to perform?
It changes all the time but usually it’s the newest song we’ve written. Right now it’s a tie between our new arrangement of Squid Eyes and our new song that is yet to be named.
Favourite cover(s) to play?
Yeah! We tend to play a lot of covers when we perform acoustically. A couple of our favorites are This Diamond Ring by GARY LEWIS & THE PLAYBOYS and Everyday by VETIVER .
What inspired you to pick up an instrument and make your own music?
To be honest, I don’t remember. It just happened, kind of like how you pick up a spoon to eat cereal. It just felt right and it worked.
Describe your favourite concert memory.
Once we had a gig at a Polish Hall in Oshawa. It happened to be the headliner’s last show who we’d never heard beforehand. They really rocked it. I think they were called White Light Heat.
What made you decide to pursue music full-time after high school?
I was more interested in self-educating than pursuing the more traditional routes of education after high school. The increase of my free time in combination with Travis’s didaskaleinophobia lead us to our decision to go full time with music.
When shall the public expect an Elwins full-length?
Hopefully next year sometime
What have you been up to lately?
We’ve been writing a lot of music, working out, learning magic tricks, harvesting wild edibles, etc…
What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
Matt: Chocolate chip cookie dough but lately I’ve been adding a bit of moose tracks to the mix. Chocolate Cool Hemp is really good too.
Travis: Cookie dough anything is great. I stay away from mint.
If you were a singing animal, what would you be?
Matt: black capped chickadee
Travis: dog
Last words?
Magic is still cool, don’t forget it.
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Travis was also generous enough to recommend some tunes:
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The Elwins just recently came back from Halifax Pop Explosion, where they rocked the stage along with Gravity Wave, Maylee Todd & Pegwee Power, The Gideons, and Sports the Band.
For more of The Elwins, check out: http://www.myspace.com/theelwins
Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled for upcoming Toronto shows!
