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Delaware House welcomes me with a warmly lit living room and a glass of water that I, being a humble pilgrim in search of great music, requested. I land myself in a chair, opposite Provincial Parks, that make themselves comfortable on a couch. We sit down for a chat that you, beloved reader, are about to be a part of… given that you’ll actually read and not just scroll through.

The answers are much more brilliant than the questions. See for yourself.

Photo by Ainsley Wing

How long have you been playing together for?

Will: Pretty much the duration of two years and a series of months.

How long have you guys been musicians?

Will: I started piano at 7, and I’m 27 now, so I guess I could say 20 years.

Scott: Yeah, I’m about the same. Well… yeah. I started playing trumpet in grade six.

Pete: I started playing drums when I was 11 so… I’m not very good at math but I think it’s about 15 years.

When was the first time you realized that you wanted to play music and what were your other options?

Pete: Ahm… I know it sounds corny but I kind of always wanted to do it. Since I was a kid really. So as long as I remember having any career aspirations it’s always been music. So I always played a lot… I come from a small town so I had a lot of free time, ’cause there’s nothing going on, so I just played a lot of drums and played some shows in high school. I was always looking for a band.

Scott: Because I was a trumpet player… and… pretty good trumpet player, I found myself in concert bands, playing in orchestras and wind ensembles. Honestly, in high school I realized that girls like guitar players way better than they like trumpet players.

Will: After piano I think the next thing I did was french horn, in grade seven, and then I played drums in grade eight and then in grade nine – a band. And I already started guitar in grade seven. I think listening to Hendrix and then later on – The Grateful Dead, and a lot of jam rock bands, and after that I started pursuing music in that jam-rock-fashion way and then, you know, I was also raised on folk music. I guess I always knew I wanted to do music, but I didn’t know in what capacity.

Provincial Parks. Photo by Alex Palmer

So… Too Indie For CBC… what’s the deal with that?

Scott: We were poor basically…

Will: Yeah….

Pete: And lazy…

Will: We kind of make this relation to the word “indie” – obviously means independent – and we attributed this to the same as being sort of poor… Indie is, you know, “DIY”, which is “Do It Yourself”. And at that time I think Pete was setting up our Radio 3 page on CBC and he left it blank, so no music, no picture. And at the same time Scott was eating rice and potatoes as a full time diet and Richard was scrapping for money… I don’t know what he was doing… he was probably working as a cheese man, watching Rachel Bilson buy olives at the Whole Food. So we all had these different things and we decided that we were too indie for regular diet, too indie to have jobs, indie enough to be in a band but since our CBC Radio 3 page was blank we were too indie for the CBC as well.

Scott: I like to think of the CBC, as like, a pretentious enterprise. And I know that we need them and I know that they provide a great service to indie musicians but I think that they think that they know what’s cool. And I really don’t think that they pay attention to the right things sometimes. We don’t need Radio 3 stamp of approval on our band to be happy. We don’t hate on them but it’s not gonna change the way I approach music.

Pete: Yeah… It’s not like CBC is a benchmark for indie music.

Candle. Mic. Shadow. Photo by Alex Palmer

What’s the story behind The Wasp and the Dragonfly?

Scott: The weekend we were moving into this house it was like 20 straight hours of moving, and then moving into the house where the people you thought were gonna be not living there anymore… still had all their stuff here and we were like.. sleeping on couches. So there’re two full house worth of stuff and two full houses worth of occupants.

Will: Plus our gear…

Scott: (laughs) Plus our studio. So the next day we finished everything and Will and I are outside and we just watch this wasp attacking a dragonfly. And they’re both flying and the wasp just taking swipes at this thing, then actually takes down the dragonfly, and Will and I are aware to what’s going on, we’re watching this thing. And we’re like “Oh my god, the bee just took down the dragonfly, landed on top of it and started to dismantle the dragonfly’s wings.”

Will: After the dragonfly was down and given up. It was over.

Scott: Oh, it was done. So, he took all the wings off, picked up the last one and carried it in it’s feet and tried to fly away. But it was like gusty wind, a huge fan, so he’s being blown way all over the place! So it’s like a sail, he’s just being carried by this dragonfly wing! It was was one of the most disturbing, turned comical things I’ve ever seen happen in nature, because it literally became absurd watching this things try to fly away with a sail.

Will: It was something like Dracula thing, when he used to hang his victim’s heads on the gate. This wasp was totally flying around with a wing of another insect. So to answer what the song got to be about – it was written even before that with this idea in mind, idea of being able to do anything, leaving your current surrounding, sort of rising above. The idea of being a believer in yourself and your surroundings. And for the longest time the song didn’t have a title. And every title sounded sort of like… trait and you know – boring. So we thought about the unbelievable and we thought that we did watch this insect battle and it was this idea of like… anything can happen. And that’s what the song is about.

Scott and Will: It’s a life jam. It’s totally spontaneous. Paying attention to what’s around you is the most important part.

Photo by Ainsley Wing

How do you write your songs?

Will: Music, I think, always comes first. Up to this point I’ve been writing all the lyrics. I do keep journals with me and write down phrases to be able to use them later on. I think it works for a lot of singers that way, is that you write the melody and you decide what’s pleasing sounding (phonetically) and you write the words for that afterword.

Pete: The song Young Bride had a completely different incarnation before. We got as far as finishing the song and then played it live. We came back and we weren’t happy with it and I think it took us six to eight months to completely re-format it and re-think it and it turned in a…. pretty much a completely different song.

You used to be Howl. Why did you change the name?

Scott: The name Howl was a very strong statement and I don’t think it was necessarily the right name for the music we’re writing, we have written, we’re going to write. I just don’t think it was a fair representation of us as a band… or as people.

Will: Yeah and a lot of people when they think about the word “howl” they think about this wolf imagery, and plus the word howl has this dark, old rock sort of connotation. And for me personally – I don’t really rock that hard myself. So this brings this darker image which isn’t really what we’re about. Scott came up with Provincial Parks when were almost done with the record, and I think the name really does give you a better idea of where you want to go and I think now, that we’re called that, going into the next record – we have a better idea of identity.

Scott: Plus, to go back, I truly believe that this band started last January when we sat down and started recording. We just outgrew the name Howl and I think we’re now, as Will said, are comfortable in our identity, going into something… going into the next record.

Candle. Poster. Photo by Alex Palmer

Speaking of records – do you have a hard copy of this release out there?

Scott: You can buy hard copies from CD Baby and from me or any of us.

Pete: We’re still pretty indie.

Scott: We’ve been taking mail requests and we’ve been shipping a bunch out that way. We’ve been giving this away digitally as much as we could because we just wanted this one to get out. We’re not really concerned about it being in stores and being visible yet.. like… we didn’t think we’re that cool. I think that the art of buying records and the intimacy of buying records is something that we completely lost, because the music to us is so small that you can fit million songs into one little thing and carry it in your pocket and go anywhere. Buying records and still buying and collecting vinyl… is amazing, because it’s like… sitting down with headphones and listening to full records… [there's the longest pause I've ever heard] Musicians reward the listener if they’re patient.

What about the quality?

Will: I know that mp3 does kind of compress it and the quality is kind of shitty but I don’t know how to get around that. In terms of distribution it seems to be the best way to be distributed right now.

Scott: I listen to mp3’s, I listen to records. When I listen to records I’m actually paying attention to the sound quality and I still have an iPod.

What’s next then?

Will: We’re doing an album sort of. We’re in the early stages of recording. And whether or not, depends on some stuff comes out, we’ll decide if it’s just gonna be demo or if it’s good enough. Hoping for late 2009.

Do you have any shows scheduled?

Scott: We have no shows scheduled right now, which was intentional. We really needed some time to re-charge, I think, and really start to work on the new stuff

Gorgeous Old Piano. Photo by Alex Palmer

The last question is… what is music for you?

Scott: My personal deep answer is – it’s a pursuit of something I’ll never ever attain. I know there’s so much more for me to learn in music, so continuing to learn, knowing that I’ll never ever be fully capable… fascinates me. And it always pushes me forward.

Pete: For me music is one of the last uncontrolled substances. People can try to shape it and control it and change it but music is always free. It’s the purest art-form. It’s freedom. When you’re listening to music you’re separated from everything else in the world and I think that’s the beauty of it.

Provincial Parks – The Wasp and the Dragonfly

Tags: Interview