emusic selects: raa q&a

It’s eMusic Selects Day! That’s how we’ve come to view these debut days for new Selects artists. So much work goes into preparing every piece of this, both on our part and the artists’ part, and now they get sent out into the wild. Every time we are nervously excited.

And so yeah, this month! This month we have two artists: Blue Giant, an excellent, all-star country-rock supergroup from Portland, and the Rural Alberta Advantage, a trio from Toronto. I’ll let Joe or Jayson chime in with Blue Giant; I’m taking this opportunity to post the full Q&A between myself and the RAA.

The Rural Alberta Advantage are Nils Edenloff, Amy Cole and Paul Banwatt. They come from Toronto (singer Nils Edenloff hails from Alberta, hence the name), and Hometowns is their first record, and it is a great one. Hometowns is a classic indie rock record in both its aim and its result. Their songs sigh and exclaim, occasionally simultaneously, the emotional components varied, but their sincerity a constant.

Certainly any comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel have a germ of truth. Moments on Hometowns — “Rush Apart,” “Frank, AB” — could easily hitch a ride In an Aeroplane Over the Sea. There is a shared level of intensity, convoluted name and, as Edenloff details in our interview below, a love of “non-singer singers,” to quote his phrase. Read on for more on our latest eMusic Selection.

Yancey: Where are you guys right now?

Paul: I’m on a highway in a traffic nightmare.

Amy: Nils and I are sitting in a conference room at my office.

Yancey: Paul, are you on your way to them?

Paul: I’m trying, but to be honest, I don’t think that I can make it in the next twenty minutes.

Yancey: So there’s some drama here, already.

Paul: Apparently my car doesn’t have a working radio, so I’m unaware of things that happen on the road, but a truck fell off a bridge. Drama.

Yancey: So how are you guys doing? It’s good to finally meet you.

Nils: Yeah, you too.

Yancey: How are you feeling about next week?

Amy: Really, really good.

Nils: Sweet. It’s sorta weird that it just happened out of nowhere, and we weren’t really thinking about that stuff.

Yancey: Yeah, so the way that we’ve done these interviews before, I literally have nothing prepared. We always try to just approach these things very informally. It’s always really boring to just talk about music; it’s always a lot more interesting to find out who a person is, and what’s brought them to this point and stuff like that. Our interviews are always very purposely much more amateur, and much less about the music than about the people who made it and why and all that sort of thing. So just to give you that sort of thing from the get go.

So you all should just work really hard at being natural, that’s what I’m saying.

If each of you could just start with where you grew up.

Amy: I come from a small town outside of Ontario, about fifteen miles out. I moved and traveled for a year, because, I don’t know, to learn something. I guess I didn’t learn anything at university. And then I went to school, where I met the people who introduced me to the band, and got me involved in the band.

Yancey: I’m assuming you have a day job, Amy?

Amy: My day job is I do public relations for a little company here in Toronto. We’re a start-up company and we build software programs for larger companies in order for them to raise employee performance and stuff like that, yeah…that’s a terrible pitch.

Yancey: It’s a terrible place?

Amy: [Laughing] No, it’s a bad pitch…

Yancey: Oh, a terrible pitch, okay.

Nils: She has PR issues.

Yancey: So who wants to talk next?

Paul: Well, I guess I should leave the rest up to Nils, cause his leads directly into the band better. I grew up in Missasagwa, which is a suburb of Toronto. I had a very sheltered youth; I lived in the kind of neighborhood where you could leave your car running in your driveway and you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Eventually moved to Toronto for school, and thinking I’d spend the rest of my life in Toronto.

Yancey: What do you do for a living?

Paul: I’m still in school. I’m a law student at the University of Toronto.

Yancey: Nils, you want to lead us into the RAA?

Nils: OK. I was born and raised in Alberta. Grew up where all the oil is coming from in Canada here. After high school, I moved down to the University of Alberta and took computer engineering, so I moved off the music thing for a while there, and wasn’t finished yet, so once I graduated, came here to pursue music. It took a while before it ended up actually doing anything, but yeah, once the ball started rolling…

Yancey: And so how long has the Rural Alberta Advantage been a band?

Nils: We started two and a half years, now…. We originally had five people, but it’s been the three of us for two and a half years.

Yancey: Since the three of you have settled on the three of you, there was just a dynamic there that made more sense? And do you still have the rotating cast of people, or is it just you three?

Nils: No, no, ever since, it’s pretty much just been the three of us. When we were recording, we brought a couple of people in, here and there…kind of like a live show.

Yancey: Nils, were you the origin point of the band? Am I right in guessing that?

Nils: Yeah, I guess. I don’t want to say yes, but that’s mostly true. But the stuff we come up with, it’s nothing I’ve pre-formulated myself. It’s bringing stuff into the group. Paul and Amy have more ideas in there that have changed things a lot.

Yancey: And so, this is an awful question, but, Paul and Amy, how would you characterize your ideas? What is it on your own that you do musically and what is it you’ve found working with Nils, and also, I guess, Paul, we’ll start with you — someone who’s in law school, you wouldn’t normally think of being in a band, although I say that several of my friends actually are… but no, I’m just curious how long have you had, or needed, music, as an outlet and what is it that you look for there?

Paul: Well, I’m only in law school, so I definitely have a lot of free time to commit to music, but for me, one of the things that really changed was Nils. He comes up with a bunch of beautiful melodies, and he gives a lot of room to come up with words, draw the rhythm, and there’s a lot of room for me and Amy to come up with interesting things because we’re both in love with the songs, and that’s what’s really rewarding about it.

Yancey: Amy, is that true of you as well?

Amy: Yeah, it’s been great with Nils. Nils will come up with these great ideas and concepts of songs and then Paul comes and shows it to me, and I see what needs to be there, whether it be harmony or extra percussion. I think that’s why we work so well together. We’re all working independently, but we’re all working on this one piece of music, and I think, I never feel like there’s too much going on in our songs, ever.

Paul: I think that’s true, since Nils is one of the only sources of melody.

Yancey: So you guys work independently of Nils sometimes?

Amy: We’re all together; we never work on things by ourselves. Paul and me work on things when Nils isn’t there, but Nils knows.

Paul: There’ll be times when Amy and I will just work a part, work on the rhythms, just the two of us.

Yancey: Does it feel like a real band to you? Is it something you do because you would go crazy without this form of expression? Is the goal: we don’t have day jobs and this is what we’re meant to pursue?

Paul: Well, I know personally that I’d still be playing, whether it be in a room by myself or what. It’s much more rewarding and enjoyable with you guys. That’s a bonus. I would love for this to become my day job, it would be nice to have that. But I don’t know anyone personally who doesn’t need their day job anymore. If you know a way…

Yancey: I have a five month plan, actually…

[Laughter]

Nils: You still have to have a day job to stay afloat. But it shouldn’t take anything away from the rewarding side of making music.

Yancey: What’s your level of stature there?

Amy: We made some lists on some blogs. [Laughs]

Nils: I get surprised sometimes. Like the other day I was walking down the street at Halloween, and I was walking with my girlfriend when two guys start walking by. And I could see them from a ways away, and I immediately just assumed a whole bunch of things about them. But then one of them just walks up to me and goes, “The Rural Alberta Advantage.” Just out of nowhere he recognized me. But yeah, it’s weird, people buying our CDs in Australia or Germany.

Yancey: It’s like internet culture versus real culture.

Nils: Totally.

Paul: Considering the level of work we’ve put in, I’d say we’ve been rewarded pretty richly.

Nils: It seems like ever since we’ve started with the three of us, good things seem to happen.

Yancey: So what’s the threshold that you need to reach? I mean, do you see a path for you guys at all? What’s your goal? And how does eMusic Selects fit into that, if at all?

Amy: This is bigger than we ever imagined.

Nils: It’s really flattering. So far the best thing that’s happened to us.

Yancey: That’s rad! Well, so, you guys haven’t performed outside of Canada yet, correct?

Nils: No, no. We haven’t had that opportunity.

Amy: We do want to — we really would love to come and see the US, absolutely.

Yancey: So, I was also curious about — on your very cute and very evocative bio on your site and you talk a lot about very particularly Northern Albertan summers. How do you define such a thing? What are the traits of an Albertan season?

Nils: Well, I think there is — after having moved out of Ontario, there was a different sort of feel to the season, at least from my perspective. I always had rich memories of — like the first week in September, the frost on the ground, walking to school. And there’s always a feeling when the winter starts. There is this certain smell of the fall and spring, those are my kind of two favorite seasons.

That was definitely something that I know when I came here [to Toronto], I didn’t get that. From those few moments in the year, I always have memories. Those sorts of memories that I have of Alberta drive a lot of our songs. Just remembering those things.

Yancey: So, the rural part is very important to you?

Nils: Yes, I have a lot of memories of our cabin in Southern Alberta. So, yes, it’s a part of my growing up.

Yancey: Are you okay with urban living? I mean, is this something that you look at with a bit of nostalgia and it’s something that you miss, or is it just — is it a place that you just miss and need to talk about?

Nils: This is where I came from, and having moved away — all my family live back there. It’s just something that after having moved away from it, I realized how much it defined me. But after having moved out here, and it’s those small things just sort of — you realize what makes you who you are. Because I am definitely — I realize, the more I’m growing up, I’m a lot like my dad and my dad is a farm boy, grew up on a farm. I realize I’m similar to him, I do have that rural sort of thing. And now I’m a city boy and I really wouldn’t have the opportunities that we have if I was trying to do this there.

Yancey: This is not the case with Paul and Amy, correct? You aren’t from Alberta?

Amy: No.

Paul: No.

Yancey: So, you’re like, what is all this he’s talking about…

Paul: Well, what he said, the original lineup was five people. Three of those people were from Alberta. So the original incarnation of the band was three-fifths Albertan. Amy and I were the Team Ontario Contingent.

Yancey: I absolutely identify with what you’re talking about. I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Virginia and I moved to New York from there. What you’re talking about — I know exactly what you mean.

Amy: I felt the same way too, coming from a small town and coming to the big city. I feel that sort of nostalgia is really apparent in the music and I think a lot of people relate to it, and that’s why people like it, I think.

Yancey: I think that’s true. Do you see in any danger in having too much nostalgia?

Nils: What — I can’t understand your question.

Yancey: I mean, I’m just thinking – this is something broader than music — there is a level of provincialism with a small town that could be very limiting and suffocating. I can fondly look back where I grew up now because I’m out.

Amy: That’s it exactly.

Nils: Yes, that’s exactly, that’s exactly, what I was kind of going through when I moved out here, it was — I was leaving there, I felt like, yes, look at you guys, you guys stay here, I’m happy to get out of here. But it wasn’t until I actually came here that I realized how much of me really came from Alberta.

Yancey: Yes, absolutely. That’s great, that’s great.

Nils: And looking at it gave me this feeling: this is my life, I have my own perspective on it. Not a lot of people living out here have been through the same experiences that I have been through.

Yancey: Absolutely! I wanted to ask about a couple songs in particular. A couple of my favorites. I wanted to ask about “Frank AB,” which is a very good song. And I also wanted to ask about “In the Summertime,” which I also adore. But I was just curious to hear whatever there is to say about those songs.

Nils: Well, I think for one, “Frank AB” took forever to write. We made so many variations on it. But the song itself, I’m not sure but you could probably find it online but the town of Frank was the site of a mining disaster in the early 1900s. So it was a mining town and one early April morning, or something like that, the whole mountain just slammed, just went on top of a mining town and because it was a migrant mining town they never really managed to find all the bodies or know how many people were actually trapped under the rubble. And about twenty years or so after the mining disaster they were still recovering bodies.

Going to Frank is one of these school trips that you’d end up spending the night as a kid. I didn’t actually get that; it was way too far away. But I did spend a summer there with my uncles. And it’s just this kind of an eerie place; you’ve got this tourist center of a mining disaster, and it’s just thousands and thousands of tons of rock. It’s a ghost town, and that’s where the song came from. Just the idea of being trapped in a situation like that.

Yancey: That was a way better answer than I could have ever hoped for! That was great. And what about “In the Summertime”?

Nils: That one, it’s more of just — It’s just really a break-up song, I guess. It also took me a while to write that one. It takes me a long time to write songs, so it may be about several different break-ups. It’s just having a situation where maybe you lose a chance and something happens and you run out of time with something you never… This is a shitty answer. I’m always really bad about answering questions about songs.

Yancey: No, that’s great! Paul or Amy, do you have anything to say about this?

Amy: I know it’s weird because we hear them so many times, but it wasn’t until we finished recording and I had one of the final mixes on my iPod and Nils was like, “Listen to it and let me know if there’s anything we need to change.” It was only then that I felt like I actually heard the song, so it’s hard for me to talk about what it means because I often don’t think about it until I’m listening to it objectively, like I’m not even part of it. It’s really strange that way.

Yancey: So you can put yourself in a place where you can listen objectively or relatively so?

Amy: I can, yeah. I did. I don’t know how. Because I never could before. Any other bands I’d ever been in I could never, ever, ever listen to things ever again. But this record I can. I still do listen to them sometimes and I don’t listen to it like, “Ooh! That’s me!” I listen to them because I do think they’re good songs. I hate to brag about our band but I like this music.

Yancey: As a band do you guys have a favorite song?

Nils: I’m trying to think. Do you guys have any off the top of your heads?

Paul: I love “Deathbidge.”

Amy: I love “Deathbridge,” too. I really like playing “Edmonton” live just because it’s fun; Paul and I interplay a lot with the percussion. I like “Rush Apart.” It’s a really energetic one. Playing live, I like that song. It makes me jump around.

Paul: I really enjoy “Frank,” just playing it. I think of all the songs, it just really worked out so I think that’s probably my favorite.

Yancey: So “Frank” and all this leads me to ask another question, which is to talk about Neutral Milk Hotel, which has obviously influenced the RAA. And I think a lot of it comes from your voice, Nils. So I’m just curious how much of a Magnum fan are you? Is this a voice that you found for yourself that happens to be the same?

Nils: It would be impossible for me to say that they weren’t in some way an influence because I love In the Aeroplane, and there’s something that caught me about the album, first listening to it. I’ve always been a fan of non-singer singers, people who to me sound great but other people might be, “No, no. That’s not a singing voice.” I’m not really sure if I try to sound like him, try to sound like Jeff Magnum. I think it’s more that there’s something about listening to it — there’s believability, like he’s about to just die. I think that’s what sort of caught me about it and what I’ve always tried to do with the singing. I’m usually playing a lot of the same chords over and over again in all the songs we play, but just moving the capo around.

Paul: Don’t reveal that. [LAUGHS]

Nils: I don’t know if I really addressed anything.

Yancey: That was good. The Neutral Milk Hotel thing, I think that you guys exist independently of them but obviously what I was first excited about when I listened to you guys with Neutral Milk Hotel being such an enormous band and so important to so many people and yet I don’t think there are that many bands that sound like them. I think part of that is what you’re getting at Nils with Magnum being, there being such a sincerity and desperation to how he performs even on record. That’s something that you can’t really imitate that it’s where your music is coming from. And I think there’s a — this is going to sound really cheesy but I think there’s a vulnerability to you, at least to the record, that is very tangible and a rare quality.

Nils: I know having read certain things that people think this about us. It’s flattering that people would think of it like that but at the same time I hope people don’t just feel like, “Oh, yeah. Just another one of those things someone’s trying to do.”

Amy: I remember talking to Nils after we finally got the record and I listened to it all the way through the first time. And I remember talking to you and saying, “You know my favorite part about the record is that I believe you. I believe in what you’re saying. I totally buy it.” And I think you’re right, I think that’s a hard thing to find in artists, especially on record. Just the total conviction in what they’re singing.

Yancey: You can’t fake that. I’m trying to think what else we need to talk about. What do you guys listen to?

Nils: I’m trying to think. I kind of listen to everything. I’m trying to think of stuff that I really, really love. Albums that I will go back to. I was actually just talking to my girlfriend about it, I’d probably say [Gordon Downie's] Coke Machine Glow. That’s such a beautiful Canadian album. I’m not sure really. I’ll have to get back to you on this.

[Everyone agrees on Coke Machine Glow]

Yancey: Here’s another way to come at this. We have a radio show, on East Village Radio which is a radio station here in New York and it’s also a web radio station. So we have a weekly show, and the show either next week or the week after will primarily focus on you and on Blue Giant, the other band. We’ll be playing a ton of your music, pulling some audio from us talking right now. But also in the past I’ve just asked people to pick a couple songs to be played on the show. So you should think about a song. Or two or three or whatever. So you think about that while Amy and Paul answer the question about what music they like.

Nils: Right now?

Yancey: You don’t have to right now we can email about it later. If you thought of it now then we could do the really cheesy radio thing where you’re like, “I’m Nils from the Royal Alberta Advantage you’re about to hear Tom Jones sing ‘Delilah,’” or something like that.

Paul: Amy, do you want to go first or should I?

Amy: Do you want to go first? Go ahead.

Paul: I’m kind of obsessed with my friends’ bands. I think there’s so much amazing music below the radar in Toronto and in Ontario generally that I end up listening to these brilliant people that I know personally over and over and over. I love Ohbijou and I love the Bicycles and Holy Fuck and people from this scene that I’m part of. I think maybe part of it is the fact that I get to see them live quite often and I imagine this is true of many urban centers, there’s just more talent than you can possibly ever hope to digest. The fact that I’m close to it makes me want to immerse myself in it.

Yancey: We got excited about trying to sign Ohbijou a while ago and then discovered they were already signed. But I’m a big fan of theirs as well.

Paul: Actually the cellist I went to high school with and she was one of the girls that was in the original five-person RAA Lineup. And she actually plays cello on the album. She’s a good friend.

Yancey: And what about you, Amy?

Amy: I was just thinking about that. All these boy-girl bands that are coming to watch that are really into that, like Postal Service. I like Death Cab for Cutie a lot. I just keep listening to them all the time. I know, I’m sorry. [Laughs] Nils is laughing at everything I say right now. What I like to listen to every day at work is SOMA FM, and I just listen to that obsessively, every day, and I find a lot of new bands there. We’re lucky enough to have tons of super, super amazing bands here in Toronto, like Ruby Coast, they’re a new band here that I really, really like. They’re fantastic. We’re really lucky to be in this — I don’t want to use the word scene, but I guess it is, kinda, like you’re in Toronto but so many incredibly, incredibly talented people are doing really cool things. I feel really fortunate that we get to be a part of that.

Yancey: You do do PR, don’t you?

Amy: [Laughs]

Paul: That was good.

Amy: I’m very sincere about it.

Yancey: I know, I know.

Nils: Yeah, we’re actually playing with the Acorn at the end of the month.

Yancey: Wait, what’s the band?

Nils: The Acorn. On Paper Bag.

Yancey: I’ll have to check them out. Were you guys familiar with any of the other select bands we’ve done?

Nils: The High Places. And I heard a little bit about Crystal Stilts before, but just in the last week or so, it seems like they’re getting bigger and bigger.

Amy: How was it you came across us again? A listener?

Yancey: Yeah. Someone who is a subscriber sent an email saying, I think these guys are cool. You should check them out. And I think, literally, it had been half an hour, and we make these decisions collectively, five of us, about what we’re gonna pick, and within half an hour, we’re all like, “Alright, let’s go talk to these guys.”

Amy: Wow.

Yancey: And that really is the fastest it’s ever happened. It was an immediate yes for us, we all thought it was really great.

Nils: Well, thanks.

Paul: It is nice to hear people responding. We’ve spent so long obsessing over this. I know Amy can look at it objectively, I don’t know if I’m capable of looking at it objectively anymore. It’s definitely good to just have people responding so well. So yeah, it really means a lot to me.

Amy: Thank you so much.

Yancey: Thank you! The record is so great and I can’t wait to see what this does. I think it’s gonna be really, really good for you guys.

Nils: Thanks.

Yancey: Okay. I will talk to you guys soon. Have a good night.

Amy: See you later. Okay, bye.

Yancey: Bye!