The Mohawk Lodge: The Music Always Comes First

The gritty, classic rock-inspired tales on The Mohawk Lodge's Wildfires may have all the characteristics of determined planning, but it was an impulsive decision that first landed main Mohawk man Ryder Havdale in Darryl Neudorf's Toronto studio.

"We'd finished a tour," he recalls, "and Sam [Mallal, bassist] and I were driving back to Montreal and he was like, 'We should go to Darryl's and record.' I said, 'I think he's got time next week.' Sam was like, ‘What do you have to do to make it happen?' Basically, within an hour on the drive to Montreal, he'd talked me into quitting my job, calling my girlfriend and putting off everything that I was doing."

The pair made a beeline for The Big Smoke, where Neudorf and Mallal left their marks on the disc. From there, Havdale took the recording to Point Roberts, Washington, where he was joined by another 10 musicians — including Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner — who helped him finish the album.

"It's kind of the x-factor," Havdale says in explaining his fondness for collaboration. "It's what I love about recording — what everybody else brings to the table… There were a couple of moments where we had 10 people around one mic."

This Listen Up article is from the November 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. You can purchase the issue in the Chart Shop.