Waking Eyes Going Jammy Next Album

02/06/09 5:45pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Despite feeling "under the weather," Waking Eyes singer/guitarist Matt Peters was in a great mood during a recent stop in Toronto. And rightly so. His band released their third album, Holding On To Whatever It Is, digitally in July and to stores in November.

The album was a bit of an artistic gamble for the October 2008 Chart cover stars, since it marked a change in sound for The Waking Eyes, whose previous albums were more along the lines of radio rock than the keyboard-driven indie pop of Holding On To Whatever It Is. But the gamble paid off, since the band played shows across Canada and even travelled to New York for a while. The Waking Eyes are currently on a cross-Canada tour with Hamilton's Arkells.

"I think that we made the album we wanted to make," Peters says over the phone from an apartment near Toronto's Clinton and College streets. "I don't really regret any of the decisions we made.

"In the past, I mean, maybe in other things that we've created, I've gotten into the habit of thinking, 'Oh, we should have done this that way,' or, 'We shouldn't have put that song on.' But I think we all kind of made a collective decision that we weren't going to even start doing that on this record.

"It's done now, and I love the album, and as far as it goes, I'm looking forward to [making] the next one."

Prior to the release of the album, The Waking Eyes temporarily relocated from their hometown of Winnipeg to Toronto. They lived in Etobicoke, in the city's west end, on a bungalow on Athol (try saying that — you'll probably laugh) Avenue for three months so they could use Hogtown as a base to play shows throughout Ontario. (See the place for yourself in this video interview.)

"Before our record came out, we hadn't really released anything or toured a lot in the last three months, so it was all about trying to get back out there and remind people or at least introduce people to who we were as a band, and I think that it was a total success," Peters says.

"I think that on this tour [with the Arkells], we're going to see it pay off because we did that little three-month residency."

Holding On To Whatever It Is isn't even a year old yet, but the band — completed by singer/guitarist Rusty Matyas, bassist Joey Penner and drummer Steve Senkiw — have started sketching out what their fourth LP will look like. Peters says they're going to write it much differently.

"In the past, we've always written songs sort of separately and then brought them to the group, or maybe they've been a collaboration between two people and the songs have come to the band and then we see where we can take them from that place.

"But I think in the future, we're going to try and do some more jamming as a band and maybe do some more writing as a group and see where that goes.

"I think if you stick to the same thing, it tends to get sterile and old, especially as you get older and you kind of have your tricks. So I think any way you can excite yourself, or any way that you can shuffle things up a bit when you're in the actual process of songwriting, I think that it'll maybe spark a little bit more inspiration and creativity that you weren't used to."

You can see The Waking Eyes and Arkells here:

Feb. 6 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
Feb. 7 London, ON @ Call The Office
Feb. 8 Collingwood, ON @ Rusty's at Blue Mountain Village
Feb. 11 Guelph, ON @ E-Bar
Feb. 12 Peterborough, ON @ The Montreal House
Feb. 13 Hamilton, ON @ The Pepper Jack Café
Feb. 14 Kingston, ON @ The Merchant Tap House (free)
Feb. 15 Ottawa, ON @ Zaphod Beeblebrox
Feb. 18 Thunder Bay, ON @ Black Pirates Pub
Feb. 20 Saskatoon, SK @ Amigos Cantina
Feb. 21 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
Feb. 25 Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret
Feb. 26 Courtney, BC @ Avalanche Bar
Feb. 27 Nanaimo, BC @ The Spice Lounge
Feb. 28 Victoria, BC @ Sugar Nightclub
March 3 Kamloops, BC @ Blue Grotto
March 4 Calgary, AB @ The Gateway (SAIT)
March 6 Regina, SK @ Distrikt
March 7 Winnipeg, MB @ The Pyramid Cabaret

The Waking Eyes will also play these shows:

Feb. 10 Toronto, ON @ Sneaky Dee's (performing songs from Weezer's Blue Album)
March 10 Sudbury, ON @ The Townhouse Tavern
March 11 Montreal, QC @ The Green Room
March 12 Toronto, ON @ Lee's Palace (CMW) w/Matt Mays