Waking Eyes Member Preps Album From Royal Canoe Project

11/06/09 6:00pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Royal Canoe, perhaps better known as The Waking Eyes' Matt Peters collaborating with his friends, are preparing for the release of their first full-length record, Co-Op Mode.

No track list has been released yet, but the album features songs and collaborations written by Peters and his fellow Waking Eyes members Joey Penner, Steve Senkiw and Rusty Matyas, along with others. The Royal Canoe live band consists of Peters, Penner, Bucky Driedger and Matt Schellenberg of The Liptonians and Nods and Jicah drummer Jeff Bruce.

You can hear four Royal Canoe tunes — "Kasparov," "Me Loving Your Money," "Fabulous Mess" and "Dear June" — on the band's MySpace page.

Peters began Royal Canoe back in 2006 when he started working with Nathan Blanchard, Jo Snyder, Tom Keenan and other Winnipeg-based musicians. Most of Royal Canoe's songs are about "tragic characters" and have quirky themes (such "Kasparov," which is about the Deep Blue super-computer writing a love song to chess champion Gary Kasparov).

Peters and his friends completed Co-Op Mode awhile back but thought they'd never play it live. That changed this year when Royal Canoe began playing shows in western Canada.

You can see Royal Canoe at Toronto's Drake Hotel on Nov. 30 and the city's Horseshoe Tavern the next day.