Wide Mouth Mason Remember Life As Traveling Gang

Wide Mouth Mason have been keeping things quiet lately. Once MuchMusic darlings, the past decade has seen the band gradually drift out of the spotlight.

Vocalist Shaun Verreault doesn't seem to mind too much. He speaks of a comeback but it sounds designed more to reconnect with old fans than to win new ones. Stage one of the comeback was a live CD/DVD released in early October documenting the band's high profile Montreux Jazz Festival performances in Switzerland.

"We thought that would be an excellent appetizer for some new music that we're going to release in the next year, so it's a way to remind everyone who the band is," he says.

"We never really stopped doing things, but most of our shows have been in the west for the last couple of years, so this is like our tapas platter for the east."

Although Verreault now lives in Vancouver and drummer Safwan Javed lives in Ottawa they still return to their hometown to write new music.

"We always end up back in Saskatoon at our drummer, Safwan's basement where we wrote our first song.

"Whenever we start writing a new record we end up there for a few days or a few weeks, and it brings us back to what was important then and reminds you of what's ultimately important now and puts everything else on the backburner, all commercial aspirations and all worries about, 'Oh, does that sound like us or not?' and we just write and focus on what comes out."

That's the part Verreault says he enjoys most about making an album.

"The easiest and most enjoyable part is making the songs, that moment of epiphany when a song just appears in your head like a surprise birthday party. Someone clicks the light on and there it is," he says

It's easy to understand why the band like revisiting their past. The trio burst onto the national stage quite young. Wide Mouth Mason experienced critical and commercial success right out of high school, and the members were at the perfect age to build their careers in music.

"Doing 300 dates a year and living in squalor in a shitty van that barely works and traveling the country and playing every show like your life depends on it, getting no sleep and not eating very well is easier to do when you're 19.

"Not to say that we don't end up touring in guerrilla-style fashion a lot these days, but I think there's something about that era of your life where all you're doing is writing and playing and living it and you're a sponge for other music and you're like the tightest gang you could possibly be as a band and you all live together all the time and there's nothing more that you want than that."

Wide Mouth Mason tour dates:

Dec. 31 Saskatoon, SK @ Prairieland Park
Jan. 22 Peterborough, ON @ Montreal House
Jan. 23 Toronto, ON @ The Rivoli
Jan. 28 Burlington, ON @ The Legendary Red Rooster Cafe
Jan. 29 London, ON @ Norma Jeans
Jan. 30 Kingston, ON @ Merchant Ale House
Feb. 26 Vancouver, BC @ Fat Teddy's
Feb. 27 Surrey, BC @ Olympic Festival grounds