Thursday, October 29th 2009

By Corrigan Hammond

Although The Arkells have come along way in the last few years – from local Hamilton heroes to stadium rocking Canadian music icons, wherever they go, a strong association still exists between the group and the “Hammer.”

“We talk about Hamilton a lot,” explained Max Kerman, the groups lead vocalists and guitarist. “[Hamilton] seems to come up in interviews. And you know, we’ve toured Canada four or five times now and we bring up Hamilton a lot because the name of the album is Jackson Square, and Arkell Street is where the band met, where two of us in the band lived. We definitely get asked a lot about Hamilton, we love putting in the good word for Hamilton.”

“We’re just waiting for the key to the city at this point” Kerman chuckled. “We only have one album and it was all written in Hamilton and a lot of the stories take place in Hamilton. In that sense its very Hamilton-centric— it very natural, its where the band kind of came together and where we’ve lived for the last four or five or six years of our lives, so it makes sense that there would be those kinds of associations.”

Jackson Square, which the group released earlier this year, has provided the group with a lot of opportunities to showcase their hometown pride.

“Because the album is done well, I think it has given us opportunities to play a lot,” Kerman explained. “We’re really happy with the reception its got, and most of all I think any band is just looking for opportunities to showcase themselves and we’ve been really fortunate and really lucky to be able to get a lot of great opportunities opening for bigger bands and now we’re headlining our own shows. The one thing that’s changed is just opportunities, which we don’t take for granted at all — we come out swinging every time, every chance we get.”

Currently The Arkells are on their first headlining tour, and they have been able to play as both headliners and opening acts, Kerman explains: “The way it works with our schedule is that it kind of goes back and forth. We’ll do a few headlining shows and then we’ll get an opportunity to, you know, open for Sam Roberts or the Tragically Hip, which we did a bunch with this summer, so you kind of go back and forth from playing in front of really, really big audiences on really big stages and then, for our own headlining shows, to playing a lot of clubs and three-five hundred seat capacities — which are smaller and, it’s great. We love both — like there’s challenges to both of them and it’s really rewarding knowing that people came out to see us and then its also really fun to try and win over other audiences.”

“Small venues feel more natural,” Kerman told me. “Because,” he continued, “that’s where we started playing and I guess part of the toughest thing with a small venue is making sure that all the instruments come through in the mix. Because in a small room it can, you know, start to mush, but in bigger rooms you have professional sound guys and huge PA systems where they’re able to mix a little bit easier. As a rock-and-roll band you have a tendency to just want to turn it up really loud, but sometimes you have to restrain yourself a little bit and think about what the songs mean and be a little bit more delicate in some cases because you want to preserve the song.”

“We’re lucky in Ontario to be able to have a lot of great venues. We played a show in London at a bar called “Call The Office” and it was awesome. Ottawa has been really, really good to us. We’ve had some amazing shows there. Toronto, obviously, we’ve played a lot,” Kerman told me.

“Out west,” he continued, “Saskatoon has a great scene [too]. It’s kind of a cool university town. We also really like Vancouver…We played in Grand Prairie one time opening for Matt Mays and that was a great show, it was really fun. There are different hubs [for Canadian music.]”

“One of the most fun parts of the stage we’re at right now is that there are a lot of unknowns. You try something, and maybe it works really well and people respond to it online or you try something else and it doesn’t really work. So, it’s like, we’re learning a lot and as our fan base grows or, you know, you’ll see different reactions. Its an interesting time for us.”

“We’re like any other band, we’re music lovers and there’s a lot of music that inspires us and there’s a lot of lyricists that inspire us. On Jackson Square there’s some straightforward fist pumping sort of lyrics, but there’s also some more subtle lyrics, like the music as well. I’m defiantly not my favourite lyricist. Its like you want to strive to be great and hone your craft, and I think, there’s guys like Joel Plaskett who have a really unique style, there’s guys like John K. Samson from the Weakerthans who has a really unique style and there’s The National who have their own style. So we’re sort of somewhere in between there,” Kerman told me.

The Arkells played on Friday at 1280 for McMaster’s homecoming, which just goes to show that even with their success, the boys haven’t forgotten their roots.