The Trews are gearing for their upcoming tour in support of new album Civilianaires with stops on the West Coast (Kamloops, Kelowna, Vancouver) and we couldn’t be more excited! Ok.. we’re even more excited that Colin MacDonald called us to chat about the tour and about the making/inspiration for their new album! One of the easiest guys in the business to talk to, and you can hear the excitement in his voice when speaking about the new tunes. Check out our discussion below.
nightMair Creative: are you excited about the upcoming tour?
Colin MacDonald: Of course! Every time. I’m always excited about getting out there and playing live tours. I like the routine of it. I love playing music, and I like the way this band just gets better and better as we go. I’m looking forward to what will reveal itself to us out there doing this new record live and doing some of the old songs, and firing up this whole ‘Trews’ thing again with our old (and new) fans.
nMC: do you have a favorite song on the new album, or one that you are most proud of?
CM: (thinking) uhmm… well it changes. Out of the gate it was ‘Time Speeding Up’ because I think its one of the best Pop /Rock songs we’ve ever written. ‘Harder to Love’ is one of the coolest songs we’ve ever written. ‘No More Saying Goodbye’ is one of the best songs we’ve ever written. I love ‘Vintage Love’- I just think its melodic but still exciting and fun. I’m proud of a lot of them. I just think we struck a nice balance between good songs, and good compelling grooves.
nMC: My favorites are ‘Harder to Love’ and I love ‘Let the Great World Spin’
CM: Yeah I like that one too. That was a novel I had… I often cop titles from novels, or magazine articles (laughs). Just somewhere to start. I always liked ‘Let the Great World Spin’. I really like that song too. It came in a real nice inspired fashion. We started writing with the Gormley brothers. Chris Gormley (Big Sugar) is our new drummer but his brother Matt is also a phenomenal talent and great guitar player. He’s someone we collaborate with in the studio and that’s one of the songs we wrote. Me, and John Angus, and Matt, and Chris hanging out in John Angus’ basement and it was just this cool kind of groove. Someone suggested a melody and that worked perfectly and it kind of came real quick. Yeah I like that one too… I’d love to play it live. It’s a bit of a slow burner but I like it.
nMC: ‘The Trews’ asked a question on Twitter recently – asking fans to vote on what we think the next radio single should be – any scientific results from that?
CM: (laughs) When you start asking that question – be careful what you ask – you’re going to get an answer (laughs again). Everyone has a different idea of course… I’m not sure what it’s going to be, but we’ll figure that out in the next week or two.
It’s tough because I feel like the record is an album in an age of singles and streaming single songs. But this album is meant to be taken in, in its entirety. That’s still the way I listen to music… and that’s the way I still make records. I think that’s an important thing. I don’t think that’s old fashioned, I think that’s something people need to get back to. I think a record sets a mood and a tone, and has a point of view and I think that’s how you ultimately connect to music in the best way. So, it’s meant to be taken as a whole.
I think it has some really catchy numbers that work really well on radio. ‘Vintage Love’ did really well for us -and there’s plenty to pick from. I think you and pick any one of the songs and I think it can be a single. Whether or not it becomes a gigantic hit is up to the times, and fate, and whatever else – whatever anyone else wants to hear at a given time in history (laughs) but other than that it’s a really solid record and I’m proud of it.
nMC: in terms of what this album conveys as a whole (to you), do you want to share that?
CM: this album took on a metamorphosis… it started at one place and ended up somewhere else. One of our founding members left in 2014, and then we made a Greatest Hits record with some new songs – which were actually the beginnings of this record. It just took us a really long time to get here. So I think this record sums up a really long journey, creatively.
I think the songs on this album make a lot of sense to me, but there are moments – the two songs at the beginning of the album, ‘Vintage Love’ and ‘Leave it Alone’ were written very early on for the record. and that definitely suggests that a certain sound, a very ‘Trews” kind of sound – and then it goes into a whole other territory where our collaboration with Derek Hoffman ( The Elwins) shows up. I think it works real well – it keeps the album propelling forward but it’s definitely a little bit of a change of pace. That made me happy.
When we got to November of 2017 we still didn’t have a record made. It took us a long time and we were getting kind of worried and then we met Derrick and everything came together really quick. I think this record represents a hard journey and a growing process that culminated with a young talented producer in Toronto and I think we finished one of our finest records with him.
nMC: as well as a change in drummers (twice) you also changed management after years with the same people. Did you find that these changes came through in the writing too, or did you find that once the changes happened, things just clicked and the writing came independently?
CM: I think that’s a good question. I think it was a constant balance between chaos and order. When we parted ways with management in 2017, it definitely took us out of our comfort zone and we were flying without a net. And Gold Village out of New York took an interest in us and we decided to go there. We had a lot of respect for Dan’s history in the business and his roster past and present. It forced us into having to grow up and having to reconcile with a lot of things we might have left unchecked in our previous incarnation when things were in this bubble.
We had to confront some hard realities and either deal with them or… and we chose to deal with them and grow and mature as people, and as writers, and as a band, and make some hard decisions. We parted ways with Gavin MaGuire who took over after Sean Dalton, and went with a guy we felt was more of a better fit creatively despite Gavin being one of the most phenomenal drummers in the country; we just thought Chris Gormley fit with our vibe a little bit better.
The gamble appears to be working out, paying off. For me the biggest success is that we got a great record out of it – I think our best record. And that makes me very happy, because I worried that the creative excitement was in the past and that was really bumming me out for a long time. We got that back and I still feel it… we’re still writing songs now and I think our next couple of records will be as equally good if not better… and that was the most important thing. I feel like a band should only keep making music if they’re doing something new and pushing themselves forward.
nMC: a balance between chaos and order — a kick in the ass? and hopefully some of the songs were fun to write!
CM: (laughs) They were. Especially the ones toward the end with Derek; ‘Harder to Love’, ‘No More Staying Goodbye’, ‘Time Speeding Up’, ‘Bar Star’, and ‘The New Us’. Inspiration struck and we just went with it. Our creative writing chops were in peak form and we weren’t second-guessing ourselves, and just threw it all at the wall, and it stuck.
If you haven’t heard the album yet, pick it up on the usual sites, and you can find some of the songs on Youtube in video format too. Check out ‘The New Us’ and see you at the show!
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