Sunday 24 November 2013

Seaway Interview


Today we present you an interview with Ryan Locke of Seaway. Locke fills us in on their American Tour with Bellwether and Knuckle Puck, awkward motel situations and their new album Hoser. Also, make sure you check out Going Down on America below!
Going Down on America shows you on tour with Bellwether and Knuckle Puck, are there any big differences between touring America and Canada? The tour covered in "Going Down on America" was actually Seaway's first ever tour. We've done weekend runs here in Canada but that was the first time Seaway played more then 3 shows in a row. The difference between shows in Canada and shows in America in my opinion is crowd reaction. Ontario definitely has it’s strong points but every time we played a set in America we were in shock because of how wild the crowd went. The first few shows we were seriously questioning if it was all real because we never really experienced a crowd go as crazy as they did in places like New York, Baltimore, and Orlando and Pembroke Pines.
What were your favourite and least favourite memories from the tour? Favourite memory from the tour was indulging in the fine foods America has to offer with my best friends (new and old). As a Canadian we hear about how crazy good American fast food is but having it every meal for 2 weeks straight really gave us the full experience of it all. Least favourite memory was definitely saying goodbye to Knuckle Puck and Bellwether in Baltimore. Its tough making friends so quickly and then having to say goodbye so quickly.
Have you got any embarrassing/funny/strange tour stories you’re willing to share? It’s kind of a long one but I’ll try and sum it up as best as I can. We were in the middle of a 20-hour drive from south Florida to Ohio when we decided we should grab a cheap motel for the night to get a comfortable sleep and shower before we tackle the next half of the drive. We only got 1 room for 6 of us because we wanted to save money. The old battle axe of a motel keeper ended up finding out we were sleeping 6 in a room and started mouthing us off thinking we were trying to "pull some sneaky shit" which I guess we kind of were. She kept saying "I know what you people do in there"; we thought by “us people” she meant rowdy Canadians because we told her we were from out of town but we later realized she thought we were gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) and trying to host some sort of orgy in her motel. She refused to give us our money back and called the cops cause we wouldn’t leave without it. They said we could take her to court or pay for another room. We weren’t giving her any more of our time or money so we split and did the next 10 hours over night and made it from Florida to Ohio in 21 hours. 
If you could tour with anyone dead or alive who would it be? Dead: The Doors and Joy Division because Jim Morrison and Ian Curtis are my two favourite front men and both knew how to party. And no I didn't first hear of Joy Division from Tumblr. Alive: Daggermouth and Sum 41 because they put Canadian punk rock on the map. 
You recently released Hoser, where did the name Hoser originate from? We wanted to showcase Canada being in such an American dominated scene and were just chucking around ideas. I think we landed on Hoser because we figured a lot of people wouldn't even know what a Hoser was, which added an element of mystery to it. We also thought it’d be cool if we could get kids from other countries to start using it as slang. 
How did you approach the writing process for Hoser? Hoser was predominantly written by our two guitarists Patrick and Andrew, so that's a whole other interview for you but they basically would get the main skeleton of a song (structure or lyrics) and piece it together and bring it to band practice. We would then jam it out all together and smoothen out any kinks. 
How did you decide on the album artwork for Hoser? We wanted it to look gritty as shit and really convey what Hoser meant to us. We went into our good friend Miguel of Yeah! Films Companies garage, got our friend Murray a few beers and just dove in. When we get around to pressing it to vinyl we're probably going to re-do the artwork but I've already said too much.
Do you prefer being in the studio or playing live? I prefer playing live 100%. For me it’s all about the energy of the crowd and the varied reaction from city to city. Though I love being in the studio trying new things and hearing the transition from a song we've been jamming, to a song on a record, it can get very stressful at times. To me there's nothing stressful about a live performance, I try and get as lost in it as I can every night which is almost relaxing in a way.
What are your top 5 favourite pop punk albums? 
1. All Killer, No Filler - Sum 41 
2. Take Off Your Pants and Jacket - Blink 182 
3. Turf Wars - Daggermouth 
4. On The Impossible Past - The Menzingers 
5. Direction - The Starting Line
Who are your favourite upcoming pop punk bands? That would all depend on your definition of upcoming, but Safe To Say (they'll hate me or love me for calling them Pop-Punk not sure which), DANGERCAT and Like Pacific are all amazing Canadian bands you should know about. Obviously Knuckle Puck and Bellwether are great friends of ours but you should already know them. 
Would you ever come to the UK? Of Course! We would get on a plane tomorrow if it was possible but we're just waiting for the right opportunity and the right bands to do it with. Expect it within a year or so.
Thank you to Ryan and Mutant League Records for granting us this interview!

Going Down on America:

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