Going local: Get to know… We are the City.

By Jennifer Reynolds,photo by Kristen Berlie 

 British Columbia has produced some amazing musical talents. Maybe it’s the unpredictable weather; maybe it’s the laid-back west coast lifestyle. Either way, the whole world is benefiting from this amazing group of musicians. One such band to emerge from the interior of BC is We are the City.  After winning last year’s The PEAK Performance Project, a local competition to help develop BC bands with a first prize win of $150,000, We are the City has quickly become a band on the rise.  I met up with the band on a sunny Saturday evening before their show at the Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver. Here’s what they had to say:

You’ve had a couple Canadian tours under your belt now and you have documented a lot of it on your YouTube channel. What has been your favourite experience or memory from touring so far?

Cayne: Walking on frozen Lake Superior.

David: We went out so far we thought the ice would break.

Andy: Montreal and Quebec City were really awesome. I loved all of Quebec.

David: We collected sap water to make maple syrup in Drummondville, Quebec wearing snowshoes.

We are the City has a Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube channel and you’ve done some live Ustream videos. Have you enjoyed promoting your band, the interaction with fans and the ability to showcase your personalities that these channels allow you to have?

 Andy: Yeah, I think it’s the best way to do things. I think for all of us the reason why we’re in the band is to be close to people and make new friends. Doing that at shows is one way to do it but I think also to connect with [the fans], it’s really awesome that we can do that on a day-to-day basis.

David: It’s made it more of a way your band isn’t so disconnected. It’s like everyone kinda knows who you are if you do stuff like that.

Cayne: These days you can’t really be a band that’s like when Led Zeppelin came out. It was like no one knows what they’re like. You couldn’t touch them. You couldn’t go near them. Now you can really go near every band so why not fully open the floodgates and let them in.

In a recent interview you talked about how you were working on writing songs for your next album. I believe it was David that said you were looking forward to getting to do a record in a ‘cooler’ way. What did you mean by that?

Cayne: Before the first record we had just graduated high-school and got second jobs, saved up a little bit of money each and put it into recording. We had a super limited budget. 

David: Now thanks to The Peak and Music BC we can do orchestration and not have to worry about being super rushed.

Andy: We just have a lot of time now or we could have a lot of time to do what we really want to do and to experiment in the studio

Cayne: I think all of us are really excited to try wild and different recording techniques and stuff we didn’t get to do before. Hopefully we can write good enough songs. [laughs]

There are some great bands coming out of BC. Many of whom you have worked with or been on tour with such as The Zolas, Said the Whale and Aidan Knight. Are there any other BC bands you guys are really excited about that you’d want to tour with or BC Bands that you’ve been listening to a lot lately?

Andy: One for us would be Mother Mother. They’re in the studio right now. We were really into ‘O My Heart’ when it came out and I think we played that album like 20 times.  So now we’re eagerly awaiting their next thing and of course we would love to play with them or be better friends with them.

Cayne: There is another band called Yukon Blonde that we have done lots of things with but they have been out touring in the States so we haven’t seen them in a long time. I’d love to reconnect.

David: There are also smaller bands that I’m excited for them to get bigger like Fields of Green from Kelowna.

Andy: Treelines from Kelowna

Cayne: Kingdom Cloud from Kelowna

The video for ‘Astronomers’ features the three of you running away from a Zombie attack. What was it like filming that?

 Andy: For me I’ve always wanted to do something with zombies. I love all zombie movies…. 

Cayne: Well you had about 4 times a year a legit zombie night terror.

Andy: Yah that’s kind of faded away. I used to almost every month have a dream that lasted the entire night about zombies. I was running away from them, a zombie apocalypse type thing. So anyways about filming, it was kind of like a dream come true for me in a small way. When we were running away from them, I was actually scared.

Cayne: The whole video is actually one shot. It’s in slow motion and the field wasn’t long enough to run it full speed for the whole time so we kind of had to run in slow motion and really exaggerated.  It was really funny. It was cold and started snowing right as we were filming so it was perfect.

If you were in a real Zombie attack would you succumb to the same fate? You all died in the end.

 All: Definitely not!

Andy: I’ll let you know why I’d be really good [pulls out a book from his backpack]. I have a zombie survival guide. It’s got every way to attack them, what the best vehicles are….

David: Yeah you don’t want to be in an open door jeep.

Andy: Tank is the best.

David: Obviously, or a submarine.

Cayne: Submarine is cool!

Andy: No.

David and Cayne: Why not?

Andy: Why would you be in a submarine, you could only live down there for like a week.

David: Dude, you could live under there for way longer than a week. You just have to stock pile food or something.

Cayne: Yup, there’s no zombies in the water.

David: Unless the sharks became zombies!

Cayne: No that would be crazy!

Andy: Yah that would be wild. But anyways, I think I’d do pretty well.

To learn more about We are the City check out their website and be sure to follow their tour dates on their Bandsintown profile, so you don’t miss out when they’re in your city!

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