Road Trippin' With The Darcys: An Interview

By Jenny Siddle

Before I had even heard a song by The Darcys, I already knew I was going to like this band. Their blog, chronicling their current nation-wide tour, reads less like a promotional play-by-play and more like the diary of five bearded heroes on the ultimate Trans-Canada road trip. Tales of squeezing into a cramped Ford Econoline Cruiser to camp out at Canadian Tire for the night, being arrested by mall cops, Moncton stingers, Montreal snowstorms, Tim Horton’s sunrises, rocky mountain sunsets, and the little van that could.

Oh, right. And there’s music. Wonderful, ambient, soul-thumping, folk-rock music.

Drummer Wes Marskell blames a night of drunken debauchery at a Halloween party at King’s College in Halifax in ‘05 for the original formation of the group. “Jason [Crouse] (guitar) jumped on Kirby [Best] (guitar, lead vocalist) and made him promise that we would start a band together. And then we all woke up with a hangover and a little note in our back pockets reminding us we had to go to band practice the next day.” Despite all meeting in Halifax, each band member originally hails from the Toronto area. Rounding out the band is Dave Hurlow (bass) and latecomer Mike “Lucky” le Riche (guitar, rhodes, trumpet…a little of everything.)

With five handsome hipsters at the helm, it’s no wonder the band named themselves after “fiction’s greatest bachelor,” Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice fame. “Usually boys don’t get it whatsoever and girls always get it,” muses Marskell. In addition to the famous Jane Austen character, the band name is also a nod to D’Arcy McGee, the first Canadian Politician to ever be assassinated (you may want to wikipedia that nugget).

With an eight song EP (You, Me and the Light) and a debut album (Endless Water) already in their musical arsenal, The Darcys managed to hit the stage this spring with some new material - the most talked about being their cover of Final Fantasy’s The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead. The new 7” single is available as a free download at thedarcys.ca. Whether you are new to the band or a loyal fan, the tight riffs and haunting vocals will undoubtedly have you rocking out at your desk. The track has multiple meanings for The Darcys, and it never seems to stop evolving.

What once felt like a love/hate song to their hometown of Toronto, The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead “now feels like something totally different,” according to frontman Kirby Best. After a closer inspection of the lyrics he now interprets the song as a story about ‘we the dead’ leaving home to find work in the city. “It feels much sadder now, and I sort of regret introducing it on stage all those times as a song simply about Toronto.” Having said that, Best still admits feeling “pure joy” every time he experiences Crouse and le Riche performing dueling guitars at the song’s climax. “It raises the hairs on the back of my neck.”

Marskell points to a different lyric that initially drew The Darcys to the song as it seemed to sum up what was thought to be the inevitable demise to the band. “There’s a part in it that says, ‘we had a good run anyway,’” which seemed to mirror the feelings of the band by college graduation when they figured they would have to break up and head their separate ways. It became a swan song as the band played what they assumed were to be their last shows around Halifax. “And then somebody woke up and said, ‘fuck, we’re idiots, we all live within four blocks of each other [back in Toronto]. We can keep playing.” And lucky for us, they have.

By spring of 2007 the band was ready to record their debut album. However, with no money or studio, The Darcys were forced to get creative. And they did.

“My dad had just taken a job as the CEO of the [Waterloo Regional Children’s] Museum. So I said, ‘listen, give us this museum or we’re going to record in your house, in your living room, at all hours of the night,” laughs Marskell. Marskell’s father did indeed hand over the keys to the museum, but only during the hours of 7pm – 9am, when the museum had shut down. Thus, the boys fenced off an area of the museum and led a nocturnal life for two weeks while they created the self-recorded debut.

While exhausted, the boys managed to have some laughs during the recording sessions. “We got to play with all the children’s toys. It made me think I was really good at every activity until I realized they were for nine year-olds,” recounts Marskell. He also recalls CTV doing a news spot during their second week of recording when The Darcys donated some of their precious daylight sleeping hours to show the kids their instruments and demonstrate how a recording studio works. “There’s this great shot of Dave being interviewed, and the camera has to keep up with him swaying back and forth [due to exhaustion]. It’s fantastic.”

The fruits of their sleepless labour paid off. Endless Water was well received, having been praised as “a stunning collection of songs,” by Exclaim! with a sound described as “Thom-Yorke-does-Crazy-Horse” by the Toronto Star. I’ll throw in my two cents and say they are reminiscent of a punked down, rocked up version of another great Canadian indie band, Victoria’s own Wolf Parade. Yet as high energy as they can fly, some of their slower melodies (i.e. Strange Fits) have the ability to capture a listener at the beginning of the track and transport them to a completely different time and space by the end. And the word on the street is, if you dig The Darcys’ recorded mixes, seeing them live will blow you out of the water.

Marskell, who has toured across the nation with the band multiple times, has started seeing personalities develop in the audiences based on location. “Halifax is great because everyone’s so drunk because liquor’s so cheap…so they think everything you do is fantastic. Montreal has great fans and they’re loyal and they come out to the shows…but they just cross their arms and you never know if they’ve loved you or hated you until the song is over. Toronto is a little bit of both, but the west is great, the vibe’s really nice. The shows we had out there were fantastic, I had a blast playing them.”

If you are looking to catch The Darcys on their Canadian tour, you’re in luck. Currently in Vancouver, The Darcys are about to embark on the second leg of their Canadian tour – as long as the van isn’t whisked away to car heaven before they can make it back to Toronto. Surviving an engine fire and a minor break-in are only the icing on the cake when it comes to the trials and tribulations the boys have had with their beloved van. Undoubtedly the boys are now on a first-name basis with the good people of CAA.

“We actually want to rig up a sponsorship with Via Rail,” jokes Marskell about the love/hate relationship the band has with their van. “We didn’t turn the van off from Halifax to Toronto” in fear it wouldn’t start up again. After having to learn all the band-aid solutions in the book in order to fix the van on the fly, Marskell figures each member of the group has earned a minor degree in “Man College” on this road trip.

Can't be held over with just the single The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead? Good news. The Darcys will be back in the studio drumming up new tunes in September so be on the lookout for another great record to come.

Win It! With the Darcys Don't forget to enter for your chance to win a copy of The Darcys Endless Water and an awesome Darcys T-shirt. Click here for more details!