Music video – “Orono Park”

The Wilderness of Manitoba, is a five-piece chamber folk ensemble from (surprise!) Canada. After I saw their creative and beguiling music video for “Orono Park“, I found myself whistling the chorus for hours after.  Last week I spoke to guitarist and vocalist Scott Bouwmeester (pictured far left above) before the group performed at The Hotel Cafe, his slight Canadian accent charming even over the phone. We discussed how the band functions as a quintet with four songwriters, their favorite tour mates, and making music on their own creative terms. Don’t forget to check out the music video for “Orono Park” above!

Laurel Kathleen: Is this your first time here in L.A.?

Scott Bouwmeester: We shot our video in L.A. back in the spring. Tonight will be our first L.A. show though.

LK: Are you referring to the music video for “Orono Park”? Who came up with the concept?

SB: I am, yeah. David Altobelli-the director-pitched the idea to us. Yeah, we really liked the concept. It was a really good idea and fun to shoot.

LK: Do you all still live together up in Toronto?

SB: Yeah, but in the last few months a couple of us have moved out. Up until a month ago, it was four of us in a house together.

LK: I thought it was funny that your bio mentions you guys emailing each other about musical ideas even though you lived under one roof.

SB: It’s because we have the studio in the basement. We go down individually and engineer our own songs, and then send them off to each other. We live in the digital age and we like to use that technology to our advantage.

LK: Do you ever follow up a musical idea with “It’s your turn to take the garbage out”?

SB: [laughs] The line was definitely blurred. You have to have a certain level of respect in both situations, and it’s not easy. But respect helps.

LK: Was When You Left the Fire recorded at home?

SB: Yeah, we did a lot of the overdubbing and mixing in the basement, and we recorded some vocals and some drums in a church just to get the big sound in the big space.

LK: What did this particular record teach you about how you work together and/or where you’re headed as a band?

SB: I don’t know. We have released an EP in Canada that we recorded entirely in our basement, so through that process what we learned most is that we have a lot of control over what we’re doing creatively right now, and that’s something we want to keep going and maintaining. We’re able to explore a lot of new things on our own terms, and that’s an amazing thing.

LK: Is it ever difficult to have four songwriters in a five-piece band? Does the original songwriter get the final say in how the song shapes up?

SB: That’s pretty much exactly the way it is. Everyone intros their thing, and then sees their thing through. We all have our own visions and very strong personalities, and we will collaborate in some situations but it’s not a democracy in some regards. And that’s how we record and stuff: I’ll go down in the basement and record, then send it off, and Will will do the same, thing, then Stefan, and that’s when we start bouncing ideas off of each other. We already have the demos done, you know? I think that’s the beauty: when I bring a song in with an idea and everyone starts adding the parts, it becomes our song. It’s not mine anymore; I got it there but some of the other parts makes the song better.

LK: Who has been your favorite tour mate thus far and why?

SB: Um…I mean we’ve had so much fun on every tour, that I couldn’t talk bad about any one of them. We had a really great time with The Chapin Sisters and with Cloud Cult because we all got along really well. There was a nice sense of community, to be out in the world with another band. You’re like a traveling road show, right? But then playing with Rasputina was just amazing, because they’re just so technically awesome. They’re just amazing cello players, and yeah that was prety much…you take something away from every tour.

LK: Is the touring musician’s life very different in Canada versus in the U.S.?

SB: Well yeah. It’s more dense down here, there’s more places to go in shorter distances. In Canada, you’re driving eight hours to play a show, then another eight hours. Only because everything’s so far away. That makes it hard at times. After this tour and after we finish with Cloud Cult, we’re driving up to Vancouver and driving through Canada. We love it and want to do it, but it’s just really hard. Not to say we’re not going to do it [laughs].

LK: Have you had many different audience reactions from place to place?

SB: Not really; we’ve been really lucky. The bands we’ve been touring with have great crowds. Tonight we’re playing our own show, but for the most part we’ve been doing shows opening for someone else. What we’re taking away is that a lot of people like what we do across a bunch of different genres. I think there’s something…people are reacting well. It’s hard to describe people, like we’re playing with an older crowd with Aimee Mann and I think we’ve hit on that with our nostalgia. Truth be told we haven’t played L.A. yet, so I guess after tonight I’ll know! It’s different everywhere you go, we’ve played to a room full of tight jeans- and Ray-Ban-wearing hipsters in Brooklyn and they didn’t hate us. But then we played with The Chapin Sisters in an old church in Madison to the community of older people, and they liked us too.

The Wilderness of Manitoba will perform two dates in the Pacific Northwest this week before heading to Europe in September. Their album When You Left the Fire is now available on iTunes, and for more information on their upcoming tour dates please follow them on Facebook or Twitter.