The Wheat Pool

0:00So how are you guys doing? Good and well? Life is good. Life is good. We haven't seen each other in a few years, but I hear good things are still going on for you. Yeah, we had a really good year with Ontario. It came out just over a year ago. That's the new disc, for people who are not familiar. We released it last year, just over a year ago, on Shameless Records Canada. Got to get the plug in there for our president. But yeah, we were nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award for it, for the video for "Lefty," the video for "This Is It." We just got nominated as Best Band, Edmonton Band, for the Edmonton Music Awards. Nice. And Country Band too, I think I saw on there. Yeah, also. Are you a country act? I think we toe the line. We're pretty lucky. Kind of country at times, but I wouldn't call it a country band by any means.

0:47I think the original idea that started with the name, obviously, when Rob and I were talking about putting a band together, was definitely that, focusing on the folk and country music that we'd grown up listening to in the house. But we're rock kids, like all four of us. We've had a couple of situations where we've decided to learn cover songs for different gigs, and we learned a bunch of Tom Petty covers. See, Tom Petty fits that. And that was right in our pocket. And that really surprised me, because it's easy to say, oh yeah, we're a country rock band, but the more we play these rock songs, we fall right into the pocket with rock. So I think that's where our instincts are. I think we can't escape folk and country music, being in Canada. And I mean, some of our favorite songwriters are Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy, Neil Young.

1:39Oh, you were mentioning Willie before. Yeah, Gordon Lightfoot. Are you going to bust out any covers tonight, then? We might bust out. Maybe one. That's a big surprise, Matt. I won't ask more, then. We don't need to know more. You guys are going to play us a song, though, and then we'll do five questions. So what song are you going to play? "Evergreen." Which is about what? I wrote that song. It was for my best friend's wedding, actually. That is the whole story. Yeah. So it's about meeting in Vancouver. He and I were playing in a band at the time. We were on tour in Vancouver. This was like 15 years ago, my very first band. She was volunteering as part of the music festival we were playing. She was working the door, and they hit it off. Fell in love in Vancouver. He moved back here.

2:25She followed him here, and now they both live in Toronto. He's very active musically and in the theatre. And yeah, so it's kind of like this: fall in love in Vancouver and move across the country. And the trans, I love the story. I like how you're smiling as you tell the story. Trans-Canada romance. Yeah. Nice. Cool. So the Wheat Pool, live in studio, 95.7 The Sound. It's lovely, boys.

6:54Sounds fantastic. Wow. Yeah. That guitar looks like it's been beaten up a few times too. Yeah. Yeah, I've probably had it 15 years, I bet. Wow. And I didn't pay very much money for it. I bought it brand new. Right. And it was by far the best-sounding guitar in the room, and it wasn't the most expensive guitar. Sometimes it's all about the strings, I was starting to notice. Well, yeah. Every guitar has its own personality, its own character, and this one was just, that was the one for me. And I think I only spent 300 dollars on it. And then I got a pickup put in it. And it's got a soft top, and I play pretty hard on the guitar, so over the years I've just been chipping the top right off of it. So yeah, it's starting to look a little weathered.

7:42And people can see it tonight at the Haven if they come out, scratched-top guitar. So let's do five questions, five quick questions, one-word answers. Today's guests are fantastic men from right here in town. They're playing the Haven Social Club tonight as part of our Sounds of Edmonton series. They've been in studio with me for about 10 minutes now. We're having a good time. This is five questions with the Wheat Pool. You guys can both answer if you want. Road or studio? Road. I love the studio. I love studio. Good pairing, man. Lennon or McCartney? Oh, McCartney. Yeah, I don't even want to talk about it. Hands down. You really want to start a fight here, don't you? Yes, I would love to start a fight. We agreed a couple months ago that John Lennon was more,

8:29BA. Can I say that on the air? BA. Oh, yes, badass. Yeah, he was. We could say badass. I don't know if we can, but we just did. Too late. McCartney's better. But yeah, I like McCartney's melodies in his songs. And it's cooler. He is cooler. Lyrics, melody, rhythm, what's most important in a song? Melody. They can't see you nodding. Sorry. Melody. Yeah. Song you've written you're most proud of? How about that? I mean, I'm not proud of anything. If I can, which one of yours that I like the most? I don't know. I think, oh, yeah, that's interesting, let's do that. I think "Neil Young" is the best song that, the song called "Neil Young" that we did from the first record, Township. I think that's still one of my favorite songs that we do as a band. I think it kind of embodies what we do best. Okay. And that's Rob's song. Boy, I like "Right Arm" a lot.

9:15The favorite of that one? Yeah. That song's just dark. Tyler just, give a little. And Zabi likes that one too. Amazing. And in one word, the Wheat Pool? Oh, I swore last time when we did this. I think you might have. I'm not going to do it again, so please don't. I thought we were recording, and we were actually on air. I do remember that, actually, yeah. And then I asked afterwards, was that okay? Yeah, no, it was not. It's the opposite of ambitious. That's not lazy. We're not lazy. Good times? No, no. I would say good times, if that's one word. We have a lot of fun together, whether we're on the road or whether we're playing shows. We have good times. Nice. Yeah, and we're all great friends. I'm grateful for that. We're in the friendship garden right now, here in the studio. The friendship garden.

10:01Well, and you can join us at the friendship garden tonight at the Haven, where the friendship garden will continue and open their arms to more people, because it'll be good times. Thanks, boys. Thank you. Tonight, Haven Social Club, Sounds of Edmonton series with the Wheat Pool. It's going to be fun. Come on down.