If you find yourself in a popular Canadian band with one of the hottest indie labels, your music is being used and played by Hockey Night in Canada and Television’s ShowTime and your debut album was shortlisted as one of the most anticipated of 2014, you might feel you could rest a bit on your laurels – but then you wouldn’t be Reuben and The Dark, which has been crisscrossing North America over the last year to bring live performances of Funeral Sky to the people.
“We’re all really proud of it – it’s nice to finally have it available,” said Reuben Bullock on Funeral Sky’s release. “We were touring for quite a while without a record ... I’m really looking forward to the fall, by then the record will have had some time for people to listen to it and get familiar with it.
“That way, when we play shows, we’re not just playing songs they’ve never heard to people who have never heard of us.”
Reuben and The Dark – Bullock (vocals, guitar), Kaelen Ohm (guitar, vocals), Shea Alain (guitar, vocals), Dillon Whitfield (bass, vocals) and Maurie Kauffman (drums) – play The Banff Centre’s The Club on July 17.
It’s been a prosperous year for the indie folk rock band, as Canadian hit-makers Arts & Crafts has put a lot of faith in the band, pushing Funeral Sky and having Reuben and The Dark on its A&C Field Trip Festival this past June, playing alongside Broken Social Scene, The Sadies and Interpol, to name just a few.
“It’s like a dream come true. They were like the first Canadian label I’d heard about – a lot of the bands that are on it had a big influence on me,” said Bullock. “Being inspired and being a part of that roster is pretty surreal and our manager is Jeffery Remedios, who co-owns and operates the label along with Kevin Drew. So we’re really tied in now with the management label and the publishing side, too, so we kind of get to work with everyone there. It’s a really good team, really strong.”
The Banff Centre is familiar territory for the band, having recorded “Devil’s Time” in one of its studios. “That was the last tune we recorded for the album. We spent two or three days out there with engineer Graham Lessard at the time, and when we got asked to come back I was pretty excited about it. I think we’re going to be there three days again,” Bullock said from Calgary.
Bullock said it’s pretty hard to balance work and life at the moment, but he wouldn’t trade the hectic schedule and touring as it’s what he and the band love to do.
“It’s not balanced right now for sure – it’s work, but it’s exactly what I want to be doing. We have two weekends off and both those weekends have weddings that I have to go to. It’s kind of funny to see a whole summer gone, but at the same time, if I were able to choose a way to spend a summer that I would be happy with, and full of memories, it would be travelling Canada and playing music festivals, because that is something I really love doing.
“Some tours can be painful and long and kind of disheartening, but as far as festivals, Canadian summer festivals are such a sweet way to spend a summer. At this point, I’m feeling pretty good about it all, and the band is too. Everyone is looking forward to it, so as long as the schedule is full of things keeping you motivated, it’s great.”
North Americans are taking notice of use of the band’s single, “Rolling Stone,” for the ShowTime crime drama Ray Donavon.
“With that kind of stuff you never know what’s going to happen,” said Bullock. “I’m into it and we’ve had a couple situations like that where we’ve gotten songs licenced.
“This is probably the biggest thing. It’s cool, I just saw the trailer where they edited and used the song and it’s pretty exciting. The main thing with that is the fact it will get out now, hopefully to people that wouldn’t have heard of the band, and I think it suits the video too. It was cool they could use it and do their thing with it.
“We had a song on Hockey Night in Canada (Pittsburgh versus Columbus playoff), which is pretty odd, but a lot of people ended up connecting with it. A lot of people thought it was really artistic, but when I would look at it I’d be like, ‘ah man,’ I thought it was kind of funny.
“I’m not a big hockey fan. I watched the video on YouTube later and I thought it was cool, but a lot of people were actually moved by it and reached out and found out about the band that way and had a genuine connection to it; so you’ve got to remain open to that kind of stuff, especially when media needs music.
“It’s nice when you have things like Hockey Night in Canada linking up with an indie band – they’re going to use a song and it’s nice of them to at least be digging a little deeper than the mainstream catalogue that’s out there and exposing the mainstream audience to bands and songs they wouldn’t hear normally – I support that stuff for sure.”
