Oct. 07, 2009 - Issue #729: The Secretaries

SubCity Dwellers

Magnificent Eight: SubCity Dwellers crunch the numbers

They say two's company and three's a crowd, but Winnipeg's SubCity Dwellers might have a thing or two to say about what constitutes a crowd. With eight people in the group, that means eight people to schedule practices around, eight people to wrangle into a recording studio and eight people to cart around on tour. After a few go-arounds, however, bassist and vocalist Darwin Baker says the group has gotten pretty good at it.

"It's a lot of people to try to organize and coordinate and feed but we've done it a few times now and it gets smoother each time. I'm getting really good at making breakfast for everybody," he laughs from a tour stop. "I can make a pretty mean frittata and I can whip up a batch of breakfast bagels in no time."

With eight people in the band and just as many ideas of what constitutes a good song, writing the group's newest album, Where's the Noise?, might have proven to be a challenge, but Baker explains that the members had a vision of what they wanted the finished product to sound like and put the necessary work into making sure it was realized.

"We wanted to have a more cohesive album because we have a lot of songwriters and we dabble in a lot of different styles of music so we wanted to put together something that sounded like an album more than a mix tape," he explains. "We looked at the songs that we had and tried to find the ones that fit together and we made a conscious effort to put forth a darker, heavier album. Whether we're playing reggae or punk rock we wanted to make it pretty heavy and all the songs have a bit of a darker edge."

Fri, Oct 9 (9 pm)
SubCity Dwellers
With Grimskunk
Pawn Shop, $10

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