Limestone City just can't hold 'em anymore.
Like their compadres The Imbreds (currently on tour with Buffalo Tom), the members of Kingston-based quartet Weeping Tile are not only hip young musicians with a new record deal but are also in great demand as traveling companions.
After a one-off gig opening for Juliana Hatfield tomorrow night at the Opera House, Weeping Tile heads eastward for a handful of dates with the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir (with whom they toured this summer), then it's off to see if the snow has melted in Calgary and other adventures in Western Canada with The Skydiggers.
In between those jaunts, Oct. 17 to be exact, the band will release its major-label debut, Cold Snap, at a hometown hoe-down at Kingston's Baby Grand Theatre.
The new CD was recorded at Hamilton's Grant Avenue Studios and like the band's indie debut, eepee, was self-produced.
"We were thinking about using a producer," says Weeping Tile singer, guitarist and main songwriter Sarah Harmer. "But it was very passive. We thought, Well, if the right person comes along . . ."
"Then we thought, let's just do it, we know what we like. At least if we do it, we only have ourselves to hold responsible," she laughs, adding, "I was petrified for a while."
Harmer finally relaxed when they took the tracks down to Madison, Wis., to be mixed by Mr. Colson (who produced The Watchmen's last album).
"That's when I realized, hey this sounds good, I think this is okay," she says.
The band's sound has evolved dramatically since the EP, which featured a completely different lineup behind Harmer's strong, passionate vocals.
"Actually, the band pretty much broke up after the recording," she says. "But it was cool. People had other bands, and I was moving in a different direction."The guitar riffs of Luther Wright, sister action of bassist Mary Harmer and drumming power of Camille Giroux (who Joined in July) has definitely affected Sarah Harmer' writing.
"For the first EP, I wrote the songs when I was going to school, spending lots of time sitting around with an acoustic guitar," Harmer explains. "Those ones came out as a finished product before I took them to the band."
"But most of the new songs were written on electric guitar, and I'd often come to jam with an idea, a chord progression, and then I'd sing nonsense or just partial vocals over top. Sometimes we'd even play some of those songs at a gig before I'd finished writing the lyrics. Having the dynamics of the band earlier on really made a difference."
And having her older sister in the band adds another feel-good dimension.
"I always thought I'd love to be in a band with Mary," Harmer says. "We're great friends, but we've never really lived in the same town during our adult years."
Not having heard Cold Snap, I'm reluctant to slap some description on Weeping Tile's evolving sound. Yet perhaps one need look no further than the band's moniker, "weeping tile," which sounds lit it could be some evocative poetic snippet from Renaissance-era sonnet or a tear-drenched country ballad, but which in fact, in name, is a part of a septic tank.
Harmer says the band's darker side emerges on the new album's first single, "U.F.O. Rosie," which was mixed by producer and Hamiltonian Daniel Lanois, who dropped by Grant Avenue one evening.
"He's a night owl," Harmer says. "I think he was just out looking for something to do."
The video for the song, which will be their first, will reflect that darker side.
"It's being directed by Stephen Scott, who just checked out the location with us last week," Harmer says. "We're going to make it my mom and dad's farm. They have all this tall corn, so we're going to try and do this Children Of The Corn thing. It's a moody, spooky song."
