Driving out of Kingston, 2AM on a warm September Saturday night. The large, lumbering van, a beast of a vehicle that's witnessed more that its fair share of Canada rock, pulls onto the 401. Behind me, the band is ready to slip into slumber as a near-full moon beckons me westward. We pass Sir John A. Boulevard with the people's radio on the stereo, as veteran warhorse Dave Bidini broadcasts his new CBC overnight show from Toronto.
A voice crackles through the airwaves, accompanied by sparse acoustic guitar, singing of old perfumes and forgotten tunes now recalled. The voice belongs to a young Kingston woman, but it's seasoned with the acquired age of years spent playing rock'n'roll. Looking across at the city lights of Kingston, I can picture Weeping Tile's Sarah Harmer singing "Old Perfume" into a Walkman late at night somewhere across town, after another sweaty night of guitars at the local watering hole.
This exquisite moment in time notwithstanding, Harmer is not at all a melancholy, late-night chanteuse. For the most part, Weeping Tile's new album, Valentino, tosses out the cellos, pianos and acoustic guitars that decorated the band's earlier work. In their place are layers of garageland electric guitars, enhanced vocal harmonies, and an exuberant energy that dominates the proceedings.
When Weeping Tile released their last album, Cold Snap, in the fall of 1995, it signified the arrival of Harmer as one of the more engaging figures in '90s CanRock. She mined traditional Canadian Shield guitar rock in a tradition spanning Neil Young to Change of Heart, confidently asserting her place in a stylistic institution that has been fairly exclusive boys' club. Her lyrics were peppered with references to Canadian geography ("Good Fortune"), meteorology ("Poked"), history ("Westray"), and twentysomething ennui ("Basement Apartment") delivered in a crystal clear voice capable of tasty melodic acrobatics.
Harmer has always been the core of Weeping Tile, being the songwriter, central focus, and bandleader through several line-up changes. But somewhere in the two years since Cold Snap, Weeping Tile became a full band. Guitarist Luther Wright, the longest surviving bandmember, has since become her right hand man, and the anchor of the band's electric punch. Drummer Cam Giroux has honed his backing vocals skills, and adds his own personality to a band that had gone through several drummers before him. The woman known only as Sticky replaced Harmer's sister Mary on bass in the summer of '96, contributing her wry sense of humour and a ferocious hidden track on Valention.
The current line-up is the band's most consistent since its inception. The means, according to Sticky, that "it feels like we're just about ready to kick somebody out."
At the album's late August launch party in Toronto, the band is relaxed before playing for all their friends and family at a private show. They're also nursing red wine hangovers from the hometown release party in Kingston the night before, but their excitement for the new album is obvious.
"It's totally more of a band record," says Harmer. "We toured for two years for Cold Snap, so when we went to record it was much more of a powerful thing rather that built up from the very beginning." Wright in particular finds the current line-up much more creative that in the past, particularly at practice. "Our jams have been really free-wheelin' and exciting ... we don't even work on songs necessarily. We'll rehearse for a show, but everybody plays guitar, drums and everything else, so just playing music is fun. All the band business can get stressful and a little wired, convoluted and unreal, but everyone stays pretty grounded."
The band has remained grounded through several achievements. Plucked from obscurity touring the 401, they were signed to an American faux-indie label owned by Atlantic Records in 1995 along with Rusty and The Inbreds. That spring they were the talk of Toronto at the North by Northeast festival, and Cold Snap was released that fall to glowing reviews. A year later, they had attracted small but loyal followings across the country while their American label folded and Cold Snap's sales didn't match the preceding hype.
"Expectations were, whatever," says Harmer dismissively. "When we were recording it and when we finished it, I thought Cold Snap would sell more. .. but it didn't really bum me out. We never really know what's going on. Not living in the city, we keep outside of the industry somewhat."
"We're kind of pumpkins at heart, it seems, or small town folks," adds Wright. "We spend enough time in Toronto to appreciate it, but I don't know if we'd get much of a buzz if we lived here." "It is nice not to be around it all the time," Harmer continues. "It's kind of role-playing, finding out how the whole thing works. When you write songs and record them, that seems to be really personal stuff, and our own undertaking. After that it goes to public and it all gets kind of weird, when other people have their own expecting us to be a certain way. But it's fun, fuck, it's great. We get paid - not much, but we get to pay our rent. We're by no means rolling in any kind of clover."
Harmer grew up in Burlington, where she sang back-ups with roots rock band The Saddletramps before heading to Kingston to attend Queens. An early version of Weeping Tile had already recorded a full-length cassette (abbreviated and re-released on CD as Eepee in early '95), when Wright - Kingston native _ phoned her up and offered her an opening slot for his band The Mugworts. The Worts, which also features Giroux on drums, still play occasionally, and Wright has his own project, Luther Wright & the Wrongs, whose 1997 debut CD was produced by Harmer.
Harmer has sat in the producer's chair for Weeping Tile recordings since day one, a job she still relishes. "You get better at it," she explains. "It's about listening, being awake and alert and being the one who has their eye on the whole picture. I was behind the console while (they) were all playing, cracking the whip: 'Pick it up, Giroux!'" she boasts mockingly.
One of Valentino's best moments is the aforementioned "Old Perfume," a track the band stumbled on while playing some odds and ends for their friends in the Hamilton band Flux. "I was going to play them some fool-around fourtrack stuff that we had been working on," explains Wright. "We were scanning through this tape, pressed play and this song came on. We said, 'Hmm, this sounds like Sarah.' We all sat around and listened and thought it was beautiful. Julie (from Flux) said, 'That has to be on your record!'"
"I think I sang that into a Walkman," remembers Harmer. "I'm pretty sure I wrote it and (immediately recorded) it. ThereÕs a couple of extra words in there that aren't even really words, just like 'eeeeaaaahhh.'" "Performance over fidelity every time," Wright adds.
The band is gearing up for a western tour with Flux in the month of "Rocktober." Veterans of tours opening for road hounds like Blue Rodeo, The Watchmen and Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, the band has acquired a few road tips along the way. "A sense of humour is really important," says Wright. "Especially when 23 hours and 10 minutes a day is spent not playing music, so 50 minutes you do get to be onstage, you have to make sure you have your reservoir of energy ready for that. Everyone seems to have their own formula for it."
"We have this tiny guitar now, so we can play in the van," adds Harmer. "The scenery is so awesome, too. Not to be a naturalist or anything, but - being a naturalist - the scenery helps."
After being the perennial opening band for so long, they're ready to take the country on their own terms. "We were fortunate enough to do (the opening tours) because it got us out there, but after all this time we're ready [to go alone]," says Wright. "Hopefully those days are behind us, at least in Canada. It's satisfying to let it rip for over an hour and do your own thing."
"We're fucking pros now," laughs Harmer.
