Former Vailhalen frontman gets sleek and deadly with Key to the City

With their latest project Key to the City Chris Vail and his partners in pop violence have hedged their bets that less is more. A stripped-down version of Vail’s former band Vailhalen streamlined to four core members — singer and guitarist Vail bassist Pablo Puentes keyboardist Brent Gough and drummer Joel “Christy” Nye — the emphasis this time is on equal collaboration. Now after several years removed from the local limelight the revised group is set to step out once again with this month’s release of its debut album Owls of Getchü.

Vail first made his mark on the Calgary show-going community with Shecky Forme a supergroup of sorts featuring singer-songwriter Aaron Booth Carl Lukasewich and Dan Gaucher of acclaimed experimental jazz collective Fond of Tigers. This was followed by the harder-rocking XL Birdsuit with Vail and Lukasewich teaming up with Paul Coutts (The New 1-2 Twin Fangs) and Garrett McClure (The Primrods The Summerlad). Following XL Birdsuit’s dissolution Vail rounded up Lukasewich McClure and a group of his other favourite Calgary musicians including Dolly Stillito Chris Dadge Daniel Christiansen and Bob Keelaghan to form the jokily dubbed Vailhalen based on the frontman’s former stage name.

On top of all this Vail launched a home recording studio based out of his basement joined The Dudes Dojo Workhorse Killer Vees and several other side-projects fronted a Prince cover band performing Purple Rain in its entirety and managed and booked bands at the Marquee Room during the beginning of the bar’s current rebirth. Eventually it all proved to be a bit too much. Splitting off from any additional projects Vail has now decided to focus all of his musical energies on Key to the City fuelled by a newfound creative spark from both the lineup downsizing and change in moniker.

“You feel kind of dumb telling people what band you’re in when they’ve never heard of you and you tell them ‘Vailhalen’” he says with a laugh. “It’s an uphill fight already and it’s hard enough to get out there in other markets let alone overcoming the hump of a joke name. We also needed to take the ‘Vail’ out of there because it’s not just about me anymore… unfortunately.”

“Key to the City represents us more as a band now” Puentes continues. “I’ve never been very good at the sideman or hired-gun thing so for me it’s much more natural and liberating. Any idea I had before was listened to and considered but now everyone’s input is expected — and almost required. Everything gets filtered through all four heads now which is great.”

With several songs percolating from as far back as 2005 Owls of Getchü is a sleek danceable and painstakingly crafted collection of pop tunes with nods to the ’80s in both synthesizer tones and exaggerated emotions. “If you like Peter Gabriel or Kate Bush” Vail offers “you might like this.” Utilizing imagery of vampires mummies wolfmen and other supernatural creatures (sample song titles: “Back in Black Lagoon” “I Am Invisible Man”) as cleverly penned metaphors the album’s lyrics delve into relationships the pain of unrequited love and passed-on family traditions topics any man woman or monster can relate to.

“Because they’re all on one album at first you’re just going to think about B-movie horror flicks” says Gough. “But looking at each of the songs separately most of them say much more about extended themes than just the subjects on the surface. We never wanted to take the monster thing too far though so I don’t think we’re going to start playing Halloween shows as a novelty band unless we got paid really well.”

“I started to get into a lyrical rut so I decided to contrive a specialized rut just to break some habits” Vail says in semi-seriousness. “Themes seem good for us as well so the next one’s going to be about King Arthur. No one’s done our idea of having it on ice with figure skaters and an orchestra.” ( For further reading see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myths_and_Legends_of_King_Arthur_and_the_Knights_of_the_Round_Table )

Owls also includes an impressive list of local guest performers with Jay Crocker violinist Foon Yap cellist Clea Foofat and the late Dan Meichel all contributing their particular instrumental talents. While Vailhalen’s last long-playing effort Pop Violence found the recordings peppered with whatever the group could find in the Henry Wise Wood high school band room (including gang vocals from the girl’s rugby team) the latest album’s overdubs were much more carefully considered.

“We’ve probably got even more bells and whistles on this one but they’re all really really specific” Vail explains emphatically. “It’s not like Pop Violence where we just said ‘Throw some junk on! Keep it coming!’”

“That’s when Chris was going through a Hidden Cameras and Gentlemen Reg phase” Gough gleefully chimes in. “He was just experimenting though.”

While there’s been a considerable break since the last time they performed together onstage the band members are excited to dive back into Calgary’s musical pool and are confident that that their stripped-down lineup will find them leaner meaner and firing on all pistons.

“There’s definitely been a bit of re-tooling” Gough explains. “You’re not going to hear that on the album as that was when there were seven people in the band. It was actually less a hiatus and more of a transition period because there are certain gaps when three people in a group leave. It was just a matter of figuring out which ones we wanted to fill and which we wanted to leave vacant. Coming out the other side we love having a bit more breathing room in the songs instead of being jam-packed all the way through.”

“People really enjoy the pared-down four-piece line-up” says Puentes. “To a lot of people it actually sounds fuller and more direct than it ever did before.”

Somehow it all comes down to the lingering presence of Prince. Vail says it’s unlikely they’ll cleanse themselves in the waters of Purple Rain again anytime soon but other cover band projects (some more topical than others) are definite possibilities.

“We’ve talked about picking another album and actually started rehearsing Off the Wall a little bit” he says. “Hall and Oates has been tossed around and Brent was thinking about an all ‘yacht rock’ night just for my dad. Parents only bring your birth certificate.”

Top 10 other bad pun band names Chris Vail could have gone with

10. Vailhalla

9. A Vail Of Two Cities

8. You’re So Vail

7. Vail Air Singers

6. Chad VailGaalen

5. The Painted Vail

4. Vail Spin

3. Tones On Vail

2. Vail Kilmer

1. A Whiter Shade Of Vail

Tags: