Slow Down Molasses evades responsibilities for rock ’n’ roll
Slow Down Molasses might seem like a band without a plan — but it works. Very much a collaborative revolving door of musicians not unlike say Broken Social Scene the Saskatoon alt-country rock and shoe-gazer ensemble may (or may not) feature between six and 11 teen collaborators from bands such as Carbon Dating Service No Birds The Bloodlines and The Paper Kites by the time they touch down in Calgary for a gig at Broken City Social Club on March 17.
Overwhelming? Maybe. But singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tyson McShane argues that Slow Down Molasses is something that happens when responsible late 20- and 30-something adults act er irresponsible.
“We all have a lot of things going on” he says with a chuckle. “Careers families children… that sort of thing. Despite all that we knew we loved playing together and we always wanted to keep the band going in some way. I was really the only one who had the time to focus on it and the ability to focus on it…. We all want to do this stuff and it’s completely unreasonable in some ways but there’s this perpetual draw to play music and be together as much as possible that just doesn’t seem to want to go away.
“We keep having a better time playing and people keep responding to it more” he adds. “The whole idea has grown into an existential acceptance of what the hell you do with yourself when everything inside of you is saying ‘We’ve got to play music!’ Because it’s wonderful. And means so much.”
That kind of genuine passion seems weird in the formulaic and disposable landscape of just about any popular music in 2011. But growing up in Prince Albert Sask. in the mid-’90s McShane already had an attraction to the indie-rock mentality of early Sub Pop bands such as Mudhoney Eric’s Trip and of course Nirvana. And despite his adolescent fixations — and the fact that his mother was a music teacher — McShane admits he was a late bloomer.
“There was always music in the house” he says. “And she tried to get me to learn piano but I failed miserably! In the early ’90s the whole Seattle explosion got really exciting when the indie scene kind of became mainstream. Those Seattle bands were something that I really got excited about and I realized there was similar stuff in Canada — it was the era of print media and television and prior to the Internet. Seeing [Halifax’s] Eric’s Trip on MuchMusic was a big deal. I could see the possibilities even from a small city in Northern Saskatchewan.”
Fast forward a little over a decade after finally learning a few chords and honing his songwriting skills McShane launched the first of many incarnations of Slow Down Molasses. First he released an EP in 2007 toured the country with his band of merry men and women and well acted responsible for a time. Now however he has written and recorded yet another batch of songs — and launched Walk Into the Sea — and is ready to embark on an 18-city Canadian tour. His newest album he says is something that makes his project feel like a real band. Sort of.
“I can feel the evolution of what I thought I was supposed to be doing if that makes sense” he offers. “The first album was just the first batch of songs I wrote myself and Patrick [Schmidt guitarist] wrote a couple more and we used that as an opportunity to understand what we were going for. That record had a whole bunch of banjo and acoustic guitar; this one has only a couple in that vein. We’ve gotten into bigger arrangements and more textured guitar strings…. Stuff like that.”
“By creating that kind of atmosphere we now have a much more I guess defined idea of what the band is what we wanted to accomplish and how to go about it.”
Playing live over the past several years only enhanced the studio experience but McShane admits that old friends and prospective new fans can still expect the unexpected when the group walks onstage.
“Uh it’s still a bit of an evolving thing” he says of the Slow Down Molasses live experience. “One of the things about playing with so many people all the time is that it almost makes it easier when there’s a core group of us and we quite simply have less options! There’s six of us on this tour — a couple of guitars keyboards banjo effects random other instruments…. We create a pretty grand wall of sound. We don’t have a horn player with us on this tour but that could change by the time we get to Calgary. Do you know any good horn players?”
