What does the whale say?
What does the whale say, anyway?
Said the Whale puts on a show
Article: Khang Nguyen – Contributor
[dropcaps round=”no”]S[/dropcaps]aid the Whale came to town on Tuesday, Nov. 26.
Ben Worcester, singer, songwriter and guitarist for the band says he’s excited to have a pint of Guinness at O’Hans and play a rock show.
The Vancouver-based indie-rock band is no stranger to Regina, having played numerous shows here since their conception in 2007.
Interestingly, their first scheduled gig in Regina never actually happened.
Worcester shares the story saying, “In 2007, we never actually made it because we didn’t know there was a place called The Club, and it wasn’t on the internet so we never made it to that show.”
They played at the Exchange on Tuesday night to play some old favourites and to show off some songs off their new record titled Hawaii.
Worcester says the recording of the new record was “a bit of a different process … it was a little bit more of a laid-back recording style.”
Reviews have been quite favourable for the new record.
Songs like “I Love You” and “Mother” have the same tempo and drive a Vaccines song would have. There are also tracks like “Willow” that include harmonies and ooh-la-las that take you back to the Beach Boys. And a song like “Helpless Son” shows off the band’s more sensitive side.
Worcester says that the band was listening to a lot of different things while recording the album.
“We got to build an album by filling the niche compartments of each of the songs, trying to get a spectrum of what we do … when you listen to the record as a whole, one might find that every song is different than the next. We’re probably influenced by a little bit of everything we listen to.”
Something the band is well known for is their music videos. A quick browse through their YouTube channel will show that these guys really like to have fun with their videos.
For their single “I Love You,” the ban donned kimonos, hair buns and fake Fu-Manchu’s to parody the old, zany, Japanese game show, Takeshi’s Castle. Another favourite is the music video for the song “Lines,” where they spoof the “Johnny B. Goode” scene from Back to the Future. However, their most famous video is titled “The Whale,” a parody of the famous Ylvis video “The Fox.”
The band and Worcester enjoy creating these videos saying, “We’re a pretty silly group of people. Our music is not that funny. It’s quite often quite serious, so it’s fun to poke fun at ourselves a little and loosen up.”
Their show in Regina was part of their final leg of the tour. The band has been on the road since Nov. 5 for this tour, starting in Fredericton, NB.
“Regina is Regina. We love it. It’s part of our existence.” Worcester says.
His love for the city is not without some exceptions though. He jokingly complained about Regina’s lack of good breakfast places and when I mentioned that a Cora’s would be opening soon he replied saying, “Cora sucks … they can cut their fruit really fancy but they’ll charge you $8 for a bagel and cream cheese.”
Said the Whale may not enjoy Cora’s, but at least they like us enough to come back!
[button style=”e.g. solid, border” size=”e.g. small, medium, big” link=”” target=””]Image: Vanessa Heins[/button]
