There is something refreshing about Sidney York.
It might be in how quick Brandi Sidoryk and Krista Wodelet are to admit their band geek pasts. It might be in their use of unconventional instruments such as the bassoon and the French horn on stage. Whether it’s their willingness to write songs about geeky subjects, or in their musical training, Sidney York is definitely a lot of fun to listen to and to see live.
The two lovely ladies of Sidney York are ready to take over the next ten months of your life, musically. Their sophomore release, <3s (Hearts), will be released in five subscriptions, two songs at a time, every two months starting today. The first volume of <3s features the title track, ‘Hearts’ and ‘Electrolove’.
We had the opportunity to chat with Krista ahead of their show at the Biltmore Cabaret last week, and found out what Sidney York has planned for the year ahead, and what you can expect when you subscribe to <3s.
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asapmusicblog.ca: 2013 was a busy year for Sidney York, not only traveling across Canada, but also to the US and Australia. What were some of the highlights from your travels last year?
Krista Wodelet: Australia was definitely a big one for us. That was the first time we’ve ever played outside of North America, so it was pretty crazy. We had a great time playing the show and we had some vacation time as a band too, which is sort of fun – we got to hold koalas and hang out at the beach.
a: With the release tour in support of <3s kicking off tonight at the Biltmore, 2014 is set to be another busy year. What are Sidney York’s New Years resolutions or expectations?
KW: A big thing for us is that both of us are classically trained – I have a master’s in orchestral performance in bassoon and Brandi [Sidoryk] has her master’s in opera. We bring our classical backgrounds into this pop realm in a way that I don’t think any other band is doing, and I guess that’s sort of an ongoing goal of ours is to try to spread the good word about the weirdo instruments. We play bassoon and French horn on stage, just to show people that you can use these really crazy instruments in a way that’s totally mainstream and listener-friendly.
a: And that’s something that people can expect from your live shows, right? The incorporation of all these different instruments that you normally wouldn’t see on stage.
KW: Absolutely! Brandi plays French horn and I play bassoon on stage. I run the bassoon through guitar effects pedals and there’s all sorts of crazy sounds happening.
a: It’s only been a week into the new year, but you’ve already filmed two music videos over the last couple of days. I saw that one was filmed at the Hycroft Mansion here in Vancouver – which looked gorgeous.
KW: Yeah, it was amazing. It was so cool – it was only a one-day shoot, but it was a long one, almost a 16-hour day.
a: I assume that the videos are for tracks coming off of <3s?
KW: We’re releasing <3s in a cool way. Instead of releasing the whole album at once, we’re putting out two tracks at a time every two months over the next ten months. So by the end of it, it will be a full ten-track album. We’re running subscriptions for it, kind of like magazine subscriptions, except it’s actually for our album – I think you can find it at subscribe.sidneyyork.com.
The first two tracks coming out, we filmed the music videos for those in October and they’re releasing soon, and then the next two to come out will be in March – those are the videos we were just doing this past weekend.
a: What lead to the decision of releasing “Hearts” in five volumes over the course of ten months, rather than just one album all at once?
KW: The music industry has really changed a lot in the last ten years, but even in the last five. Having a physical CD is no longer a really important thing for a lot of artists, just because everyone is doing digital downloads, and there’s kind of a resurgence of interest in vinyl. We thought, you know, there’s not really any good reason to just put it out as a traditional album except for that’s how it’s been done for the last however many years – we kind of wanted to try something new.
The way we’re running this subscription is not only do you get the music, which we’re releasing on 7” vinyl, but we’ve also collaborated with a Calgary-based graphic artist – which is where we’re from, to do posters. He’s doing a graphic novel in the style of the poster – we’ve got one poster that he does for each song. It’s this whole package that we want to put together for our fans. Instead of just giving them one album, we want to give them this whole experience. We just want to give them presents for ten months!
So we’re putting out 7”s, we’ve got dual covers so there’ll be two covers for each release, two posters for each release – one for each song, and we’re putting out online extras too for everybody that subscribes, behind-the-scenes goodies.
a: I love that idea! It sort of brings it back to… personally, I prefer having the physical copy of any album over digital, and this gives people a reason to support both.
KW: Yeah, exactly! If you’re going to have a physical copy and if you’re doing beautiful artwork, which we always love to do, we’ve got some great photography for this album – we don’t want to scale it down to CD size, we’d rather do it on a record! We figured for physical, we’d go a little bit bigger with the 7” and then there’s a physical thing where there’s something really beautiful instead of just a tiny little CD.
a: The track “Electrolove” pokes fun at society’s attachment to technology. Was there a specific story behind the inspiration for that track?
KW: I’m always teasing Brandi in particular about being super, super attached to her cell phone, but the truth is, we both are – I’m as guilty of that as she is. I think because we are on the road so much, we’re traveling so much, our technology is really important to us. Actually, when we started the band, I was living across the country, I was in Toronto for a couple of years for work and Brandi was still out West.
We had this long-distance work relationship where we would still co-write, I’d write a song and do a few little demo clips on GarageBand and on my iPhone and e-mail it to her, and she would load it up on hers and she would maybe write a little bit more and e-mail it back. We were really dependent on all those gadgets for when we first started writing together – I think the song maybe kind of out of that.
a: If there was a single message that you would want your music to convey, what might that message be?
KW: I think we really identify as big nerds (laughs) – we’re both former band geeks. I think what we really want, what we try to put out is that it’s a great thing. We write about really geeky stuff – we have a song coming up in a few months called “Weird For You” which is a sort of ode to nerd love. You don’t have to do what everybody else is doing. You can play the bassoon on stage and still play pop music. You can be different and still make something of value.
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Vancouver was the first stop of Sidney York’s album release tour in support of <3s, and you can more tour dates, more info on <3s, and more info on the band at http://sidneyyork.com.
