motel void

Ian Van der Wee is a Halifax-based singer-songwriter who pairs dynamic live performance with unassuming lyrical strength and tenderness.

MOTEL VOID: You’ve just released your new single, “Block Out the Sun.” Can you share what the writing and recording process was like for this track?

IAN VAN DER WEE: This song came together in an afternoon while I was taking part in a friend’s art project. The house we were working in had a gorgeous piano, and I had a bit of time while the others were setting up for another sequence so I sat down and started playing quietly. The piano had such a soft tone with the mute down and was perfect for staying out of the way of my friends. I was going through a pretty intense time in my life and something about the softness felt cathartic, so the melodies and words for this song came out quickly. I took a quick phone recording, mostly just to remember the song for later, and went back to the art project.

When I listened back though, there was something about the recording that I loved, and on a whim I decided to mix a version of it that evening. There are moments in the recording where you hear my friend’s voices and movements in the background, and because of the way I mixed it they sound soft and light, a little like they’re happening in my mind. I finished it that night and submitted it for release a few days later.

So this track ended up being one single voice memo recording taken at the moment the song was finished. In the past year, I’ve become very interested in taking phone recording more seriously, and have been learning how to tinker with them to get some really intimate sounds. Voice memo recordings are well suited to capturing vocals, but the high compression means that other instruments can sound really cool too and drums sound totally crazy haha. The first three songs on my most recent EP “Everything, Eventually” are also recorded exclusively with my phone. I recorded all the doubles and harmonies as separate voice memo tracks before compiling them. I’ve got another song coming out on September 12th called “Sway (In the Garden)” that was recorded in this way as well, and I’m hoping to take phone recording further for myself in future projects.

MOTEL VOID: This summer, you toured across Canada with Long Call, playing around 30 shows—a pretty intense schedule! How did you find the experience? What were the biggest challenges of such a long tour, and how did you stay creatively inspired while on the road?

IAN VAN DER WEE: Yeah, it was another big one this year! This was my third time touring the country with Long Call and it was so exciting and fulfilling. We saw so many friends and family along the way, as well as more and more people who saw us perform on other tours and came back to see us again which was especially sweet.

This year we made an extra effort to play shows with other artists and bands, and I think we ended up coordinating with around 16 other acts, some of whom we’d never met before. People are so incredibly kind all over the place and it’s been such a gift to perform with our talented friends and meet new people who inspire us! That being said, I’d say the biggest challenge of this tour was the planning and coordination. We sent hundreds of emails and messages and texts and made posters and merch and promotional videos and what feels like a million other things and it was kind of insane haha. Thankfully, Long Call and I share the work (and the emotional burden) because there’s absolutely no way I’d be able to do this without them.

The other big challenge of this tour was the toll the distance took on my body. We drove up to the Yukon this time and I think by the end did around 23,000kms of driving, and by the 8th week I was pretty exhausted and kind of had to hunker down for the last couple of weeks. The shows still felt incredible and we’ve maybe never played better, but I didn’t have much extra energy to explore the places we were in or take in the landscape on our way back to Halifax.

Staying creatively inspired is pretty easy touring with Long Call. They’re so good and we share a seemingly boundless motivation for changing up our setlists, bringing in new songs, and working up new arrangements for old ones. We get to play such a dramatically diverse range of venues on our tours, and it’s really fun and interesting to tailor our sets and arrangements to different types of shows. We’re kind of obsessed with presence, and always talking about ways to make sure that we’re engaging with what’s going on in a room or on stage. That definitely helps us stay creatively inspired, but we’re also totally neurotic and sometimes I need to remind myself to just play and not ruin a good show by overthinking.

MOTEL VOID: As a Halifax local, how would you describe the current music scene in the city? Are there any local venues or artists that you’re particularly passionate about or that have influenced your music?

IAN VAN DER WEE: I love being in Halifax. The people in the music scene here are so supportive and there are tons of great small venues for local artists. I’ve gotten to perform with so many of my favourite local acts, and there are shows so often that I feel like I get to see my friends play all the time.

Obviously, I spend an inordinate amount of time with Long Call between touring and our Halifax lives and so they have the biggest impact on my music. But honestly, I think just about everyone I’ve seen perform here has influenced my music. It’s kind of like being in the ocean or a big pot of soup and I feel it seeping into my bones in the most wonderful way. People here are very earnest and serious about their art, and there isn’t a lot of space for pretension which I think keeps us all honest.

MOTEL VOID: Your upcoming project, the Mount Uniacke dual album, features two different arrangements of the same songs. What inspired this approach, and what can listeners expect from each version of the album?

IAN VAN DER WEE: Through performing live with different bands and touring with Long Call, I’ve had the opportunity to rearrange many of my songs for a wide range of styles. From solo guitar to piano to full rock band, some of my songs exist live with as many as three or four possible versions. The current live arrangement of Block Out the Sun, for example, is a kind of low grooving jam with drums, guitar, and synth, compared to the solo piano arrangement that’s on the recorded version.

So the dual albums “Mount Uniacke Dreamers Club” and “Mount Uniacke Dance Club” are really an extension of what I’ve been doing with live rearrangements and an opportunity for me to push things even further by venturing into the cool and endless world of electronic sounds. In “Mount Uniacke Dreamers Club”, 10 songs are arranged in the live trio arrangement that I usually perform with the people from Long Call (guitar, drums, and synth). We recorded that album live-off-the-floor in a house in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley this past spring. In “Mount Uniacke Dance Club”, the same 10 songs are cranked up and arranged using electronic drums and synths and heavy vocal processing. I’ve been working on that album for the past year and having so much fun exploring new sounds and tunnelling in with my headphones. I spent a staggering amount of time in headphones this year actually haha.

I’m really excited to share these two albums once they’re done, and I’m hoping to have the first pair of singles out sometime next spring. I’ve also been working on a series of music videos with some very talented friends and I’ll be sharing those with the album songs as they come out. Each album has a distinct feel and aesthetic, and it’s been very motivating to try and bring out more of the character of each album through the music, album art, and videos.

MOTEL VOID: Who or what is your biggest source of inspiration right now, and how is it influencing your current work and future projects?

IAN VAN DER WEE: Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about gender and relationships, and especially masculinity as someone who was raised to be a boy. I think there are a lot of elements in traditional masculinity that prevent men from loving others and themselves fully, or at least I have found that to be true in myself and can’t help but see it in others. I want to love freely and with a giving heart, and I feel there is too much motivation to take from others when in the grip of masculinity. I’ve been thinking a lot about how the power that men take for the sake of “protecting” others is too often used for violence, and it is the threat of this violence that keeps us all afraid to love. I hope that if I can free myself from the influence of masculinity, I can be involved in a shift in power in our society and treat people better.

These themes have been making their way into many of my songs and poetry, and I’m currently working on an idea for a short film that addresses the role of masculinity in our lives more directly than I’ve attempted before. I’m also working up a collection of poems on love and masculinity that I’m hoping to release in the next year or two, and trying to find ways to keep the universalities of the human experience at the centre of my art.