Villages (L-R): Archie Rankin (brown shirt), Jon Pearo (red shirt), Matt Ellis (black shirt), Travis Ellis (yellow shirt)

Behind The Title Dark Island

In Cape Breton there's a popular slower fiddle tune called "The Dark Island." It's played at a lot of funerals, and it's just gorgeous. Oftentimes the most beautiful melodies are the soundtrack for the most tragic times, and this is no exception. It's a song that we loved and were familiar with, but we recently found out that there were words written to accompany the tune in the late '60s. And this poem just knocked us over - it's gorgeous. You'd swear it accompanied it its whole life. It's like the fiddle was speaking the words the whole time. It basically describes when you're on your deathbed, and the things from your home you would pine for.

But we didn't discover there were words until after we recorded the record. So, when going through the words of the poem, there was such a common thread with these words through every song on the record that we thought it was a coincidence too big to ignore. There was even a song on the record called "Play The Fiddle All Night," which references the song. We just thought it was a perfect fit.

"Love Will Live On"

There's a lot of optimism and hopefulness in the tune. It's about decisions in your life that you need to make - something I'm sure a lot of us think about is like, What if I packed up and left all the busyness of the modern age and this life and moved to a blackhouse in the Highlands and just lived a simple life? Doesn't it seem like that's where the answer lies at times? And this song was just all about that, about actually acting on impulse and pursuing that.

Finding Light In The Darkness

We have a prolificness in our songwriting, and within certain seasons, you really grab inspiration from it. It's such a diverse atmosphere where we face such harshness at times with the weather, that we just appreciate the sunny days so much.

I attribute all that to being from Cape Breton Island. We are a very morbid people who can see the beauty in the darkness. We always see a light in the darkness, and it's something that I'm thankful that we have. It's a real gift that we're able to do that because you see so much of it that you just can't be in dread mode through it. You gotta turn the situation on its head and appreciate that harshness.

"Play The Fiddle All Night"

The inspiration behind the tune, there's two parts to it. There's the location - there's a moment when I mention John Neil George Road, which is near my grandmother's house. To the left of her house was the cemetery, and to the right of her was John Neil George Road, and it was kind of a hub for these paranormal sightings and orbs in vacant houses. There's a set of train tracks there where people swear they've seen the devil. I remember being at my grandparents' house and listening through the vents from upstairs and my papa would have visitors over, and I remember him telling a story about them seeing a man pushing a baby carriage on this gravel road - just very creepy things.

And then the other part is that in Cape Breton, it's not uncommon to hear someone say they would like a certain song played at their funeral, and they request it as they're alive. We're such a morbid bunch that it could be a beautiful sunny day and you hear the song, and we can't just say, "What a beautiful tune and what a beautiful day." We always have to remind ourselves that we are gonna die at some point. So we say, "I'd like this at my funeral."

So kind of taking that a bit further and being like, what if after I passed, my ghost was seen on the John Neil George Road, and if so, play for me "The Dark Island." And play me off to the hereafter.

But then of course the song came together with the rest of the band. We are very much a band with four equal parts writing. So when the idea was shared, I think we were set to record around October 18th, 2021, and maybe around the 15th I was like, "This is kind of down to the wire, but here's an idea." And we did it in our basement studio in 25 minutes with everybody together. We just wrote it and it made the record. That was a really exciting song to work on.

Every Idea Is A Great Idea

There's zero ego. We just enjoy the craft so much, and I couldn't be luckier to love these guys and that these are the guys that I'm working with. We respect each other's knowledge of music so much that every idea is a great idea. We're in a great place for writing, and it's like everybody's idea is as important as the other's. So it's always a fun experience.

Does Nature Influence Their Lyrics?

I think probably subconsciously it does, because it's in our blood. Being from Cape Breton Island, we're surrounded by beauty. It's a gorgeous place and you can't not reference it and write about it. And I often look for a lot of symbolism in nature. It's a huge part of the lyrics, for sure.

A Song That's Impossible To Crack

There's this band called Planxty, and there's a particular song called "Thousands Are Sailing" from the record Words & Music. It's of course beautiful - beautiful lyrics - but the part that I still have not cracked is the time signatures. I'm always fascinated with the time signatures. I've listened to that song so much and I'm just like, "What?" What are they in? And how come I love it? And how come it's like, audibly, I get it. But if I sit down and try to dissect it, I'm like, "What is it?" I can't. I don't know what it is.

I know that the vocalist and bouzouki player, Andy Irvine, is a phenom, so there's nothing simple in his repertoire at all. It's like something is constantly moving and I can't figure out the timing of that movement. It's like he's singing in a time that doesn't seem like it's changing.

The Dark Island Song That Brought Him Out Of His Comfort Zone

One that comes to mind is "Rocks In The Field." It's the closing song. When we originally demoed it, it had kind of a Waterboys, shanty, shuffley vibe. The version we recorded is less of a foot-stomping, uptempo song. It took me a while to fully understand it, and now it's a song that I adore.

There's a Bowie line where he was like, if you're in your comfort zone, you're not doing anything that's really unique or riveting. So I've always taken that to heart. And I trust in these guys when they're like, "Maybe we could do it this way" - I don't even argue or fight it. It's just like, I trust you guys 100%. And lo and behold, three weeks after it's recorded and I listened to it, they were right.

Building A Soundscape With Producer Joshua Van Tassel

He's a great soundscapist. That was a big reason we wanted to work with him. He's composed great jazz records and he creates a sonic world, and we wanted to sound otherworldly. We find Cape Breton is otherworldly, and we wanted to match that sonically, and he was able to do it and then some. Full trust in him, pushing us sonically. A great approach that he took was a live, off-the-floor recording, with minimal takes. He would consistently say, "I'm into capturing moments."

We all have a unique chemistry with one another, and I think Josh saw that and said, "Look, let's capture that." You can really overkill a tune with perfectionism sometimes. On an individual level, say vocally, I could just cut a lot of things and be like, "Let's get the best vocal of this, and let's record it 10 times and get the best phrase there." But that's not the moment, and it took me this particular record to see that and let that go and be like, "This was us playing the tune together and this is what we sound like."

February 15, 2023

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Photos: Matt Horseman

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