Image of Sea of Lettuce and CJSW Interviewer Aldi Lloshi (right).
Sea of Lettuce performs during Sled Island on Friday, 11:30pm at Ship & Anchor.
TRANSCRIPT:
Aldi (CJSW)
Go ahead and introduce yourself first.
Daniel L’Amarca
My name is Daniel from the band Sea of Lettuce.
Caolán Ayres
I’m Caolán from the band Sea of Lettuce.
Aldi (CJSW)
What are your guys’ roles in the bands? What do you do, even outside of just what you play?
Daniel L’Amarca
So I’m the bassist when we perform live, and I also produce all of our work at home. And as for Caolán:
Caolán Ayres
I just, I just play the drums, and I show up to stuff like this and get the drink tickets. Apart from that, just the drums.
Aldi (CJSW)
How does it feel to return to Sled Island?
Daniel L’Amarca
It’s really exciting. Last year was was cool, because we’ve known about Sled Island for so long, and you always hear about it, and just getting to play it for the first time was unreal. And then we had such a good time that finding out we’re coming back, we just couldn’t wait.
Caolán Ayres
And especially to play at the Ship & Anchor this year, we’re so excited for that, that’s such an iconic venue within Calgary. And we’ve wanted to play that forever, so we get to play at the Ship & Anchor, to play at for Sled Island. We’re super excited for that.
Aldi (CJSW)
Ship & Anchor seems to be a dream spot for a lot of Calgary artists.
Caolán Ayres
100% and, like, I’ve been to shows there and the the vibe inside, or even just to go there for a night out drinking, like, it’s such a nice place. So I think to headline a Sled Island show there will be definitely one of our cooler shows that we’ve gotten to play. So I’m super excited.
Daniel L’Amarca
And just to add to that, we we’ve been there for beers so many times without actually playing a show there ever, and we’ve seen other bands we’ve known play shows there, so like, getting to do that as well. Yeah, it’s really cool. We think it’s gonna be a special night. So we’re pretty stoked.
Aldi (CJSW)
Do you have a specific stage, dream as big as you want that you would love to play at?
Daniel L’Amarca
I mean, big as I can go, probably Madison Square Garden. That’s maybe a little too lofty. But within Calgary, I think getting to play at the Palace one year would be awesome, we’ve seen shows there, and the sounds awesome, the vibe is always unreal with the crowd. So that would probably be my local dream venue.
Caolán Ayres
For me, I think, before she’s gone forever, if we could play the ‘dome, that would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty big capacity to try to fill out in the next two years before it’s gone forever, but the dream is still there.
Aldi (CJSW)
What do festivals like Sled Island mean to you guys, where it’s a community coming together, and uplifting all of these artists?
Daniel L’Amarca
I think it’s unreal, and you can’t really overstate how important it is for people like us, and bands like us, and all the other local bands throughout the city, also artists outside of Calgary as well, but specifically for people from Calgary, this is the big one in Calgary. So it really motivates artists to play it. And for the people that attend the festival, it’s such an exciting way to see all the things going on in your city that maybe you didn’t know about, because there’s a lot that could slip through the cracks, right? Like you might be a big fan of local music, and there’s still probably 1000 bands you don’t know of that this festival can bring you towards.
Caolán Ayres
I think that these kinds of festivals where it’s a weekend long, community type thing, and you have, musicians, visual artists and even, local vendors and stuff like that. They all kind of come together to show what kind of Calgary is about, in a sense. And there are similar ones, we played one in Toronto, with a similar kind of structure. But I think, each one is so unique still to the city. Sled Island feels very Calgarian in its own sense. And it’s always leading up to stampede and stuff. And on the way here, I see the Cowboys tent and stuff being set up. And it’s just such a uniquely like Calgarian thing. And I think that Sled Island plays such a like big part of that, and bringing that feeling to Calgary around this time?
Aldi (CJSW)
You mentioned discovering new artists, is there any artists that are a little on the smaller side, that you guys particularly want to see at Sled?
Caolán Ayres
I’m really excited to see Babe Corner there. I just saw them open for Peach Pit at the Grey Eagle a few months ago, and they were unreal. So when I saw the Sled Island lineup get released, and I saw them on there, I thought iI absolutely can’t miss that.’ I’m really excited to see them. I think they’re playing at the Palace as well, and it a cool venue too.
Aldi (CJSW)
You guys have been pretty involved in Calgary music for a long time. How do you feel like you’ve grown into it?
Daniel L’Amarca
I actually think Calgary plays a pretty big part in like our sound, like everything about our band, whether it’s the shows we’re playing, primarily in and around the city, or even just playing into our writing on the different albums we’ve put out. Calgary is, I think, a very unique city. We were just in Toronto, for example, and it just it makes you realize that Calgary is pretty unique. When you go somewhere like that, it’s almost got a bit of a small town feel in a big city. Still, you go to Toronto and it almost feels like there’s like a billion people there. But I just think that almost small town feel, and I know we have like, 2 million people here, but I think that does play into how much we love the city. It influences us, all the way down to the things like the weather, even, whether it’s the cold, awful winters here, or the beautiful summers, things like that, play into how we write our music.
Caolán Ayres
I think, recently I’ve been noticing, when we first started playing shows, at least as Sea of Lettuce all together, we were so young, barely old enough to even be able to get into the bars to play. So we always kind of felt like the like kids at the venue, we always felt like we were much younger standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak, playing at these shows. But now, I’ve noticed that the last couple shows we will play with a band, and they might be 19-20 years old, and they’re talking about how, they have been listening to us for a long time, or they saw one of our shows a few years back, or whatever. And it makes you feel old in a way, but also it’s really cool to kind of be growing into that next stage where you’re not the babies of the scene. We’ve been doing it for so long that, you kind of grow into a veteran of the scene, so to speak. So I think, I don’t think we’re there yet, but I think I’m definitely noticing us getting there, and instead of us showing up and being the ones excited to play with the other bands and stuff, because we’ve grown up listening to them, now the shoe is on the other foot. Which is a weird feeling, but it’s really cool.
Aldi (CJSW)
Do you guys feel any pressure being the veterans in the scene now?
Daniel L’Amarca
For me, personally, I do a lot of the booking. I love it because it feels like we have connections and contacts now that you build those relationships over the years, and you get to know people, and not only getting better at performing live the more you do it, but you get to know people that are in your crowds all the time. So I wouldn’t say it’s pressure. I think it’s more of just, like comfortability, and it’s still exciting, but insteadfeeling more comfortable in the places you’re playing, the people you’re meeting and who your connections are, that’s what I get from it.
Caolán Ayres
I totally agree.
Aldi (CJSW)
How do you influence each other in the music that you make?
Caolán Ayres
Prior to making music together even if we weren’t in a band, we would still all be best friends. We were friends prior to music and went through elementary and junior high school together and everything. So it’s always felt like, not just when we get together and we’re recording or jamming or practicing for a show or whatever, it does feel like just hanging out with your friends. So I feel that we’re all able to inspire each other, in that sense, by creating that environment where you’re not worried about sharing your ideas, or you’re not worried about what these people are going to think of you, or anything like that, because we’re more comfortable with each other than we possibly could be. So I think that’s at least very, inspiring to me, being able to feel like I can show up to hang out with my friends and still be creating music and doing the thing that I love. But definitely Daniel is the the creative powerhouse of the band, and does so much of the production and the booking and even like merch and stuff like that. I think Dan’s work ethic inspires all of us, I think everyone should try to be a little bit more like Dan, I think.
Daniel L’Amarca
How do I even follow that up? That’s so nice. I think what he was saying before, I totally agree with the idea of, because we’re all friends. It’s not hard work, because it’s not like you’re at a job with people that you just you get by and get through the day with. We love doing this, and it’s so fun to create together and perform together. We influence each other just by watching each other and just seeing how we work and how fun it is to do that all together.
Aldi (CJSW)
Where does the musical process kind of start for you guys?
Daniel L’Amarca
It’s weird, I think a lot of bands maybe start with lyrics, they write the song and then they build the instrumental around it. We don’t typically do that. I usually think more in terms of, like, the sound of it and the instrumentals first. As for what instrument kicks it off, I think it’s probably a different one on every single song. It’s just whatever you’re you’re playing that day. Like those drums sound nice. Let’s see what we can add on keyboard, or, I like that bass. Let’s see what we can add with guitar, right? So I’d say it typically starts with instrumentals, and then we kind of work together a lot of the time. Specifically, me and Voytek our singer. We collaborate on the lyrics, and we we share our experiences and where we come from, like what we’re thinking fits best over that instrumental. And I think that creative process where we’re working together allows it to be pretty seamless when we’re pulling together the final product of the song.
Aldi (CJSW)
Is there any specific projects or performances that really stand out to you, something that’s super memorable?
Caolán Ayres
Over the last couple years, we’ve gotten the opportunity to go to different cities and stuff like that, and kind of get the touring musician feel for things. Whereas, it’s very hard for bands just starting out, or people who are super young, maybe they’re in school to take the time off to go on a tour. So for me, I think being able to just go somewhere all together, to another city or another province or whatever it might be, and do what we do here over there, I think always feels very special. You could be playing in front of six people, and it still has that feeling of, ‘Oh, well, I’m getting to travel around and do this thing.’ So I think for me, that any of those shows where we do get away from the norm, I think those are pretty special to me.
Daniel L’Amarca
For me this whole past year and a half, I’d say was, was pretty special, because we had our most recent album, Any Day Now, come out. And I do believe that was our, our best work. It was so fun to create, and the whole release cycle for it, the promotion cycle, it was really fun. Playing those songs live, we love playing those ones and I feel like everything about that album was really exciting, and so that probably sticks out to me at this point in the band’s life cycle for the greatest memories we’ve made so far come around that album.
Caolán Ayres
We also did our first real music video during this album release. And I think that also was so cool to get to do, because it’s a different medium for music. We know nothing about videography and getting to work with people who do that for a living and are passionate about it, it was really cool to have that melding of two art forms come together of the musical and the visual. So I think that also was, really special, and something that we’d like to do a lot more of.