The Architects Interview

We heard through the grapevine that one of Full Spectrum's favourite bands were preparing to head on a cross Canada tour. We decided to catch up with Blair Hogan, the lead guitarist of the band and see what the future holds for indie rockers the Architects.

Scott D. Brown: Are you excited about the upcoming tour?

Blair Hogan: We are definitely very excited for this tour. We have been home all winter and desperate to get back on the road. We've never been coast to coast before and this is definitely the longest tour we've done to date, so it should be a great experience. It's a lot of work to book a tour independently, and you can take a certain amount of pride in going across the country on your own ticket. We've done quite a fair bit of touring for an indie band, but this should really put us up on a new level and give us some more clout.

SB: Where are you going?

BH: We are kicking it all off with a big home town send off show at Barrymore's on March 18th. From there we spend about a week around Southern Ontario, and then head up through Northern Ontario, then out west. This takes us through to the first week of April, and then we drive home for just under a week. Then we head out to the east coast for 2 weeks.

SB: Have you been to these places before?

BH: We've toured the east coast several times and are starting acquire a solid fan base out there. We've been told our Halifax show is being hyped quite a bit and we always have a blast in places like Antigonish and Saint John.

We've been all over Ontario a lot as well and have had the pleasure of playing with some great bands from that scene. That portion of the tour should be great as well.

The west coast will be a first for us. There's always been that huge distance that scares indie bands. There are very little towns and places to play at some points so you can't refuel or make any money. But once you get out west the scene is great so we're excited to be going out there!

SB: How is the new album being received?

BH: The new album is being received very well. It's been out independently for about 5 months and all over Ottawa stores have been selling out of them almost faster than we can restock them. It is also available in some of the cities that we've toured in, but not having any distribution though a label makes it hard to get it across the country. Our MySpace page is very high traffic though, and that at least gets some of the songs out to kids all over, and helps us get people to shows out of town.

SB: For our readers who are not familiar with the band, how did you guys get together in the first place?

BH: We got together in late summer of 2004. The Architects were, at the time, just Trevor Strange and I (Blair Hogan). Trevor and I had been playing together off and on for years, and I was at the time playing bass for Trevor Strange's live back up band and helping with various instruments on his solo recordings.

One day Trevor and I just decided we wanted to start something new and real and go at it with everything we had. That had always been our collective goal, but we were getting tired of all the uncertainties and part time back up band stuff. We were going to start a new band like Ottawa had never heard. It was going to have a new name and a new sound, and we were going to jump right into the scene, using the clout that each of us had from our previous musical endeavors to ensure that people took us seriously.

So, with that said, we chose a name (which came from a song by The Decemberists that was very fitting to our current situation) and then we booked a headlining show at Barrymore's for September of that year. Being July, that gave us a very strict deadline to get a band together, rehearse and hype the new band and the show like crazy.

So we set off to work and got it all done. We found our band and hyped ourselves up like crazy. The show was almost sold out, which, considering no one had heard us or even knew who we were, is pretty good. From that point on we were in the Ottawa music scene working hard. We continued to draw very well, and began opening for big acts coming through town. We then started to tour in summer 2005, and exactly one year after our first show, we released our debut full length album at Barrymore's. This time the show was actually sold out.

Now we continue to tour and promote the record, and we're preparing to record a new EP, and shop it to independent labels.

SB: I saw the CD at the CD Warehouse on Merivale recently. Do you have a deal with the outlet?

BH: We just have the CD there on consignment. It's basically the only way a band without a distribution deal can sell their albums in stores. We just give them a certain amount of CDs and get a receipt and when they sell out we bring them more and pick up a cheque. They've actually been selling out quite a bit at the three CD Warehouse locations which is great!

SB: Tell me some of the bands that passed through Ottawa that decided you were good enough to open for them?

BH: Well we've definitely opened for some good bands coming through Ottawa, but it's not necessarily been the bands that have decided to have us. They don't often have a lot of say with that sort of thing because they have booking agents, but because we have a pretty good reputation as a band that draws well, club owners have come to us when they have bigger bands coming to their clubs. Eugene from Zaphod's has always been really good to us and has had us open for bigger label acts like Stabilo, Matt Mays & El Torpedo and The Novaks. He also played a big part in getting us onto the main stage on opening night of Bluesfest last summer. That show saw us opening for '70s funk giants War, and subsequently playing for almost 10, 000 people, so we owe a lot to Eugene and always help him out whenever we can.

We were also invited by the staff of the Kanat Canaday Festival to open for '80s Canadian rockers Glass Tiger (seriously). That was a good/funny experience.

SB: Are you looking to a local label like Music for Cats Records or Kelp Records or would you rather have an American or Toronto indie label pick you up? Vancouver and Montreal also have some good local labels.

BH: At this point it's kind of up in the air. When we get back from this tour we are recording an EP strictly for shopping to labels, so that will be the focus then, and we will figure out all those details. Ideally we are looking for a somewhat established indie label, mostly because we have done a lot independently, such as putting out a full length album, doing several lengthy tours etc., so it wouldn't make much sense to get on a label that would only be able to provide the same amount of support we've managed to create for ourselves.

We definitely know how hard it is to get on the right label, but we feel that we've begun to prove ourselves as far as dedication and professionalism goes, and especially after this coast to coast tour, we may have some clout to the industry. We've been grabbing people's attention as a hard working band, but our goal has been getting the touring experience independently. Now that we've put out a record and toured on it for several months, it's time to record new material (that we feel is a good representation of how we've evolved musically) and focus on getting some label support. There are definitely a lot of good independent labels in Ottawa and the rest of Canada, and they will definitely all receive our press kit with a fresh demo in it and we'll see what happens.

SB: Thank you for the time Blair and I hope the tour is successful.

BH: Thanks for having me.

Related Links
The Architects - Official Site
The Architects - MySpace
The Architects - Pictures


Other Links
The Architects - Concert Review
Peter Elkas - Concert Review
Steve St. Pierre - Concert Review