The Hello Darlins are a new collective of acclaimed Canadian musicians that are continuing to shake up the Americana scene. Here, we interview Mike and Candace from The Hello Darlins about their Christmas EP – Heart In The Snow – recording their debut album and the collaborating with Joey Landreth.
Hi guys, how have the past few months been? You guys have been so much more productive than seemingly everyone else in the universe.
Mike: Well, right before the pandemic hit, we finished this album, which was about 12 songs deep. We thought ‘well let’s just start releasing material and let’s keep writing, let’s record a Christmas album.’ We’ve kind of taken it as an opportunity to be creative and just move forward.
It must be nice to connect with people through music, even if you’re not doing it in person.
Candace: Yeah, I think we live our lives with music being the answer – it’s just a fundamental value that we have, so pandemic or not, the world still needs music. People still want to listen to it and have something new to share.
Honestly, I don’t know how we’d have got through this year without music. It is the universal language in terms of being able to connect with people and understand that other people are going through the same thing and you can understand different people’s experiences.
Candace: Totally, and it’s always been that way, even from when people would share a 8-track or they’d share an album with someone else, that’s always been the history – sharing a great song with someone that you just came across.
There’s nothing more personal than someone sending you a song and saying ‘I was just thinking about you when I heard this.’ I first got introduced to your music with the stunning track ‘Aberdeen’ with Joey Landreth. Can you talk a bit about that song and having him be a part of that song?
Candace: ‘Aberdeen’ was a special song to us anyways, it was the last song to be written for the record and we set up the piano one morning. Sometimes you have to work really hard to have a song come to fruition, but that was one that just kind of came from the heavens. There’s a story behind it, it’s about a friend that we knew who passed away really suddenly a year ago. She had such a special spirit, she was a photographer and a creator and she loved the Calgary stampede, which is the rodeo with horses and things. The song was for her, about her story and it meant so much to us when we wrote it, we thought ‘how do we choose the right voice?’
Mike: Joey was perfect for that, he was absolutely the right pick for that song. He has so much emotion in his vocal on that song.
Candace: We love him and his heart, he got it right away.
With the dual meaning, that must have been important to have someone who got it right away and you didn’t have to explain and to connect straightaway.
Mike: Absolutely, he can emote like no other.
Candace: He’s a deep, deep dude and we’re really grateful that he did the track and put his whole heart into it.
You recorded the whole album at your studio in Calgary. Can you talk a little bit about the musical scene out there in Alberta?
Candace: Well the band is a group of musicians from Western Canada and so we recorded components of it in the studio, but then we also have been able to work and collaborate with a few other studios as well and musicians across Western Canada. The Western Canadian music scene is great, I think some of the best musicians in the world – there’s a pocket of them in Winnipeg.
Mike: I think Calgary is very much a country music city here in Canada and a lot of country music gets recorded here.
It’s many years since I’ve been in Calgary but I remember it’s so rife for inspiration – it is so beautiful out there.
Candace: Yeah, we are about an hour from The Rocky Mountains and it’s definitely a very inspiring place. The landscape of the prairies in Western Canada – it’s a good source to draw from when it comes to roots of music.
Can you talk a bit about your separate musical backgrounds before you came together to form The Hello Darlins? Did you both have very different styles? What was the evolution?
Mike: I’ll speak for my wife here, because she won’t talk about herself so I’m going to talk about her. Candace got a gig with Shania Twain when she was 17 years old as her back-up singer. So she has a lot of experience with country music, but I would say that she’s also very soulful and has a lot of pop sensibilities. She had a career as a pop artist as well.
Candace: I think pop and RnB and soul, I love all the great vocalists. I love Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey – those were just my inspirations – but we were raised on country music and roots music. My grandfather was a bluegrass musician, so that was always the blend. Mike is from British Colombia, so a few provinces away from where I grew up but I think your inspirations were more rock influenced. The B3 was fundamental to building his career and blues.
Mike: I’ve spent a lot of time in the blues for sure.
Candace: So, different influences but they’re all woven together.
That’s the cool thing about forming a band, bringing together these different streams and forming something new and special.
Mike: That’s kind of the Hello Darlins – it’s a melting pot of a bunch of different styles. I agree with you, that’s what keeps it interesting as a musician is to change it up all the time and explore new sounds and challenge yourself, just learn new things.
Candace: That’s a tough question for artists when they’re establishing what direction they’re going with their music is ‘what box do you fit in?’ Often times, because you’re a creator, you don’t want to be put in one box.
You’re all individuals and you’ll be even more individual when you come together as a band. You’ve just released your Christmas EP, what has been the journey toward that? I always think how hard it must be to create any original material for Christmas because there’s so much content out there, but you’ve done it…
Mike: Little interesting story about this, there’s a song on there called ‘One More Christmas’ which I believe is the first song that Candace and I ever wrote together years ago. So the first song that we ever wrote together for us was a Christmas song.
Candace: We write a lot for other artists but it was the first song we wrote that was really personal that we thought ‘let’s keep it.’ We actually re-wrote it in Arizona, which was a little different. Canadian Christmas is so connected with the snow and all that but Christmas has a spirit to it, it has a feeling and a tradition, it’s not difficult to draw on those senses when you think about it. When we’re songwriting, it doesn’t matter what the genre is, we always have this philosophy where we ask ‘what’s the movie? What’s the movie behind the song?’ When you think about it that way, kind of in the vibration of that, so this movie was a Christmas movie.
Well going along with that then, was it a bigger challenge to then reimagine the Christmas songs that you knew?
Mike: Yeah, and you want to be respectful of the tracks you’ve grown up listening to.
Candace: That’s even harder, I think it’s even harder to do justice to a song that’s such a classic. We decided to not go with a really traditional song, we went with one from the 60s that’s more a universal message of peace and connectedness.
Well as I said it’s a fantastic project and to have made it so cohesive and original is a great achievement.
Mike: We appreciate it.
Now, your debut record is coming out next year, how excited are you and what can we expect from the project?
Candace: That’s a good question. We are really excited and we’re not rushing the process, we’re staying true to the title of the album which is ‘Go By the Feel.’ From that perspective, we’ve been able to give the project time and space to kind of speak for itself and the singles that we’ve released were not really planned, they just felt like the right time – they felt like a good time and message to put out in the world, that’s what has kind of guided us. In terms of the writing and style…
Mike: I like to think of the rules of The Hello Darlins are that there are no rules.
Candace: It is very roots-y, everything is still based on real instrumentation and vocals. There are a few surprises that we have and songs that won’t be released as singles, there are quite a few little surprises of other vocalists. What I will say is that every song means something to us, it’s not just like ‘oh that’s a great album cut,’ every song connects to the spirit of the band.
That’s the way it should be, every song gives something to your fans.
Candace: We’re just so lucky with the musicians who have been a part of the project.
Well hopefully you get to play it out next year!
Candace: Yeah and I think one of the things we love the most is the live show – the live show is so vibrant and it’s actually a little different from what the album is, the album is a little laidback and the live show is so energised, so we can’t wait. It’ll happen eventually.
