Hometown: Kelowna, British Columbia
Members: Duffy Driediger (vocals, guitar); Darcy Hancock (lead guitar, vocals); Sean Hawryluk (bass, vocals); Ryan Peters (drums, vocals)
Fun Fact: Recording sessions for the band’s latest album often stretched into the wee hours of the morning, thanks to copious amounts of sugary sangria.
Why It’s Worth Watching: After releasing a 2007 EP that Hancock admits “didn’t really sound like us,” the band has returned to its roots on Shots.
For Fans Of: Neil Young, The Band, My Morning Jacket
When childhood friends Duffy Driediger, Darcy Hancock, Sean Hawryluk and Ryan Peters were ready to self-record their first album back in 2005, they had a very specific sound in mind for Ladyhawk's debut. “We wanted to have a real live-sounding record,” Hancock explains. “We did it all live in the same room because we refused to wear headphones.”
The finished product, however, was not what the band members had imagined. “It came off sounding really thin and all the same,” Hancock says. The band tried to re-master the album twice, but saw little improvement. When Ladyhawk signed with Jagjaguwar Records later that year, the band accepted the label’s offer to re-record its debut.
After almost two years of constant touring and the release of the 2007 EP Fight For Anarchy, the band was ready to start recording another album. Eschewing the traditional studio setting, Ladyhawk settled on an abandoned farmhouse behind a strip mall in the guys' hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia. It lacked certain creature comforts (most notably modern plumbing), but it was cheap, and the band could play there 24 hours a day.
Hancock said he and his bandmates had hoped the house's relative isolation would help distance them from the distractions of everyday life. But the decision to let a former record exec film their recording sessions came back to haunt them. “It was actually really annoying,” Hancock recalls. “It’s just hard to be yourself because you know that people are going to watch it later.”
Despite the presence of the elephantine camera in the room, Ladyhawk emerged from the drafty farmhouse 10 days later with Shots, an album Hancock says finally captured the raw energy of the band's music that had been lacking on its debut. “We didn’t use any other effects on the album, just the sound of the room,” he says. “It sounds like the place we recorded it in, and I don’t think we could repeat that.”
Driediger's growth as a songwriter is evident on several Shots tracks, including the lonely restlessness of "I Don't Always Know What You're Saying." "I think the longer Duffy has been writing songs, the more he’s been consciously putting himself in other places," Hancock said. "It seems to me like the first album is more from personal experiences, but this one has a darker theme."
The band kicks off a 12-date Canadian tour this week, and will hit the U.S. later this year. While Ladyhawk is playing larger venues and even considering a European tour, Hancock says he and his bandmates are still wary of friends who tell them they're going to make it big. “I’m not going to listen to [them]," he says. "Those people haven’t been out on tour. We’ve played a lot of shows for just two or three people, so in our minds, we haven’t really done that well.”
It’s not the fame or the money, Hancock explains. “It’s just nice to be doing what you actually want to be doing, even if it’s just for 45 minutes a day.”
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