Tony Dekker

Lost and Found

While experiencing the album Lost Channels by the Toronto-based band Great Lake Swimmers, one finds a deep unity to the songs, a sustained, elegant sound that encourages the listener to consider the recording as a whole. The album was made partly in the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River, at the eastern edge of Lake Ontario. The band worked in several spaces with unique acoustic environments including Singer Castle in Hammond, New York, and St. Brendan’s Church in Rockport, Ontario. The extra effort was worth it, confirmed by the fact that the album was shortlisted this year for the Polaris Prize. Several songs stand out on the record, especially ‘Pulling on a Line’ and ‘Still’, yet the songs maintain the feel of brush strokes on the larger canvas of Lost Channels.

Before playing a well-attended set at Jericho Park on the closing night of the Vancouver Folk Festival, Tony Dekker, the Great Lake Swimmers lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter, fielded a number of questions on topics ranging from his early musical influences to the best conditions for songwriting. Asked about recording Lost Channels in the Thousand Islands area, and perhaps cultivating a sound that corresponds uniquely to that part of Ontario, Dekker quickly distances himself from the idea. “I don’t think that I’m consciously going for any sound in that kind of way. I’m proud to hear people say that it sounds distinctly Canadian. I’m happy to be a part of that tradition.” Indeed, the album may have roots in a particular place, but ultimately it moves successfully through all particularities to arrive at something more universal. This is abundantly clear in the song ‘Still’. It is a defiant piece of songwriting by Dekker, and the band closed their performance with it at the festival. The lyrics reveal a genuine desire to focus on certain ideas that others may have abandoned, retrieving the frequencies of significant ‘lost channels’:

I’m still tuned to an instrument of greater and unknown design
I’m still looking for direction, some kind of sign



This fall Great Lake Swimmers undertake a tour of the United States from late September through the end of October. In November they will play a series of shows in Europe, primarily in the U.K., France, and Germany. Early in 2010 the band will tour in China, and they will return to play dates in Canada late in January.

The band also recently contributed the song ‘Send Me A Letter’ to Friends in Bellwoods II, a compilation album released on the Toronto label Out of this Spark. The album is a major component of an effort to raise money for the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto. It is available online and in various stores around the city.

CI: You have experimented with recording in a number of different spaces – a castle, a church, and so on. Have you been satisfied with venues for live performances? When you take such care to get the correct sound for an album, do you find a certain venue helps you to capture that again live?

TD: Yeah, definitely. We don’t always get to play in interesting acoustic spaces for the live show, but when we do it’s certainly appreciated. We strive to incorporate that in our tours and try to do that as much as possible, play in acoustically unique places. It’s not always possible, but it’s nice when we get to.

CI: With Lost Channels, you recorded at the eastern end of Lake Ontario in the Thousand Islands area. I had the feeling that, as I listened to the album, the sense of place comes through in the songs in a way that is somewhat rare in this country. Obviously artists from Newfoundland often have a certain sound, and a lot of Native Canadian artists have a specific sound and sense of place in their music. Are you trying to cultivate an Ontario sound, something that corresponds to that specific place?

TD: I don’t know. I would like to think that there is something larger than just that happening. I think it’s more important to not really focus on where the sound is coming from, but that the sound sounds like it comes from a place. It’s more important to me, in the larger sense, that people tell the stories about where they’re from in their own way, and ground themselves in a sense of place. I don’t think that I’m consciously going for any sound in that kind of way. I’m proud to hear people say that it sounds distinctly Canadian. I’m happy to be a part of that tradition.



CI: I saw the recent interview that you did with Brian Williams in New York, and you mentioned Leonard Cohen and the influence that he has had. He has moved back and forth from writing lyrics to writing poetry to writing novels, very successfully obviously, and with your lyrics, which are a notch above most, do you ever imagine trying your hand at writing poetry or a novel?

TD: Well, I don’t know. I write a lot of poetry as it is, actually, but it’s not published or anything. It more supplements my songwriting, and it keeps my brain moving. I have a real passion for it. I’m not sure. I haven’t really thought about it, but it’s not out of the question, I guess.

CI: You were raised on a farm in the Niagara region. What sort of farming operation, just out of curiosity?

TD: My parents have some land and raise crops. They’ve tried their hand at different things over the years.

CI: I understand that you weren’t raised in a particularly musical household.

TD: Well, aside from church. Both my parents sang in church, especially my dad. Most of my early musical information came from church and A.M. radio. There’s not really anyone in my family that plays instruments or is into music in that way, but my parents are kind of churchgoing people, so they took me to church every weekend since the time I was born, essentially. I wouldn’t say that they’re musical, but it’s not that they’re unmusical. There isn’t any other musician in my family. …

CI: As I listened to the song ‘Still’ on Lost Channels, there is a sense of defiance in the lyrics and in the music as well. You are still taking some things seriously which other people have passed beyond in our scientific, technological society. It struck me that you were still taking very seriously the sense of wonder that you get from the natural world, and from feeling small from time to time. Is that something that just came naturally, that sense of resistance to the dominant technological way of life?

TD: Well, I think that there definitely needs to be a balance, but I think that the balance has tipped too far the one way currently. Yeah, that’s an interesting song to pick out of that group as an example of that, a sort of stubborn perseverance or something. To me it just kind of makes sense. I think that a lot of acoustic music these days is being made as a reaction to all this digital stuff, this disposable culture that we’ve been getting. A lot of songs and albums aren’t treated as a lasting artistic statement. They’re seen as something that is just there to be consumed and thrown away. I’m very conscious of that. I find it very disagreeable.

CI: In that sense, Lost Channels sounds like it was made very much as an album, and in some way there is a resistance to that idea of going song by song with MP3s. It’s more a complete album, and I’ve noticed that trend with a number of Canadians artists. For Joel Plaskett to release a triple album in the digital music age takes a little bit of guts, I think.

TD: Yeah, what a great record …

CI: Do you get the sense that, among musicians, there is a real resistance to shrinking music down to just getting a single out, just getting a song on iTunes and hoping, and instead going back to making full and complete albums?

TD: Well, I don’t know. I prefer to see a song in the context of an album. That’s just the way I like to listen to music. I don’t think that we’re a band that is necessarily driven by having a single out. It’s more about the whole statement and the whole idea, the bigger picture I guess, than just having a catchy single that people grab onto, or something like that. But I also understand. I have an iPod - you know what I mean? I like being able to carry around eight thousand of my favourite songs to have access to a small section of my library when I’m away.

CI: Always I try to avoid asking about the meanings of songs or where certain songs come from, but I always ask about conditions for songwriting. Is there a certain set of circumstances – in the day, at night, on the road, at home – some situation that works for you better than others? Have you noticed any pattern?

TD: No, if anything I’ve noticed a lack of pattern. Every song is different. I don’t have any kind of system for writing a song. Sometimes I spend a week on two lines, or sometimes I’ll just pour something out stream-of-consciousness and it’s all right there on the paper and ready. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes I’ll put a song on the back burner; if it doesn’t make it on a record, I’ll revisit it a year or two later even, and see if I can come at it from a different angle and make it work. It’s like a puzzle, rearranging the pieces. Sometimes you’ve got to look behind the couch and find that lost piece. I don’t know. There are lots of different ways. The most important thing about songwriting is just to try and make yourself as available as possible when the inspiration comes, wherever that may be, on the road or in the middle of the woods. Or while I’m driving - it’s kind of dangerous, but I’ve got my notebook beside me and scribbling stuff down!

CI: Well, it’s good to know that you’re writing songs as you’re on the road …

TD: Literally, yeah.

CI: The roots of the band are in Ontario, but as you move across the country and you play – you played here recently, and now back again in Vancouver.

TD: Yeah, we had two sold out shows in Vancouver on our spring tour.

CI: Have you got a place that you find you enjoy playing to the most, a particular city that is responding in a unique way to what you’re trying to do?

TD: We played in St. John’s, Newfoundland, for the first time this year, and I was so excited to go there and be there. I would say that that was definitely a highlight for me on this last trip, and I would love to be able to go back there. We had such a nice, warm response there, and what a great time, too. That was really cool.

Being at home in Toronto, we have such a nice audience there, and it’s always nice to play a show there. But across the country we’ve had great shows: Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver. We’ve had such a great run this year. In Ottawa we played a show at the Blues Fest this past week and had a great response there. It’s kind of hard to narrow it down to one.

CI: Last question for you. There is an album being put together in Toronto, a compilation, through the Out of this Spark label, called Friends in Bellwoods II. [It was released on August 25th]. I saw that your band has contributed a song on there [called ‘Send Me a Letter’]. Maybe I’m wrong on this, but you’re sort of straddling the line between the indie music scene in Toronto, which is a scene unto itself, and now broadening out. Are you trying to make sure to keep those connections in Toronto as much as possible?

TD: Yeah, it’s not so much about maintaining connections. That compilation is for an important local charity. It’s a lot of friends that are on that compilation, too, and I really respect and admire what they are doing. I took time out to donate a track, an unreleased track, to their compilation, and it’s for a really good cause. It’s close to home. That one was kind of a no-brainer. It wasn’t really about maintaining any connection to the indie scene. It was more about, ‘these are my friends, and I would love to contribute a track to this’. It’s a worthy cause.

Date of Interview: 07/19/2009
Location: Jericho Park, Vancouver, B.C.
Link: www.greatlakeswimmers.com