Interview with the Wilderness: ‘We really cut every song to pieces and reassembled it – we put them under the microscope’

Kingston, Ontario rock band the Wilderness will bring out their brilliantly anthemic third album Strangers I Used to Love on 12 April.

Billing themselves as ‘bringing the piss and vinegar of young DIY road-dogs, the lyrical eloquence of Canada’s folk heroes, and the musical grandeur of your dad’s favourite arena-rock band to any stage they can find’, think the lush vocal harmonies of Hozier, the driving guitars and soaring saxophones of Bruce Springsteen, a dash of Lumineers and the effervescent choruses of Noah Kahan, held together by an unmistakable bond of brotherhood and a shared love of rock ‘n’ roll.

Composed of one Brit, two Americans and three Canadians, the Wilderness formed in 2015, consisting today of Jonas Lewis-Anthony (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Nick Lennox (saxophones, acoustic guitar, backing vocals, keyboards and percussion), Max Tinline (lead guitar, backing vocals), Tðnu Karl Tombak (bass, backing vocals), Liam Neale (keyboards, percussion) and Henry Lawrence (drums). Many of the band members know each other from school and Lewis-Anthony, who is originally from Canterbury, Kent, in the U.K., moved there around 10 years ago: ‘I knew them from around, at an open mic, and I was like “We should start a band!”,’ he said. Neale adds: ‘Henry and I went to school together, we were both from the States originally. I could only play three chords on the keyboard seven years ago! We got Nick in steps (laughs), the first time we were like “We should jam” but by the third time, it was like: “He doesn’t have a choice, you’re in the band now!”‘

‘We’ve really leaned into the name over the years, we’ve driven to parts of Canada that people don’t normally go to’

Their band name was inspired by a documentary called ‘Alone in the Wild’ that Tombak watched: ‘We’ve really leaned into the name over the years, we’ve driven to parts of Canada that people don’t normally go to, like Labrador,’ Lewis-Anthony said laughing. ‘You basically drive straight along a dirt road for 600 kilometres to get there! We were driving through the remote region there and took the one wrong turn we could have taken and then proceeded to drive 100 kilometres in the wrong direction, ending in a dead-end!’

Strangers I Used To Love is an incredibly polished 10-track album, comprising songs that wear their heart on their sleeve, propelled along by Lewis-Anthony’s warm vocals, honest storytelling and the tapestry of layered instrumentation weaving in and out of the tracks. It’s the kind of album you listen to and put it straight back on once it finishes. ‘Musically, it’s a modern rock record, a classic rock songwriting style,’ Neale said. ‘I like to think it’s very interesting, it’s a really nostalgic record. A lot of the songs are centered around growth, decisions in the past, both good and bad, and taking stock of that.’ Lewis-Anthony agrees: ‘There’s a distinct difference between being 21 and 30, or pushing 30,’ he said. ‘We were were so bewildered and wide-eyed back then (laughs) but the last nine years have been the most formative and the best.’

In January, they released the title track from the album ‘Strangers I Used To Love’, which has a huge, anthemic Springsteen-like feel to it, mixed in with a bit of Gaslight Anthem and when I say this, Lewis-Anthony is delighted: ‘I’m the biggest Springsteen fan and The Gaslight Anthem is my favourite band,’ he said excitedly. ‘They’re the reason I got into music. I’m from Kent in the U.K., I came here after my A-levels ten years ago. I didn’t go home during COVID. It was my mum’s 60th birthday and my sister was getting married in July 2022. It was 40 degrees there, I’ve never known that before! I was really homesick during COVID, the song was inspired by my girlfriend when she was over there being very polite speaking to my mum’s friends and family, but she said if she had to make any more small talk about Canadian winters one more time (laughs). During COVID, I’d painted this image about what Canterbury was like but when I was there, it didn’t fit the image in my head. That’s where the “strangers I used to love” comes from, people felt like strangers. The song got chopped up and rewritten a thousand times.’

As the track kicks off: “I’m making small talk with strangers who I used to love about Canadian winters and how much it hurt. To get those tattoos on my fingers and what it means. Do they see a stranger when they look at me?”

‘On the island, we took our feet off the gas and just enjoyed it’

Inspiration for the album came last winter from an island in the middle of nowhere. ‘We found this place for rent last winter on this island here, Howe Island, I threw in a Hail Mary (laughs) and said: “Can we rent it for the winter?”,’ Lewis-Anthony said. ‘We rented it for six months. One day, I was strumming the guitar in the living room and Karl kept saying “What about that strangers song?” I’d kinda given up on it but fast forward to May last year, coming down to the wire when we were going into the studio, I didn’t feel that the verses connected with the chorus, but then we started playing it live and people connected with it, we saw we were onto something. When Sasha left the band in 2021 , it felt really difficult, he’d been with us from the start. It felt like the band was almost destroying our friendship. On the island, we took our feet off the gas and just enjoyed it. Nick said it best, he said: ‘It’s the overarching theme on each song, a vignette of those strangers.’

What really brings ‘Strangers I Used To Love’ together is the sweeping, soaring chorus and the intricately layered harmonies on it: ‘There are 40 layers of gang vocals on it. We doubled and tripled, did harmonies. Steve, our producer, we aged him by 30 years!’, Lewis-Anthony said. Neale laughs: ‘He’s definitely got a new patch of grey hair!’ Tinline’s guitar solo in it complements the track beautifully, managing not to detract from the rest of the song, which is no mean feat, given the pull it has. ‘Max has great tone but he gives it space,’ Lewis-Anthony explained. ‘The way he plays is so complementary to the band. He tried to use the most nostalgic tone, with delay and reverb.’ Neale agrees: ‘He’s a great songwriter as well, that was really helpful for crafting the album. Max’s fingerprints are all over the album.’ Lewis-Anthony jumps back in: ‘I’ve heard a million songs that have a shreddy solo and I just tune out after a while. Max’s soloing is very lyrical.’ Neale weighs in: ‘There’s a song on the album called ‘The Underpass’, it has a quiet bridge section and a four-note guitar pick up into a solo. The only way I can describe those four notes is “perfect”. Max plays so well in that song because it builds to this moment.’

I say that Lennox is a one-man band, given the range of instruments he can play and they laugh: ‘We’re going to surgically give him two more arms,’ Lewis-Anthony quipped. Neale agrees: ‘The goal is for Nick to play all the songs by himself!’

Getting into music took them both on a different journey: ‘When I was first getting into music, I watched ‘School of Rock’ and thought: “I wanna do that!”,’ Lewis-Anthony said. ‘I was obsessed with My Chemical Romance, I still am. I got an iPod from my dad in 2009 and listened to two songs that changed my life – ‘Don’t Think Twice’ by Bob Dylan and ‘Idaho’ by Josh Ritter, it’s just a guy with an acoustic guitar. He’s barely playing, there’s so much space. I wrote my first song that night, it was trash (laughs) but it changed my perspective as to what music can be. ‘Handwritten’ by The Gaslight Anthem is a work of art.’ Neale, for his part, had a heavier introduction to music: ‘I grew up listening to a lot of heavy metal, my cousin Matt really got me into music,’ he said. ‘Bands like Metallica and Pantera. I thought ‘Cowboys from Hell’ by Pantera was so cool, I need more of it!’

‘It’s got tongue-in-cheek lyrics about destroying your life to have a beautiful time‘

Lewis-Anthony describes ‘Hollywood Boulevard’ on the album, as being ‘like an overture for the album’: ‘It’s got tongue-in-cheek lyrics about destroying your life to have a beautiful time. I wanted that for a while (laughs) but that person is a stranger now. It’s ourselves as strangers, looking back on our childhoods.’

The album also marks a mature step up from managing their expectations when the pandemic took hold: ‘In 2020, we had so much momentum, we won an award “Best Emerging Artist” at Indie week in Toronto, then the pandemic happened, we couldn’t gig and we lost all of our momentum, we were driving each other crazy,’ Lewis-Anthony said. ‘As hard as it was and as challenging as it was, I’m so glad things didn’t take off the way we thought. We weren’t ready, we would have burned ourselves out. Being patient has made us better friends and musicians – and patience is not my thing!’

Neale’s favourite tracks on the album are ‘The End of Highway 1’ and ‘Words Get in the Way’, which is also my favourite on the album: ‘Nick wrote ‘Highway 1′ during COVID, at the end of 2021, I was just floored by it,’ Lewis-Anthony said. I thought: “How do you do it?!” ‘Words Get in the Way’ is my favourite to listen to, we open the set with it.’ Neale nods: ”Words’ was the first song written for the record in 2020, it existed probably for two years, then we went on tour last summer and stopped to see friends in Thunder Bay. We sat down at our friend Ryan’s studio and finally got a solid take of that song. He said: ‘It’s really great but did you know it’s over five minutes long?! That’s too long for radio, you’ve got to cut two minutes. But it made it the strongest version of the song. Having the house on the island also allowed us to do things over and over. We really cut every song to pieces and reassembled it, we put them under the microscope.’

‘We met at bible camp at 13, we bonded over neither of us wanting to be there’

Older tracks, such as ‘Christina’ (2022) have a sweet provenance: ‘Christina is a friend of mine, we met at bible camp at 13, we bonded over neither of us wanting to be there,’ Lewis-Anthony said. ‘We bonded over music. Later on, we’d tell our parents we were going to do bible camp stuff but go to concerts together (laughs). She lived in Winchester, where my gran lives, so I said to my parents: “I’m just going to see granny” but went to see Christina instead! We’ve caught up a lot, Christina and I, over the last two years. There’s an Easter Egg – the art for the song is a 2009 picture of a singer she took at the O2 in Islington (London) of The Maine, from Arizona.’

The new album also marks a shift in how they write their songs, according to Lewis-Anthony: ‘I almost always have an idea for a story and the music comes later,’ he said. ‘If I don’t have a story, I have nothing to write about (laughs). It was super liberating this time to write lyrics with the others, to draw on their experiences.’

‘Dancing in the Dive Bars’ (2018) will resonate with anyone who’s a fan of sticky floored venues with great music. In the case of the song, it’s a Springsteen cover band playing at the dark and sticky venue: ‘That song started when I went over to my friend Cody’s house, I was lying on his couch saying that everything is terrible!,’ Lewis-Anthony said. ‘I had this idea for a song and wrote it for fun in his living room, we wrote it together. It very quickly became one of the most popular songs in our set.’ I ask them if the woman in the song doing a bad fake English accent is based on someone they know. ‘My ex-girlfriend would do the accent after a few drinks,’ Lewis-Anthony said. ‘It drove me mad! It’s a song that we played at a venue called The Brooklyn every Friday, it’s now closed. There’s a bit of nostalgia in there. When they closed, they gave us the sign (he goes to get it and show me), we keep it in the studio.’ Neale adds: ‘A lot of us work in bars and restaurants around Kingston, so it resonates with us.’ I ask him how sticky the floors were. ‘The floors were disgusting!’

‘I’ve always liked the way he makes music, it sounds futuristic, angelic, but you can hear that concrete grating your eardrums!’

Since 2015, the Wilderness have been earning their following by cutting their teeth over countless long nights and hundreds of thousands of kilometres. Their debut album, Until Tomorrow, was produced by Rob Baker (the Tragically Hip) and charted on the NACC’s top 200 list for seven consecutive weeks. Their forthcoming 2024 LP, Strangers I Used to Love was written in collaboration with JUNO panelist Steve Foley, Brett Emmons (The Glorious Sons), and Chris Koster (ex-The Glorious Sons).

Their dream line-up offers something for everyone: ‘The Boss, The Gaslight Anthem, Sam Fender and Noah Kahan, The War on Drugs – and we’re headlining! Dua Lipa as well and Sierra Ferrell,’ Lewis-Anthony said. ‘Sam Fender has been a huge influence on everyone in the band.’ Neale agrees: ‘Sam Fender and Noah Kahan, they resonate for me like Bruce Springsteen and The Gaslight Anthem resonate for the band. There’s heavy imagery, their songs are very anthemic, they make you feel a lot of things.’ Lewis-Anthony nods: ‘The War on Drugs are so cool, groove driven, and sonically, they’re remarkable. With them, I’m more drawn to the music than the lyrics, which is unlike me.’ Neale laughs: ‘They play a lot of cool synthesizers! And Trampled by Turtles, one of my favourite folk bands, they’re from Minnesota.’

They have also covered Springsteen’s ‘Atlantic City’, in both a tribute to the man himself and their departed band mate: ‘It’s more of a big rock song, we play it live,’ Lewis-Anthony said enthusiastically. ‘We decided to give Sasha a send off when he moved back to England. It happened to be the 30th anniversary of his Nebraska album (on which the song appears).’

Neale would like to go for a drink with American rapper and songwriter El-P: ‘The keyboard stuff I do comes out of his beat making and what not,’ he said. ‘I’ve always liked the way he makes music, it sounds futuristic, angelic, but you can hear that concrete grating your eardrums! I’d like to shadow him.’ Springsteen is also the musician that Lewis-Anthony would most like to meet: ‘I have to meet The Boss before I die and I know exactly what’d I’d ask him and there’s only one right answer!: “Does Mary’s dress “wave” or “sway” on ‘Thunder Road’?” I hear “sways”. I think it’s the best six-line opener to any song – she’s dancing, Rob Orbison is on. You know it’s summer, you know she’s not in a rush, you’re there.’

(Top photo: Back row, left to right: Hank and Tõnu. Middle, left to right: Max, Liam and Nicholas. Front: Jonas. Photo credit: Ted Simha-Webster.)