Kasador: ‘They speak from a place of vulnerability – taking an honest look at love, self doubts, mistakes, frustration and triumphs’

Kingston, Ontario rock band Kasador have released their latest single ‘Crawling’, a beautiful track which takes a trip down memory lane.

The band comprises Cameron Wyatt (vocals/guitar), Boris Baker (bass) and Stephen Adubofuor (drums). Their name is a play on the Spanish word ‘cazador’, meaning ‘hunter’ and is a reference to their former band name, the Will Hunter band, named after the original singer in the group who has since left. Wyatt met Baker at university ‘just kind of through the music scene’: ‘Stephen, I knew through the Ottawa music scene as well,’ he said. ‘I played in adjacent bands, we went through a whole bunch of drummers. It was a bit of a Spinal Tap scenario! We eventually landed on Stephen, who I had known prior. We played in some other groups together.’ Of their new band name, Wyatt says: ‘We almost broke up over making it! I thought it was a dumb name at the start.’ Baker laughs: ‘Me, too!’ Wyatt continues: ‘I think we delve into different sub-genres as well. It’s not super random but because it is kind of our own word (laughs), we can make it mean whatever we want.’

‘Crawling’ was born out of memories of Wyatt’s childhood: ‘It started off with a sentiment of a site,’ he said. ‘I traced my steps through my old neighborhood to try to remember a time before. I think I was actually driving through the neighbourhood where I grew up in Ottawa. If you ever think about a place that you’ve walked in, if you could see the footprints of where you’ve been in the past, and I thought of where I used to play with my brother on that front lawn there. I thought about all of the things that bother me now that didn’t bother me then. I imagined putting myself in those shoes again to remember a time when all the things that were bothering me now didn’t exist and that sentiment led into the larger scope of the song.’

‘It started from a bass line, which turned into another song, then we lobotomised the chorus of that one into the verse of this!’

It’s a nostalgic, heartfelt song with a warm groove, beefed up by a huge, singalong chorus underpinned by lovely gang vocals and slide guitar: ‘Actually, it started from a bass line, which turned into another song, then we lobotomised the chorus of that one into the verse of this,’ Wyatt said laughing. ‘It came from a very random place and found its way to what it is now. There are a bunch of us singing, I think I’m doubled on there. When we do recording, we like to bring in a few other friends or producers and if we’re in the studio for 10 days or something, we’ll have some musical friends come visit. And if we’re doing backups, they might jump in on some things.’

Wyatt jokes that writing the song was ‘a bit of a blur’: ‘I had this bass guitar part and I turned it into a more complete instrumental,’ he said. ‘I added some lyrics and some other things that I just made by myself on my computer. The chorus of that song and the lyrics that I had written basically became the verse of this song, and in a similar melody and sort of similar key. And then it went through a whole bunch of iterations.’

‘Let me just regurgitate one of my own experiences with an ex-girlfriend’

Baker weighs in: ‘This one took a little bit,’ he said. ‘I remember Cam had started working on it right at the start of the pandemic, before even there were full-on lockdowns. I went over to Cam’s and he had a verse and the chorus, “the driving past the farmer’s fields, hum away to the radio” part and I wrote the other pre-chorus about harbour park. I was like: “Let me just regurgitate one of my own experiences with an ex-girlfriend” (laughs). So I tried my hand at building out more of a complete demo over time, which was a good rabbit hole to go down, but we didn’t end up taking that. It started out without a chorus and then we thought on it for a while and thought maybe we needed one (laughs). At one point it was: “I don’t need you crawling back to me”.’ Wyatt interjects: ‘I remember I was listening to a song, ‘See Through’, by The Band Camino and the chorus was a story, it didn’t really repeat and so I think that was my goal in writing that.’

As the track kicks off: “I chase my steps through my old neighbourhood. To try and remember a time before you. I miss the days that I would waste on something that I could throw away.”

Typically, Wyatt does the bulk of the songwriting, although other people also leave their mark on them: ‘We have a different process almost for every song seemingly but usually I’ll do the bulk of them,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll toss them off the wall, get people’s opinions, some other lines here and there and make it like a more band sentiment,’ he said. ‘I think when I do a bunch of writing, or when I try to create lyrics, I usually almost adjacently use something related to something that’s real in my life but also I imagine if I’m writing a story that’s maybe more fantastical – not necessarily theoretical, it’s like a story adjacent to something that I either do feel or maybe think that I can feel about something.’

They’re constantly shaking up the influences in the band: ‘It’s an ever-evolving thing but there are ones that I know that Cam and I would definitely have in common from growing up,’ Baker said. ‘Bloc Party would be one of them, and Kings of Leon, they make their way into what we do. I hear a lot of that in our rough mixes.’ Wyatt agrees: ‘The Beatles were a huge one for me,’ he said. ‘And John Mayer.’ If Wyatt could put together his dream line up for a night, he picks a brilliantly eclectic lineup: ‘I’d probably go with a mix of modern bands I really like and legendary artists that would have been a privilege to see perform live, so maybe The Beatles, Paramore, James Brown, The Strokes, Aretha Franklin, Chris Stapleton, and Steeley Dan!’

‘It’s that cathartic passage of time, it comes from the heart and a place’

‘Squeeze’, which they released as a single in February, could be a Springsteen song, building to a massive, rousing chorus that you could imagine the crowd singing along to enthusiastically. Wyatt describes the track as being born out of the idea that ‘music can speak on a deeper plane than conversational language’: ‘I feel like finding solace – not even necessarily on the nose of finding healing through music – but just being able to speak about things that feel impossible to cope with, such as the loss of a loved one or facing mortality – how to deal with impossibly difficult things and put them into a song,’ he said. ‘It’s about being able to relate to the idea that these things are going to happen, so how can we move forward and feel okay about it? It’s that cathartic passage of time, it comes from the heart and a place. The old singer, Will, who was part of that song, lost his father and his now wife also lost her father as well. So it came from a place of a lot of loss and reconciling that.’

As the track goes: “I won’t be the one to let you down. Cut the brakes at the top of the hill, just out of town. When the lightning strikes, I’ll be there in the rain. You can hold my hand and squeeze through the pain.”

I say that this song reminds me of another Kingston, Ontario band, The Wilderness, and it turns out that they’re friends: ‘It’s funny you say that because Jonas (Jonas Lewis-Anthony, their frontman) at one point, when we were doing our soul searching, he did a version of that song!,’ Wyatt said enthusiastically. ‘Actually, he’s one of the voices in the chorus of ‘Crawling’, too.’

‘I did a bunch of lessons and a bunch of soul searching to level up to a place where I thought that I was worthy of being the singer of a band’

The soul searching he’s referring to came when William Hunter left the band in 2019 and they were trying to decide how – or if – to move forward. ‘The configuration with me singing seemed to work out,’ Wyatt said. ‘So I put in a lot of work, I did a bunch of lessons and a bunch of soul searching to level up to a place where I thought that I was worthy of being the singer of a band. I’ve always loved singing and it’s always been something I’ve wanted to do.’ On their first record, they had an in-between phase with Hunter and Wyatt sharing lead vocal duties. ‘I remember one time Cam brought a cover to the band,’ Baker said. ‘You composed it with you singing it,’ he said to Wyatt. ‘And there was a whole: “Is Cam going to sing it or not?” In my memory, you felt a bit sheepish to be doing that.’ Wyatt agrees: ‘Circumstances are often not conducive to you fully exploring your vocal identity and strengths until it’s thrust upon you,’ he said. ‘Now there’s the space, it’s not like there are other singers (laughs). It allows me to explore and be free to develop fully in that role, which has been fun. I do love a good challenge and it’s very challenging!’

I ask how Lewis-Anthony’s version of ‘Squeeze’ compares to theirs: ‘It was really similar,’ Baker said. ‘We were demoing a bunch of songs in 2021 and we had had ‘Squeeze’ sitting around since 2019. It was one of those ones where we thought: “Let’s revisit this one, maybe that’ll spark new life in the song”. Jonas had been through a very similar situation, where a girlfriend of his had gotten very sick, so the song resonated with him. And he said: “I’d like to try that one”, so he sang the lead on the demo. This time last year, we went in and recorded it and Cam sang the lead. We brought in a piano player and built it out to be more full, sonically, into more of an epic arrangement. It’s good to change it up a bit, we knew that we wanted to make that song all about supporting that emotion that the vocals and the lyrics are gonna give you to help tell that story.’

They’ve woven years of tumult through their mid- and late-20’s into something powerful and real: a tight-knit, sincere rock band hitting full sprint, as exemplified by their album Youth last year. As the title suggests, it’s a record about youth, memory, relationships, and how the relentless passage of time shapes and constantly reshapes all of those things. It’s a bright, punkish, emotional guitar-led record that essentially tracks the process of learning to be okay with not being okay.

‘It has that lust of life and feeling excited and feeling like a kid again, in certain ways’

The title track ‘Youth’ was Wyatt’s take on lockdown: ‘I don’t know what your situation was but there was a lot of sitting inside kind of doing nothing here,’ he said. ‘It felt like especially in the arts world and being a musician – I don’t know why, maybe everyone feels it equally – that there was really a clock ticking on. I feel like there’s a sentiment of being in music, whereby if you don’t make it by a certain age, you’ve got to get a real job, so it was this feeling of wow, all of my chances are just dwindling away and you see all the other bands calling it quits. There was the sentiment of losing time, that something was fleeting. I think that is a pretty universal sentiment, regardless, because you’re always younger yesterday (laughs).’

Nonetheless, there’s a joyful exuberance to it, despite the song’s darker undertones, with a driving drumbeat that pulls it along and lifts it up: ‘It has that lust of life and feeling excited and feeling like a kid again, in certain ways,’ Wyatt agreed. ‘It’s fun, upbeat, and has semi-punky-ish vocal expressions. I think it’s guttural and fun! At the time, during lockdown, I felt like what I was good at and my value to the world and all that I’ve worked hard on was not necessarily useless, because it’s not like it’s going away, but it wasn’t able to be expressed. I lost my sense of self value, so it’s nice to be able to do it again.’

As the song goes: “I break, for days, and think of what went wrong. I lost it in the fog and then the fog’s gone.”

‘We added more effects on top of that distortion, crazy noises – we leaned into that frantic overdrive!’

‘Lock On’ on the same EP shares a similar punky energy with an energising defiance: ‘I made a demo that had drums and bass and then I sent it to Cam,’ Baker said. Wyatt jumps in: ‘I think it also used to have a completely different chorus, which is a little more melodic,’ he said. ‘We stripped it back and took it out – we could use that again (laughs). The lyrics are like a fever dream, a stream of consciousness crazy thing. With the guitar, we wanted it to sound punky. Like ‘Helicopter’ by Bloc Party, the way he delivers the lyrics is so interesting to me, it’s become a part of how I hear things. I wanted to try to emulate that a little bit. We tossed a bunch of crazy distortion on the guitars! There are certain points, if you have a bunch of distortion, where you take your hand off the guitar and it feeds back the amp like crazy. We added more effects on top of that distortion, crazy noises (laughs) – we leaned into that frantic overdrive!’ 

If money was no object, Wyatt knows exactly what type of guitar he’d buy: ‘I think mine would be a fully custom guitar with humbuckers and single coil pickups, some kind of crazy shaped body, potentially semi hollow, with a blend of colours.,’ he said. ‘Given Boris’s track record of buying basses, I think his would be a rare vintage 50’s, 60’s bass with a storied background of greatness!’

After sharing stages with Arkells, July Talk, Sam Roberts Band, and The Glorious Sons, and racking up 350,000 spins of their 2019 debut full-length in six months, Kasador recorded Youth at Bathouse Studio with The Glorious Sons’ Brett Emmons producing and Nyles Spencer (Half Moon Run, July Talk) engineering.

‘These songs are sonically fairly akin to the ‘Youth’ album with some gritty but polished rock/indie elements with some sometimes punkish inspired vocal deliveries’

Next up will be five new songs, which they are currently editing, and they are mulling which one to release first: ‘With the record Youth, we picked four singles and the song that has naturally done the best, ‘R.I.P. Me Down’, because it seems to be the one that has gained the most traction without us setting up any ad campaigns, music videos or other standard marketing tactics,’ Wyatt explained. The names of the new tracks are still in the works: ‘Sometimes it can be hard to pick a name that we find to be both compelling and illustrative of the song,’ Wyatt said. ‘We’re currently sitting with ‘Revolution no. 10’, ‘I Don’t Hate You (But I’m Trying)’, ‘Winter Weighs’, ‘Golden’ and ‘Talk’, which is the one we are having a hard time thinking of a good name for. These songs are sonically fairly akin to the Youth album with some gritty but polished rock/indie elements with some sometimes punkish-inspired vocal deliveries! They speak from a place of vulnerability – taking an honest look at love, self doubts, mistakes, frustration and triumphs.’

The band has had some hilarious cases of mistaken identity, as Wyatt recounts: ‘A few years ago, we were on tour in the States and on one of our off nights, there was a showcase and some Ontario bands that we really look up to were playing – The Glorious Sons and the Arkells, along with some different bands we hadn’t heard of. During the intermission, we were in the lobby getting a drink and this group of girls comes up to us and seemed really excited to meet us. They ended up buying us all drinks and asked to get photos with us. We were feeling pretty great knowing that we had some fans in the States!’ It wasn’t until the girls asked why they didn’t have a (British) accent and said how excited they were to see them play later that the penny dropped: ‘They thought we were Barns Courtney from England, playing next! My heart rate started to increase as we all looked at each other with the same feeling of horror. We immediately made some excuse to get out of there and couldn’t stop laughing – all while holding the drinks they bought for us!’

If he could go for a pint with anyone, Baker picks Rage Against The Machine bassist, Tim Commerford: ‘He’s my fave of all time,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘He’s very good at building his own pedals without saying how (laughs). I’d get him tipsy and loose lipped and find out what he does!’ Wyatt is laughing: ‘I feel like getting a drink with Michael Jackson would be crazy. He was an amazing performer, the things you could get into about his life and what he thinks.’ Baker interjects: ‘He’d speak in riddles, not sentences!’ Wyatt laughs: ‘He’d say something off the wall and I’d fall down a rabbit hole of insanity and just see where it goes!’ Baker can’t stop laughing: ‘In this scenario, could you stay over at the Neverland ranch?!’ Wyatt answers him, still laughing: ‘No comment!’

(Top photo from left to right: Cam, Boris and Stephen.)