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Down With Webster continue to Party
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February 3rd 2014
By Nicholas M. Pescod - Radio Nation
npescod@msn.com
Down With Webster keep the party going. The Toronto based band have just released their newest album, Party For Your Life, to Universal Music Canada.
For loyal Down With Webster (DWW) fans the album is a long time coming and the band’s first since 2011.
"We took our time with this one. We didn’t rush it out so only our favourite ones made the cut,” vocalist Cameron Hunter says about the new album. “So I think it’s pretty strong in that sense.”
DWW originally planned to release the record in the Fall of last year but were forced to push it back. Hunter explains that listeners can expect to hear better songs from Down With Webster.
“I think they can expect to hear better songs than we have ever written in the past,” Hunter says. “Also, it is very typical that our sound is pretty much all over the place. It is very rare that two songs sound similar. There is a really broad spectrum of stuff on this one.”
Down With Webster began in 1998 after Patrick “Pat” Gillet and Tyler Arms created a band for their middle school’s battle of the bands contest. In 2003, Down With Webster released their first EP and began growing as a band. It wasn’t until 2009 when they were eventually signed by Universal.
Hunter explains why the band’s early music was much more vulgar than their current work.
“When we first started doing this we were young to mid teenagers … so I’d say a lot of stuff was a lot more vulgar back then and more raw because we had no one. We weren’t making music thinking that people were going to listen to it. We were making music thinking that we were going to play it back and giggle about it,” Hunter says. “I think that has changed a little. It is in the back of our minds a little bit now that people are actually going to hear this stuff. I think we approach it a little differently.”
Along with Gillet, Armes and Hunter, Down With Webster includes Dave “Diggy” Ferris, Andrew “Marty” Martino and Martin “Bucky” Seja. The majority of the members write music for the band, which according to Hunter makes the writing process much harder.
“Oh it makes it way harder,” Hunter says. “Well harder and easier in different senses. It’s easier in the fact that you’re never short of material, which is nice. It makes it hard in terms of deciding which ones you want to do and which ones you don’t want to do.”
Hunter noted that even though Down With Webster has matured in recent years, they don't plan on change.
“I wish that we could say that we thought about that kind of stuff or planned it out that much but I would say what we’ve always done is just a product of the fact that we have a lot of writers in the band. Everyone is writing fairly consistently and like anything that you do overtime it changes and your tastes change,” Hunter says. “You never want to do the same thing twice but it isn’t necessarily that planned. We don’t sit in a room and say ‘we need to change our sound.’ It either happens or it doesn’t.”
For Hunter, a native of New York State, some of his favourite memories as a member of Down With Webster include a performance at Webster Hall in New York City along with some notable Canadian performances.
“There are a ton, having only significantly been on the music scene now for four years," Hunter says. "Looking back at the last four years, we got to open performances for the Juno’s in hometown in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre. That was huge. We got to play the Much Music Video Awards show three times now and I grew up watching that show. That was insane.”
Down With Webster are looking towards the future, although Hunter isn’t entirely sure what that might encompass.
“Again in true Down With Webster fashion, we are not great strategists. We don’t do a ton of planning,” he says. “The way I look at it is if you try to think too far ahead, especially in this business, you end up stressing yourself out and none of the stuff that you expect happen, happens … I just try to focus right on what’s front of me.”
More information on
Down With Webster visit www.downwithwebster.com
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